Anthropology & Social Change is pleased to invite you to:
*"We Are Not Machines!" Foxconn Workers Struggle in China*
California Institute of Integral Studies
May 17, 2013 at 3:00 pm – 5:00 pm
1453 Mission St San Francisco, CA 94103
Room 304
As the world's largest contract manufacturer,
Foxconn employs more than one million people in China
alone. Foxconn workers are the iSlaves who face
horrendous conditions while producing communication tools
like iPhones and iPads for Apple. In 2012, a series of
worker suicides shook the Chinese Foxconn factories and
drew world-wide attention. Management promised to improve
conditions and increase wages, but the situation has not
changed much since: Foxconn accelerated the relocation of
factories to the Chinese hinterland, employs student
interns as "cheap" labor, covers up work accidents, and
still relies on its militaristic management regime.
However, Foxconn workers are far from being passive
victims. They have used everyday forms of resistance
against the rhythm of the assembly line and have been
able to stage strikes in various Foxconn factories around
China.
their research and activity around the struggles of
Chinese migrant workers and will use words, photos, and
films to present the situation at Foxconn. The
discussion will focus on ways to support the iSlaves of
Foxconn and relate their struggles to our own.
**
September 2008 as a project for the research and
documentation of labor unrest and social movements in
China from the perspective of class struggle, migration,
and gender. The website offers a selection of analytical
texts and workers' stories in English and German. Among
Unrest in China (2007), supplement to the wildcat-
magazine; Dagongmei- Women Workers from China's
World-Market Factories tell their Stories (2008), edited
by Pun Ngai and Li Wanwei; The Take-off of the 2nd
Generation- Gender, Migration, and Class Composition in
China (2010), edited by Pun Ngai, Ching Kwan Lee et al,;
and iSlaves - Exploitation and Resistance at China's
Foxconn-Factories (2013), edited by Pun Ngai et al. (all
published in German, with some parts translated into
English). Besides writing and translating articles and
in inquiries and interview projects in China and sets up
talks and discussions on Workers' Struggles in China in
Eastern as well as Western Europe and beyond.
For more information and background readings, check
* BAY AREA TOUR DATES & LOCATIONS*
• California Institute of Integral Studies
May 17, 2013 at 7:00 pm – 9:00 pm
1453 Mission St San Francisco, CA 94103
• Bay Area Public School
May 18, 2013 at 8:00 pm – 10:00 pm
2141 Broadway, 2nd Floor, Oakland CA 94612
*THANKS TO:*
IWW International Solidarity Commission, Silvia Federici
& George Caffentzis, Manny Ness, Bluestockings, The
Brecht Forum, 16 Beaver, The Wooden
Shoe, 2640, Georgetown Solidarity Committee, Teaching
Assistants Association at UW-Madison, Center for the
Study of Upper Midwestern Cultures at UW- Madison, Food
Chain Workers Alliance, UCLA Downtown Labor Center, The
Wildcat, Powell’s Bookstore
(Chicago), Trumbullplex, California Institute of Integral
Studies, Bay Area Public School, the New York,
Philadelphia, Baltimore, DC, Detroit, Chicago, Madison,
Seattle, Bay Area, and Los Angeles branches of the
Industrial Workers of the World, and many more.