Videos have emerged of police officers in protective hazmat suits and armed with riot gear kicking and hitting staff at the Foxconn plant in Zhengzhou.

The disturbance is the latest development in a history of worker unrest at Foxconn, the biggest contract assembler of smartphones and other electronics in China. Foxconn has been struggling to fill orders for the iPhone 14 after thousands of employees walked away from the factory in the central city of Zhengzhou last month after complaints about unsafe working conditions. The region now faces a lockdown following a new COVID-19 outbreak confining millions of people to their homes.

It is estimated that approximately 60% of all iPhones are produced at the Zhengzhou plant, which employs more than 200,000 workers.

The latest protests started on Tuesday after jobseekers had travelled long distances to take jobs at the factory but found that that the company changed the terms of their pay.

In an attempt to quell the unrest, Foxconn has reportedly offered payouts of RMB 10,000 (USD1,400) to newly recruited staff who elect to leave the iPhone factory and vowed to honour pay agreements. The payout is intended to cover money owed to new workers for COVID-19 quarantining, transport to the factory and hours worked, was formally issued in notices to workers.

A Foxconn spokesperson said “Our team has been looking into the matter and discovered a technical error occurred during the onboarding process,” Foxconn said in a statement. “We apologize for an input error in the computer system and guarantee that the actual pay is the same as agreed [on] the official recruitment posters.”

Meanwhile, a statement from Apple said “We are reviewing the situation and working closely with Foxconn to ensure their employees’ concerns are addressed”.