Monday, May 09, 2022

Video shows workers at an Apple and Tesla

plant in Shanghai clashing with security 

guards over fears of an onsite COVID 

lockdown

Workers at an Apple supplier in Shanghai are operating under a "closed loop" system where they work, live, eat, and sleep onsite. Here, employees are going through a row call at an unrelated factory which manufactures for Apple in Shanghai, on Friday, April 15, 2016.
Workers at an Apple supplier in Shanghai are operating under a "closed loop" system where they work, live, eat, and sleep onsite.Qilai Shen/In Pictures via Getty Images Images
  • Videos show workers at an Apple and Tesla plant in Shanghai clashing with quarantine officials.

  • The workers were said to be frustrated with onsite COVID-19 measures.

  • The clash underscores the frailty of Shanghai's plans to reopen its factories amid strict lockdowns.

More than a hundred workers at a major Apple and Tesla production plant in Shanghai clashed with quarantine officials and security guards in a stunning altercation on Thursday, videos on Twitter and YouTube show.

Workers at Quanta Shanghai Manufacturing City were filmed jumping over turnstiles, as officials in white protective gear tried to prevent them from breaching the building.

Some workers exchanged physical blows with the guards. At one point, a female worker appeared to smack someone in protective gear so that a male worker, who was locked in a struggle with the person in protective gear, could get away.

The skirmish happened when officials prevented workers from heading back to their dormitories after completing their shifts, Bloomberg and Reuters reported. Anonymous interviewees said the workers were frustrated with onsite Covid restrictions, per Bloomberg.

Some said that they were concerned about getting infected by workers who returned from quarantine centers, according to told Taiwanese news outlets USTV and UDN. They also feared that a spread of the virus on the factory floor would result in the campus going into a strict lockdown again, per the Taiwanese news reports.

Quanta, Apple, and Tesla did not immediately respond to Insider's request for comments.

The altercation underscores the fragility of Shanghai's attempts to get its factories up and running, even as large swathes of the 25-million-strong city have remained under strict lockdown for more than a month.

In an attempt to minimize the lockdown's impact on Shanghai's economy, authorities have allowed some factories, including Tesla's gigafactory, to continue operating under a "closed loop" system where workers work, live, eat, and sleep onsite and at nearby dormitories.

Taiwanese-owned Quanta produces three-quarters of Apple's MacBooks globally and assembles computer circuit boards for Tesla's cars. The Shanghai factory accounts for about 20% of Quanta's output for Apple, USTV reported. It also produces computer circuit boards for Tesla.

On April 13, Quanta temporarily suspended operations in Shanghai to comply with local COVID-19 prevention measures. That prompted TF International Securities analyst Ming-Chi Kuo to say that delivery of MacBook Pros would be delayed by three to five weeks.

The factory gradually resumed operations starting April 18, with about 2,000 of its 40,000-person workforce returning to the plant, China's state media Xinhua reported.

While news of the clash at Quanta's Shanghai factory spread on Twitter and YouTube, and was widely reported by Taiwanese media outlets, there was barely any mention of it on Chinese social media platforms and in Chinese media.

According to the Shanghai Municipal Health Commission, the city reported 3,625 asymptomatic Covid cases, 322 symptomatic cases, and 11 deaths on Sunday. Some of these patients worked at factories operating under a closed-loop system

What Pushed Apple Factory Workers to Riot?


Workers at a Shanghai technology factory crashed through barriers erected to keep them from leaving the plant and struggled with guards trying to keep them inside.


KIRK O’NEIL
MAY 7, 2022

A resurgence of a Covid-19 outbreak in China in March led to a lockdown in the nation's largest city Shanghai, disrupting work at technology and electric vehicle plants and other industries' factories, causing major supply chain, logistics and production issues.

Tesla on March 28 shut its Shanghai Gigafactory, but was allowed to reopen its plant on April 19. Volkswagen shut its Shanghai-area factory on April 1, but General Motors decided not to shut its plant and instead was allowed to remain open under so-called "closed loop" operations.

Closed-loop measures require employees to live, work and sleep at the plant while it continues to operate, but they are not allowed to leave the plant to ensure they do not transmit the Covid- 19 virus to the community outside of the factory or bring it into the plant from outside during the lockdown.


Closed-Loop Measures Keep Plant Open

Taiwan-based Quanta Computer, which assembles MacBooks and other products for Apple in Shanghai, adopted the closed-loop system in April for its employees to enable the company to remain open during the region's lockdown.

The Covid-19 lockdown in China, which began in March, finally reached a boiling point with frustrated technology workers at Quanta's Shanghai factory, Bloomberg reported on May 6. One worker said that employees were worried about further tightening of measures as a result of positive Covid cases inside the factory's campus, according to the report.

