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Dying for an iPhone: Apple, Foxconn, and The Lives of China's Workers

Suicides, excessive overtime, and 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 means 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.

Join Jenny Chan, Mark Selden and Kevin Lin as they take a harrowing look into lives and struggles of a new generation of Chinese workers confronting the Apple-Foxconn empire and the Chinese state.

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Speakers:

Jenny Chan is an Assistant Professor of Sociology at The Hong Kong Polytechnic University and is affiliated with the China Research and Development Network. She is the coauthor, with Mark Selden and Pun Ngai, of Dying for an iPhone: Apple, Foxconn, and the Lives of China’s Workers (2020). She also serves as a vice president of the International Sociological Association’s Research Committee on Labour Movements (2018-2022).

Kevin Lin writes about China's labor movement.

Mark Selden is a Senior Research Associate in the East Asia Program at Cornell and Editor of The Asia-Pacific Journal apjjf/org. He is a coauthor of Dying for an iPhone: Apple, Foxconn and the Lives of Chinese Workers.

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