labor - From the Shenzhen factories


Pun Ngai, now professor at HKUST, wrote a book on the labor conditions in Shenzhen. I have order a copy for review, after reading a rather enthusiastic review in the Taipei Times:

The book, though frequently academic in tone and perspective, nevertheless gives a vivid idea of life in the factory. There are details of the cumulative lack of sufficient sleep (all the workers spend the first half of their one day off a week sleeping), company pay stoppages for infringements of the rules, issues between workforce and management over such things as the radio, attempts by workers to slow down the production line due to exhaustion, and so on. The monotony of the work is so extreme that even reading about it induced in me a sense of fatigue and disgust.

Nevertheless: this reviewer thinks highly of the book:

This book could have the influence of Charles Dickens's Hard Times or Rachel Carson's Silent Spring. It's moving and shocking, and presents a world that won't easily be changed. But perhaps a more popular edition ought to be prepared containing only the author's personal experiences, though extensive interviews and media coverage will probably bring the fruits of her embedded fly-on-the-wall reportage to a wider public than just the academy.

Order "Made in China"