For Li Hua, who since June has worked at a COVID-19 testing booth in Shanghai, the abrupt end of "zero-COVID" has been a struggle.
The company she worked for, which ran a network of booths where thousands of people would line up for near-daily testing back when China had zero tolerance for virus spread, decided last month that most employees would be fired on Jan. 8 — the day the country’s downgrade of COVID-19 management took effect. Even worse, she and her colleagues have not been paid since November, she said. The workers are now refusing to leave their dormitory, but the company says it has no money as the government hasn’t paid their invoices.
"We are so helpless now,” said 50-year-old Li, who plans to go to the local labor arbitration commission next week if the issue hasn’t been resolved. "It’s such a messy situation, the government just has no credibility at all.”
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