“I can probably go back to work in a week,” says another woman. “I have more or less enough food with me, but they take good care of us,” she laughs. Volunteers from the neighborhood committee walk behind the demarcated gates with lunch packages. Normally workers share their dormitory, which sometimes has four, sometimes eight beds. Not now. Anyone who passes through the strict health checks has the dormitory for themselves.
Of the approximately 200,000 workers Foxconn has at work here on its heyday, few have returned. Apart from the line at the main entrance, the usually lively district is extinct. Almost all shops and restaurants around the campus are closed.
The small supermarket of Lao Wang, old Wang, is not that. As one of the few here, he had not traveled to his hometown to celebrate New Year. “Everything is closed,” he says. “Normally it will be full again immediately after the Chinese New Year. Now there may be around 4000 people returned.”
Top priority
Estimates of returned workers range from a few thousand to about 20 to 30 percent of the total labor legion. When asked, iPhone maker Foxconn does not want to say anything about it, other than that the well-being of its employees has top priority.
The workers come by train, although the company also uses buses to be able to man the conveyor belts again as quickly as possible. Those who return on time may, according to the Caixin financial and economic website, receive a bonus of 3000 renminbi, almost 400 euros. For many a monthly salary.
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