Quanta did not comment on the riot, Bloomberg said, but an employee at the factory said that the Chinese government was taking a central role in managing the factory's operations. On the evening of May 5, Quanta workers battled with factory guards and crashed through isolation barriers after being locked down at the factory for many weeks.

Tensions at the factory in the Songjiang district of Shanghai sparked the conflict after workers tried to return to dormitories after their shifts, according to Taiwan media outlet UDN, Bloomberg reported. Over 100 employees jumped over a barrier and ran past guards, ignoring their warnings. Employees had become tired and frustrated by the controlled environment at the plant, a worker said.

The factory resumed normal operations by the morning of May 6, the report said.

Shanghai's lockdowns have led to protests and complaints that culminated in the uprising at the Quanta plant. The implementation of closed-loop measures had also resulted in more than 70% of Shanghai's industrial manufacturing facilities restarting production. Officials said that 90% of 660 key industrial companies have resumed output, according to Bloomberg.

Quanta generates more than 50% of its revenue through its partnership with Apple, the report said. The company also does business with Hewlett Packard Inc. (HPQ) - Get HP Inc. Report, Dell Technologies (DELL) - Get Dell Technologies Inc Class C Report, and Microsoft (MSFT) - Get Microsoft Corporation Report.
Other Apple Factories Shut Down

Foxconn Technology Group on March 14 shut down its factories in Shenzhen in southern China near Hong Kong after city officials implemented a Covid-19 lockdown. Foxconn also on April 15 announced a Covid-19 lockdown in the Zhengzhou Airport Economy Zone where Apple's largest iPhone factory is located. The lockdown has led the company to require its employees to have mandatory Covid testing.

The China Covid-19 lockdowns could result in a loss in production of 6 million to 10 million iPhone units analysts said, according to 9to5Mac. Other Apple products affected by the lockdowns include MacBook Pro and iPad Air.

Chaos at Apple supplier Quanta shows strains of Shanghai COVID lockdown

SHANGHAI (Reuters) - Quanta Shanghai Manufacturing City would seem like an ideal site to implement China's "closed-loop" management system to prevent the spread of COVID that requires staff to live and work on-site in a secure bubble.

Sprawled over land the size of 20 football fields, the campus houses factories, living quarters for 40,000 workers, some living 12 per room, and even a supermarket.

But as COVID-19 breeched Quanta's defences, the system broke down into chaos on Thursday.

Videos posted online showed more than a hundred Quanta workers physically overwhelming security guards in hazmat suits and vaulting over factory gates to escape being trapped inside the factory amid rumours that workers on the floor that day tested positive for COVID.

The turmoil at Quanta underscores the struggles Shanghai faces to get its factories, many of them key links in global supply chains, back up to speed even as much of the city of 25 million remains locked down under China's "dynamic-zero" COVID policy.

Taiwan-based Quanta puts together about three-quarters of Apple's global MacBook production and also manufactures computer circuit boards for Tesla.

Quanta did not respond to a request for comment on the videos, which appeared on Chinese social media platforms before being taken down. Apple declined to comment and Tesla did not respond to a request for comment.

Quanta set up its closed-loop to restart work at the factory on April 18 with about 5% of its workforce, or 2,000 employees, with plans to triple that by April 22. Chinese state media touted the restart as an example of how Shanghai was keeping business open in the country's biggest economic hub, while adhering to stringent COVID measures.

DAILY CASES

But cases have been reported daily at an address belonging to the campus from March 26 to May 4, according to Shanghai government data. Quanta has not disclosed the number of cases among its workers.

Calls seeking help to bring attention to positive cases which were not being isolated at Quanta began appearing on Weibo from April 6, five days after Shanghai implemented a city-wide lockdown.

More appeared throughout the month and employees began posting photos and accounts on Douyin, the Chinese equivalent of TikTok, that showed dozens of workers queuing for buses to be taken to central quarantine facilities.

They also took videos of themselves resting in Shanghai's National Exhibition and Convention Center, one of the city's largest quarantine centres, as well as at a facility purpose-built to house Quanta workers.

Reuters was not able to independently verify the footage, but two employees and a person with direct knowledge of the campus's operations said there were multiple infections there.

"Each dormitory reported a few positive cases a day, and eventually everyone became positive," said one of the two workers, who gave his surname as Li, adding that there were eight cases in his room, including him.

Employees said that cases were often not isolated for days after testing positive and the person with direct knowledge of the campus's operations said there were not enough isolation spaces, resulting in continued infections.

That was a trigger for Thursday night's chaos, employees said, as rumours spread that positive cases had been found among those working in the factories.

The workers were spooked by an order telling them not to return to their dormitories, raising fears that they could be locked down inside the plant.

While the videos of the fray were taken down by this weekend, discussion continued on Weibo and Douyin, with one user simply saying, "What a mess".

(Reporting by Brenda Goh and Zhang Yan; Additional reporting by Sarah Wu in Taipei; Editing by Christian Schmollinger)

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