The laid-off Chinese workers of the COVID-19 antigen factory were seen in a protest that engaged police in fisticuffs.

Chinese COVID-19 Antigen Kit Factory's Laid-Off Workers Protest

In Beijing, numerous workers at an antigen kit factory clashed with police in a video posted on social media last Sunday. The protests come as Xi Jinping eased the hardline pandemic policy, reported The Straits Times.

AFP footage from an industrial park in the southwestern municipality of Chongqing shows a swarm of people hurling crates at a group of uniformed men, sending a shower of what appear to be test kits inside the boxes. One more scene shows a mass of people standing in front of a line of officers at night as megaphones play an alert demanding that they completely stop illegal practices, noted Deccan Herald.

Many workers had never been paid, based on a caption of an uploaded video from the scene. Other posts disclose the Chongqing-based pharmaceutical company Zybio had just fired workers that were hired in recent weeks. But the COVID-19 kit firm had kept mum, and the local Chongqing cops had not given a justification for the incident.

A man in a video, who claims to be a Marxist-Leninist-Maoist, explained that the workers are asking about their pay and said there is nothing political about the protests, only concern for their jobs.

The outlet was unable to confirm when the images were obtained, but several users stated that the confrontation occurred on Saturday night into Sunday morning, citing VOA News.

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Police Clash with Fired Unpaid Workers

The footage shows strikingly patterned brown-and-white industrial buildings in the surroundings, complementing the preceding images of Zybio's plant in the Dadukou District Jianqiao Industrial Park.

The headline "Chongqing Dadukou Pharmaceutical Factory" emerged to be edited on the popular Weibo social media platform last Sunday, with just one post from the preceding day explaining the mass demonstrations as an "interesting subject" nevertheless observable.

One TikTok clip uploaded by a state-owned media organization showed what appeared to be a road strewn with pathogen tests in a Chongqing industrial park. The headline cites a labor dispute, but the footage was removed within hours.

COVID- 19 illnesses have shot up across China as the government forsakes its zero-tolerance strategy for viral infection, which results in a spike in demand for testing products and drugs. Officials last month ended up taking over production lines at more than a dozen pharma companies, although some companies decided to bring on new employees to satisfy surging demand. Despite government attempts to quell dissent, demonstrations focused on wages and targeting businesses seem common in China.

The year before, similar scenarios started playing out at Foxconn's production plant in central China, in which outraged workers came into conflict with authorities over a COVID-19 clampdown and pay dispute.

In November, China's strict COVID-19 limits triggered a portion of the nation's harshest turmoil in years, with thousands demonstrating on the streets from across the country to resist curfews and required testing.

Many laid-off Chinese workers at a COVID-19 antigen factory were caught on tape as they engaged the police over the situation.

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