Foxconn offers staff $1,400 to leave after iPhone city violence

Bloomberg

Foxconn Technology Group has begun offering 10,000 yuan ($1,400) to any workers who choose to leave, an unusual decision intended to appease disgruntled new hires who played a central role in violent protests that rocked the world’s largest iPhone factory.
Apple Inc.’s main global production partner said in an online notice the sum, to be paid out in two installments, will help smooth the journey home for employees. Many of the 200,000-plus workers at Foxconn’s main plant in Zhengzhou hail from elsewhere in the province or country. But the intent was also to usher out recent employees that the local government helped recruit, many of whom fuelled tensions among the ranks. The company will replace departing staff, though it may take time.
The payout, which in general exceeds a month’s wages for Foxconn’s blue-collar staff, is likely to placate some employees who staged a rare violent protest that trained a spotlight on the economic and social toll of Xi Jinping’s Covid Zero strategy. Hundreds of workers clashed with security personnel in the early hours as tensions boiled over after almost a month under tough restrictions intended to quash a Covid outbreak.
One factor behind the unrest is that workers found out they wouldn’t receive higher wages they had been promised unless they stayed at the factory through March. The 10,000 yuan payment would compensate people unhappy with that restriction for their travel back home.