Dying for an iPhone

About this book

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.

Themes & subjects

About the author

Jenny Chan

Jenny Chan (Ph.D. 2014) is an Assistant Professor of Sociology and China Studies in the Department of Applied Social Sciences at the Hong Kong Polytechnic University. She is also a Member of the Sub-committee on “Community, Organization and Globalisation” Subjects, and a Management Committee Member of China and Global Development Network. She serves as the Vice President of the International Sociological Association’s Research Committee on Labor Movements (2018-2023). Her first book is Dying for an iPhone: Apple, Foxconn and the Lives of China’s Workers (co-authored with Mark Selden and Pun Ngai). She co-edited a 2019 special issue of Critical Sociology entitled, “Precarization and Labor Res…