Changing the practices of iSlave producers and the working condition of student-labourers in Apple supplier factories in China

Abstract:

Professor Pun Ngai extended her longstanding action research into labour rights to the widespread but previously unresearched phenomenon of the use of vocational school students as a new form of labour use in Apple’s supply chain in China. This group, totalling over 20 million since 2008, are the “student labourers” who fuel up China’s economic growth in the post-financial crisis period. The findings have had an accumulated impact on: influencing the agenda of labour right investigations and campaigns launched by local and international NGOs; raising international media concern; and bringing about real changes of labour protection policy in business CSR realm.