Annette Bernhardt/Flickr. Creative Commons.
Foxconn, the world’s largest electronics contract manufacturer, is a Taiwanese-owned firm best known for being the main assembler of Apple products and for harsh working conditions at its Chinese factories. While Foxconn also operates in Europe, its factories in mainland China are by far the most severely scrutinised of all its operations. It is from there that we hear of militarised disciplinary regimes, excessive and unpaid overtime, unhealthy and unsafe working conditions and forced student labour related to Foxconn operations. Such a despotic management model prompted activists battling for workers’ rights in China to label Foxconn workers iSlaves.
Just how different is the situation in Europe? I set out to answer this question three years ago along with my colleague Devi Sacchetto from the University of Padua. We had a clear research agenda from the outset: to gain information about the composition of Foxconn’s workforce, its management practices, the organisation of production and reproduction, the role of the state, and the reach and impact of trade unions. We conducted 63 interviews in the Czech Republic and 29 in Turkey with current and former Foxconn workers and managers, trade union representatives, government officials and NGOs. