SHANGHAI, CHINA – According to a report from Infowars, hundreds of Chinese employees at Apple’s MacBook factory in Shanghai confronted and fought with authorities in defiance of worksite lockdowns meant to increase production.
The incident reportedly occurred on May 6th after Apple employees had reached their boiling point over the imposition of a “closed-loop production,” which basically kept employees quarantined on-site to keep them working.
Radio Free Asia (RFA) China released video footage of the confrontation on Twitter, captioning the post with the context of what led up to the incident.
“[Suspected of dissatisfaction with ‘closed-loop production’ epidemic prevention is too strict] [Quanta’s Shanghai plant was shocked to hear that employees ‘rioted’] Shanghai Dafeng Electronics, a subsidiary of Shanghai Quanta, which has just partially resumed work, experienced an employee “riot” on the evening of Thursday (5th).
“As seen in the video, hundreds of young employees did not obey the command, jumped over the gate and ran away, and rushed out of the blockade to clash with the guards. It is reported that employees are dissatisfied with the epidemic prevention and control and want to go out to buy civilian materials.”
According to Taiwan-based news outlet UDN, things took a turn for the riotous at the Apple MacBook factory after authorities “prevented employees who had returned to work from returning to the dormitory area during off-duty hours, causing employees to panic and worry about returning to a strict state of isolation and control. Therefore, the group rushed into the dormitory area to cause riots, mainly because of dissatisfaction with the strict epidemic control.”
Reportedly, this Apple factory had been engaged in closed-loop production for roughly the past month – which was justified by authorities for both increase in production purposes and concerns about employees getting infected with COVID.
However, the dissatisfaction that led up to the clash at the factory was reportedly resolved by the morning of May 7th, and operations at the Apple MacBook factory have returned to standard procedures.
Shanghai has been engaged in a controversial “zero-COVID strategy” that has seen roughly 25 million people subjected to strict lockdowns for over a month’s time. Closed-loop production is a large part of that zero-COVID strategy, where workers basically reside at work. Those workers swallowed into the closed-loop production aren’t allowed to have any contact with people outside of the production loop – including their own family members.
Considering the controversial nature of the matter in conjunction with the supplies needed to sustain such a system, Bloomberg questioned, “[How] long [can] the closed loops can be sustained, given the resources required to feed and house thousands of workers at a time?”
The bigger question in all this is how long will Chinese citizens allow themselves to be subjected to this sort of treatment? Because it seems as though tensions are reaching their peak, as evidenced by the display that transpired at the Shanghai factory.
This piece was written by Gregory Hoyt on May 7, 2022. It originally appeared in RedVoiceMedia.com and is used by permission.
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