Popular Media Looks at Labor Rights at China’s Biggest Manufacturer

Dear Colleagues,

Steve Greenhouse, who covers labor issues for the NY Times, tweeted last night about an informative, and darkly funny, Daily Show piece on Foxconn – the giant manufacturer of phones, computers, game consoles and other electronics for Apple, Microsoft, HP, etc.  Below are Greenhouse’s tweet and a link to the video, which is well worth viewing: Foxconn does not make university logo products, but the labor issues raised by the piece are highly relevant to China’s apparel sector and the broader labor rights climate in the country. Of particular note, Jon Stewart makes an important point about the relationship between prices and labor conditions.

This is comedy, of course, not scholarship, and there are at least some modest inaccuracies in the piece (the wage figure cited seems somewhat low, for example). However, the overall picture of life for workers at Foxconn is, sadly, on the mark.

Note: The Foxconn story begins at 1:24 of the video, in case you want to skip the preliminary jokes.

Video: http://www.thedailyshow.com/watch/mon-january-16-2012/fear-factory 

Best,

Scott

Scott Nova 
Worker Rights Consortium 
5 Thomas Circle NW 
Washington DC 20005 
ph 202 387 4884 
fax 202 387 3292 
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www.workersrights.org