How Foxconn Treats the Workers Who Built Your iPhone w/ Jenny Chan

Tech Won't Save Us

Paris Marx

Silicon Valley, Books, Technology, Arts, Future, Tech Criticism, Socialism, Paris Marx, News, Criticism, Tech News, Politics

4.8 • 626 Ratings

🗓️ 17 September 2020

⏱️ 50 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

🧾️ Download transcript

Summary

Paris Marx is joined by Jenny Chan to discuss the difficult lives of Foxconn factory workers, the company’s relationship with Apple, the structural roadblocks to better working conditions, and how Chinese workers are trying to push back. Jenny Chan is the co-author of “Dying for an iPhone: Apple, Foxconn, and The Lives of China’s Workers” with Mark Selden and Pun Ngai. It’s available from Haymarket Books and Pluto Press. She is also an Assistant Professor of Sociology at the Hong Kong Polyte...

Transcript

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0:00.0	The most basic level is we do support workers to fight for a more decent life and to make the global supply chain more sustainable.
0:33.5	Hello and welcome to Tech Won't Save Us, a podcast that doesn't think we should be so focused on consumer narratives and should actually look deeper into the tech products that we use in our everyday lives.
0:37.0	I'm your host, Paris Marx, and today I'm joined by Jenny Chan.
0:40.9	Jenny is a labor rights activist, author, and public sociologist.
0:46.2	She's the co-author of Dying for an iPhone, Apple, Foxcon, and the lives of China's workers.
0:49.2	Her co-authors are Mark Selden and Punai.
0:54.2	She's also an assistant professor of sociology at the Hong Kong Polytechnic University.
0:58.6	We're now moving into fall, which is when Apple announces a bunch of its new products.
1:03.9	In September, there will be new iPads and Apple watches. In October, it looks like there will be new iPhones. And the tech media and mainstream media will be focusing a lot on all of the new
1:09.7	features in these products, how nice
1:11.7	they look, how great they are to use, whether or not people should buy them, but there won't be
1:16.8	very much focus on the workers who actually produce these products in the Foxcon factories
1:22.1	in China. And so part of the goal of this podcast is to get a closer look at what the lives of these workers
1:28.4	are like, how they're treated by Foxcon and by extension Apple, and why we need to stand in solidarity
1:33.6	with these workers to improve their conditions and ensure that they're not being mistreated
1:38.3	so that we can have nice, shiny new tech products. I just want to give you one statistic that really kind of puts in perspective
1:46.2	how little these workers who build the iPhones and all of these tech products are paid
1:52.5	compared to what we actually pay for them. So one of the statistics included in Jenny's book
1:58.2	is that when you consider the retail cost of the iPhone 4 in 2010,
2:03.2	Chinese labor made up just 1.8% of the total cost of that, which is a really paltry figure
2:09.8	when you consider that Apple's profit margins on these products are absolutely massive.
2:15.0	And then by the time the iPhone 7 came out in 2016, the percentage of the retail
	...

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