Can China’s drive to protect gig economy workers work by pressing Big Tech to give more?
By Masha Borak, The South China Morning
14 Sep 2021
The focus on labour rights is part of the Chinese government’s push to create a fairer society and narrow the income gap under President Xi Jinping
Link to the full content:
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Alibaba vows to give Rmb100bn towards China’s ‘common prosperity’
2 Sep 2021
Edward White, The Financial Times
Link to the full content: https://www.ft.com/content/a6ed43ee-f08a-48ef-934e-99d73dcc5807
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China steps in to regulate brutal ‘996’ work culture
2 Sep 2021
By Waiyee Yip
BBC News
Link to Content: https://www.bbc.com/news/world-asia-china-58381538
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“Comment le capitalisme chinois exploite: rêves et défiance à Foxconn City”
[How Chinese Capitalism Exploits: Dreams and Defiance in Foxconn City]
25 June 2021, A l’Encontre
Link to the full content: https://alencontre.org/asie/chine/comment-le-capitalisme-chinois-exploite-reves-et-defiance-a-foxconn-city.html
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On Contact: Dying for an iPhone
Interviewer: Chris Hedges
Interviewee: Dr Jeny Chan
13 June 2021 (total run time: 28:51)
On the show this week, Chris Hedges talks to Professor Jenny Chan about the people in China who make iPhones, iPads and Kindles, driving the huge profits of two of the world’s most powerful companies – Foxconn, the world’s largest provider of electronics manufacturing services, and Apple with its $2 trillion market value.
Jenny Chan, along with Mark Selden and Pun Ngai, did extensive field research for almost a decade to produce their book, Dying for an iPhone: Apple, Foxconn, and The Lives of China’s Workers.
Link to the audio https://soundcloud.com/rttv/on-contact-dying-for-an-iphone
Dying for an iPhone: labor exploitation, migration and strikes in China
[Morir por un iPhone: explotación laboral, migraciones y huelgas en China]
13 Sep 2020 by Josefina L. Martínez for Izquierda Diario.es
The rise of the iPhone as a global commodity is inseparable from the story about Steve Jobs as a great
entrepreneur 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
“Reimaging Workers’ Education to Transform the World”
24-27 May, 2021 , UALE Conference
Professor Mark Selden presented Dying for an iPhone: Apple, Foxconn and the Lives of Chinese Workers on the United Association for Labor Education (UALE) Conference
Chris Hedges: “Dying for an iPhone”
31 MAY 2021 By Chris Hedges for ScheerPost
The suffering of the working class, within and outside the United States, is ignored by our corporatized media, and yet, it is one of the most important human rights issues of our era.
Link to full content : https://scheerpost.com/2021/05/31/chris-hedges-dying-for-an-iphone/
Counting the human cost of affordable electronics
2 June 2021 by Steven Crook / Contributing reporter for Taipei Times
Few companies have had their names dragged through the mud so comprehensively as Foxconn Technology Group (富士康科技集團), a conglomerate known as Hon Hai Precision Industry Co (鴻海精密) in Taiwan, which operates vast factories in China and other countries….
Link to full content: https://taipeitimes.com/News/feat/archives/2021/06/02/2003758451
Raising the Bar for Taiwan’s Supply Chains
BY STEVEN CROOK ON
“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 box of labor in global supply chains.”
Chan co-authored the 2020 book Dying for an iPhone: Apple, Foxconn and the Lives of China’s Workers, and is an advisor to Electronics Watch (EW), an NGO that asks public-sector buyers such as universities to use their leverage to hold brands accountable.
Link to content: https://topics.amcham.com.tw/2021/05/raising-the-bar-taiwan-supply-chains/
Dreams and Defiance in Foxconn City An Interview with Jenny Chan
By Mark Levinson
Dissent (Spring 2021) is out now!
Link to the website : https://www.dissentmagazine.org/article/another-lost-decade
“China is Trying to Make Policy Moves that Won’t Shake the World”
16 March 2021
Showtime for Xi as China’s annual Congress opens
4 March 2021 By DIANA FU (03/04/2021 08:29 AM EST)
“Il vero volto della Cina: la prefazione del nuovo volume di Wired”
English: “The true face of China: the preface of the new volume of Wired”
Dr Jenny Chan interviewed by Federico Bona for Wired, in “Il Robot Disoccupato” [The Robot Unemployed].
Number 94, Autumn (October – December) 2020.
Pp. 50-51 (Il vero volto della Cina / The true face of China)
Dr Jenny Chan featured on Faculti
1 Feb 2021
Total run time: 15:09
“Precariat Unite! The Gig Economy Challenges China’s State-Run Labour Unions.”
27 January
Dr Jenny Chan interviewed by Sue-Lin Wong for The Economist
“In China, Tech-Worker Deaths Spark Online Backlash“
17 January 2021
Interviewed by Sha Hua for The Wall Street Journal
CLICK HERE FOR THE COMPLETE INTERVIEW (English Version)
“中国科技公司一连串员工死亡事件引发网络声讨“
2021年1月17日
华沙, 华尔街日报
“Chinese Courier Sets Fire to Himself in Protest Over Unpaid Alibaba Wages
12 January 2021
Interviewed by Yuan Yang and Ryan McMorrow (with Nian Liu) for The Financial Times
“China’s Frustrated Millennials Turn to Memes to Rail against Grim Economic Prospects”
21 November 2020
Interviewed with Dr Jenny Chan by Ji Siqi for The South China Morning Post
“China’s Frustrated Millennials Turn to Memes to Rail against Grim Economic Prospects”
“Jenny Chan on Apple, Foxconn and the Lives of Chinese Workers,” 3 October 2020.
3 October 2020
Interviewed by Russell Mokhiber for Corporate Crime Reporter (Washington, D.C.)
Tech Wont’ Save Us, 2020
17 September 2020
“How Foxconn Treats the Workers Who Built Your iPhone w/ Jenny Chan,”
Interviewer: Paris Marx
Interviewee: Dr Jenny Chan (The Hong Kong Polytechnic University)
(total run time: 50 mins 22 secs)
‘El lado oscuro de los productos de Apple: el drama de los suicidios en China.’
2 August 2020
By Salvador Martínez Mas , NIUS
(English: The dark side of Apple products: the suicide drama in China)
“The lining highlights the perfection of Apple / But not our tomorrow / The scanner repeatedly announces ‘OK’ / But not the ‘Error’ of our hearts / 24 hours a day, blinding lights illuminate iPhones / Stirring our days and nights / Thousands of repeated movements do an impeccable job / Testing the limits of our aching, numb shoulders / Each screwdriver turns carefully / But it cannot turn our future around ” .
To Read the completed Interview >
‘Dying for an iPhone’: The human cost of Apple’s high-speed production demands
By RHODA KWAN 12:00, 29 AUGUST 2020
In 2010, 18 young workers at Foxconn factories in the southern Chinese city of Shenzhen tried to commit suicide by jumping off the roof, according to researchers. Fourteen died and three survived. The youngest jumper was aged 17.
The spate of suicides sparked a decade-long investigation by the team of researchers at the Hong Kong Polytechnic University. This led to a book, Dying for an iPhone, written by Jenny Chan, Mark Selden and Pun Ngai and published this summer.
Undercover investigations
Chan and her team went undercover at Foxconn factories, donning the company uniform and borrowing staff cards to assess conditions in venues such as workers’ canteens and dormitories, and some production workshops.
