Dying for an iPhone
Suicides, excessive overtime, hostility and violence on the factory floor in China. Drawing on vivid testimonies from rural migrant workers, student interns, managers and trade union staff, Dying for an iPhone is a devastating expose of two of the world's most powerful companies: Foxconn and Apple.
As the leading manufacturer of iPhones, iPads and Kindles, and employing one million workers in China alone, Taiwanese-invested Foxconn's drive to dominate global electronics manufacturing has aligned perfectly with China's goal of becoming the world leader in technology. This book reveals the human cost of that ambition and what our demands for the newest and best technology mean for workers.
Foxconn workers have repeatedly demonstrated their power to strike at key nodes of transnational production, challenge management and the Chinese state, and confront global tech behemoths. Dying for an iPhone allows us to assess the impact of global capitalism's deepening crisis on workers.
Jenny Chan is Assistant Professor of Sociology at The Hong Kong Polytechnic University. She is also the Vice President of the International Sociological Association's Research Committee on Labour Movements. Her recent articles have been published widely in Current Sociology, Modern China, Rural China, and many other journals and edited volumes.
Mark Selden is Senior Research Associate in the East Asia Program at Cornell University. He is editor of the online Asia-Pacific Journal. His books include China in Revolution: The Yenan Way Revisited, The Political Economy of Chinese Development and The Cambridge History of Communism.
Pun Ngai is Professor of Sociology at The University of Hong Kong. She is author of Made in China: Women Factory Workers in a Global Workplace and Migrant Labor in China.