Foxconn has a huge contract with Apple to produce and assemble the majority of iPhones. The largest iPhone assembly factory in the world is in Zhengzhou, China. It is here at a Foxconn factory that workers are forced to work and live, and they aren’t permitted to leave to go to town or to see their families.
In early October, rising COVID cases in Zhengzhou created strict lockdowns. Workers at the Foxconn factory were forced to quarantine under complete lockdown, prompting some workers to bust out like in a jail break.
Workers making iPhones are forced to live, sleep, and work side-by-side with other workers who have contracted the COVID virus. The workers also aren’t being paid what they were promised. To make matters worse, they are rarely being provided food. Food shortages have left the city in short supply and workers hungry. They aren’t even allowed to go into the city for necessities like food because they are under strict orders to quarantine. They are only permitted to work in the factory or to go to their dormitories.
Hunger and worker abuses have caused desperate people to flee the abysmal conditions of their prison-like existence at Foxconn. While some have escaped, other workers have taken to the streets to ask for better treatment from their employer.
Civil unrest has hit the streets of Zhengzhou and riot police have been dispatched to submit the unfed workers. The hungry desperate workers asking for better treatment are beaten bloody in the streets and gassed.
Videos and live streams of the protests show hundreds of workers in the streets. They are seen swarmed by people in hazmat suits and riot police, beating and spraying the workers with tear gas.
Foxconn has denied all allegations of abuse, while Apple enjoys little backlash, criticism, or boycotts. Yet, the disruption at the largest iPhone factory in the world has caused setbacks for production that will hurt their profits.
70% of all iPhones are manufactured by Foxconn, the majority of which are produced in Zhengzhou. iPhone has announced their latest version of the phone will be in short supply at stores. Some analysts expect the company to lose about a billion a week in lost profits this holiday season compared to business last year at the same time.
Apple pays around $5 per iPhone for labor. Their latest phone model costs between $799.00 and $1,499.00 depending on the configuration. This phone costs the company only $110.00 to manufacture.
Workers earn meager wages toiling over assembling iPhones. New workers at Foxconn are offered a salary of 30 yuan ($4.19) per hour. The average worker there makes between 3,000 and 4,000 yuan a month (between $418.54 and $558.05. Even if a worker spent their whole monthly salary at an Apple store, it would still not be enough money to afford to buy a single iPhone.
Cropped and color adjusted from Photo by Annette Bernhardt is licensed under CC BY-SA 2.0