Starnes, who is a co-owner of Florida-based Specialty Medical Supplies, had laid off part of the factory’s workforce and transferred their jobs to India, where he can pay workers lower wages, according to Bloomberg News. Some staffers had gotten severance pay, and the remaining workers started demanding severance too.
American Chip Starnes, co-owner of Specialty Medical Supplies, spoke to the media Tuesday from a window at a factory on the outskirts of Beijing.
American businessman Chip Starnes finally left his factory in China on Thursday after he and a union negotiator worked out severance payments for Chinese employees.
Starnes had been stuck inside his medical supply parts factory since last Friday. That’s when workers, fearing they were all going to be laid off and that the company wasn’t going to compensate them fairly, blocked all of the exits out of the plant. Starnes couldn’t get out.
He told Nightly Business Report that the first few days of confinement were challenging, but the pressure was mostly psychological. “First couple of days were very, very tough. Nothing physical, more mental type stuff going on. Standing around you, anywhere you walk, 14, 16, 18 people following you.”
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