Author Archives: Jenny Chan

Hunger for profit: how food delivery platforms manage couriers in China

Jenny Chan. 2021.,  Sociologias 23(57): 58-82. Abstract How do food delivery platform firms, such as Meituan (operated by Tencent) andEle.me (owned by Alibaba), manage couriers through service contracting rather thanformal employment? How do couriers experience control and autonomy at work?Using observation and interviews, the author finds that a combination of data-drivensurveillance systems and customer feedback mechanismsContinue reading “Hunger for profit: how food delivery platforms manage couriers in China”

State–labor relations and the emergence of grassroots workers’ organizations in China

By Jenny Chan, The Hong Kong Polytechnic University and The International Sociological Association’s Research Committee on Labour Movements This article is an excerpt from Jenny Chan’s chapter “Worker Organizing in China: Challenges and Opportunities”, in Robert Ovetz (editor), Workers’ Inquiry and Global Class Struggle: Strategies, Tactics, Objectives , Pluto Press, 2021 June 20, 2021 — Links International Journal ofContinue reading “State–labor relations and the emergence of grassroots workers’ organizations in China”

“Dying for an iPhone: Labor Exploitation, Migration and Strikes in China” [Morir por un iPhone: explotación laboral, migraciones y huelgas en China],

Dr Jenny Chan interviewed by Josefina L. Martínez for Izquierda Diario.es, 13 September 2020. The rise of the iPhone as a global commodity is inseparable from the story about Steve Jobs as a greatentrepreneur who transformed a small garage company… Link in Spanish: http://www.izquierdadiario.es/Morir-por-un-iPhone-explotacion-laboral-migraciones-yhuelgas-en-China Link in English: http://www.izquierdadiario.es/Morir-por-un-iPhone-explotacion-laboral-migraciones-y-huelgasen-China

“Raising the Bar for Taiwan’s Supply Chains,”

12 May 2021 By Steven Crook Taiwan Business TOPICS (The American Chamber of Commerce in Taiwan) “Apple has had one eye open and one eye closed,” says Jenny Chan, an assistant professor of sociology at Hong Kong Polytechnic University. “Also, Apple is not alone in causing such problems. We seek to open the big black boxContinue reading ““Raising the Bar for Taiwan’s Supply Chains,””

Buy with 1-Click: Independent Contractors in China’s Last-Mile Delivery

Jenny Chan The Hong Kong Polytechnic University 1 June 2021 webinar  China’s e-commerce boom is fueled not only by Alibaba, JD, and Amazon but also by 4 million parcel express delivery workers. To make their deliveries in the shortest possible time, rather than navigating online, they devise their own routes and build social relations to facilitateContinue reading “Buy with 1-Click: Independent Contractors in China’s Last-Mile Delivery”

Dan V. Hirslund, The Copenhagen Journal of Asian Studies

‘Dying for an iPhone is an important book.…why iPhones continue to kill despite the advances made in ‘fair trade’ and other solidarity movements… Workers and disenfranchised populations all over the globe are feeling the brunt of capitalism’s advances in the past decades. But what sort(s) of movement(s) would it take to confront the unequal accumulation ofContinue reading “Dan V. Hirslund, The Copenhagen Journal of Asian Studies”