(tw: mentions of suicide)
The first time I heard about the suicide nets outside of Foxconn buildings, a series of factories in China where workers assemble Apple products, I was a freshman in college taking a Sociology 101 course. My professor at the time (who is still a dear friend), brought the nets and factories up as part of a lesson on the exploitation of labor within production and the disgusting response to that exploitation. He told us that after the suicide rate within the factory had risen, they responded with the nets, hoping to catch the workers that felt they could no longer bear their working conditions. Steve Jobs' response to the 14 suicides in 2010 was "that the rate of suicides at Foxconn was within the national average" (Merchant).
My professor also used the example as a way to point to how we ignore the exploitation behind our devices, that most of us would probably forget his lesson after leaving the classroom. Even if we didn't, we would continue using our phones anyway, blinding ourselves to the knowledge of what was happening to these workers. Of course, we know that this isn't limited just to Apple but lies behind the creation of technology as a whole, behind every single device we touch on a given day.
While reading Sayers,this lesson again came to my mind. She states, "not knowing all the circuitry reflects white privilege and supremacy: for instance, the habitual act of ignoring how dark matter is entangled with the elements of everyday devices; of not considering the differences between who gets to make, who must mine, or who has to care; of not seeing labor in the exploded view; of saying “all lives matter” to dismiss the lived realities of racism entwined with our technologies" (Sayers 7).
It is true that our ignorance indeed becomes "habitual" - perhaps a part of our lives that makes it possible for us to keep going. If I were to recall the nets every time I swiped my screen awake, could I continue to justify owning an iPhone? Could Jobs make a remark that the suicides in the factory, motivated by working conditions that are cruel and humiliating, are not related to production but to the national statistics? Could the Foxconn owners continually make platry statements that the health and happiness of their workers is "top priority"? (Merchant)
Researching Foxconn's many factories now, I see that the media frenzy following the suicides of 2010 hasn't done much to change the workers' lives. They still live in dorm rooms with 8 people, their managers still berate them publicly in meetings in front of colleagues, and they still receive angry responses when they ask to use a bathroom during their 12 hour shift (Merchant). The few visitors who sneak into the factory for a look at its facilities note that it's more like a corporate-governed city, population of more than 400,000, with a "downtown" and nicer areas compared to less inhabitable sections made of concrete and rust, where the workers spend most of their time. One journalist painted a picture of the Longhau plant: "On the outskirts, let’s call them, there are spilt chemicals, rusting facilities and poorly overseen industrial labour. The closer you get to the city centre – remember, this is a factory – the more the quality of life, or at least the amenities and the infrastructure, improves" (Merchant). At an hour long, this is the size of the state where I'm from.
Jobs has described it this way: "Foxconn is not a sweatshop. It’s a factory – but my gosh, they have restaurants and movie theatres… but it’s a factory," as if the presence of a restaurant and movie theater can smooth over the exploitation that occurs there.
Workers have staged protests since 2010 - one in 2012 where 150 employees threatened to jump off the roof, and later years still with smaller groups. Some are talked down with false promises of overtime pay. Employees seem to feel that things will never change, and most only work there a year if they can bear it that long.
In bringing this up, I guess I'm trying to work through my own ignorance of dark matter. Even if I know about the factories and their conditions and think about them from time to time, I wonder how I can keep this in my mind while also using devices that benefit from this exploitation. Obviously, this is a clear indication of what Sayers talks about - my privilege in not having to face this, of not having to care if I don't want to.
Awareness and protest don't seem to be enough, so I wonder what can be done. I mostly come up empty.
Works:
Sayers, Jentery. "I Don't Know All the Circuitry."
Merchant, Brian. "Life and death in Apple’s forbidden city." The Gaurdian, 18 Jun 2017. https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2017/jun/18/foxconn-life-death-forbidden-city-longhua-suicide-apple-iphone-brian-merchant-one-device-extract
Riss, thanks for your post. Its hard to struggle with one's own consumption and the exploitation that goes into the products consumed. I often ponder over this dilemma. On the one hand, its hard to navigate today's world without objects like the networked cell phone. However, the ethical issues surrounding each phone weighs heavily on me and differentially on others. I think its unproductive to label each person as morally bankrupt for using a phone (I am not accusing you of doing such a thing). Yet, I think its incumbent upon each media scholar to communicate with larger audiences about dark matters such as the ones you noted. Academia as well as critical making can not be so isolated that we…