Discuss how apple violates workers’ rights in the context of this powerful quote: “Apple is committed to ensuring the highest standards of social responsibility throughout our supply base.
*DO NOT USE ANY SOURCE THAN BOOK PLEASE*
* ONLY SUMMARIZE THE PAGES LISTEN, NO MORE*
Simple language so I don’t have to edit too much
Minimum of 300 words
At least 2 quotes in this form (quote, 224)
Professors directions: This week, we will start reading our last ethnographic monograph–Dying for an iPhone: pp 1-68. This book was newly published and exposed two giant corporations making massive amounts of profits at the expense of rural workers in China. The authors–sociologists Jenny Chan and Ngai Pun from Hong Kong and US historian Mark Selden defy corporations firewall to show us how they treat workers. The authors combined contextual documentation on labor and economy. They were able to vividly portray the underbelly of globalization, the same way Jason De Leon unmasked the unseen lives of undocumented migrants.
Discuss how apple violates workers’ rights in the context of this powerful quote: “Apple is committed to ensuring the highest standards of social responsibility throughout our supply base. The companies we do business with must provide safe working conditions, treat workers with dignity and respect, and use environmentally responsible manufacturing processes wherever Apple products are made.” However, the way the workers were treated was saddening, agonizing, and angering. One employee stated, “A long workday of enforced silence, punctuated only by the noise of the machines, is the norm.” Repressive actions and intimidations to squash workers’ aspirations for decent or even basic pay for their hard work were haunting. In fact, the repression and brutal work conditions were driving workers to commit suicide. Now contrast that with thousands of consumers eagerly awaiting or dying to buy the latest edition of iPhone, iPad, etc., around the world from Bejing to San Francisco. How do you fathom the inequalities separating dying for an iPhone to make a living versus ‘dying to get the latest iPhone? Generally, reading the gripping stories, what surprised you or frustrated you about the working and living conditions of the workers?
How do we make Apple and Foxconn accountable for their brutalities? As Karl Marx stated, “Capital presupposes wage-labor, and wage-labor presupposes capital.” You may discuss how Dying for an iPhone, and The Land of Open Graves overlap (examine the stories of Tian Yu and Marcela), particularly by highlighting the forces that drive people to take unimaginable risks.
Two powerful citations that illustrate you read the assigned portion of the book are required. More citations are encouraged,
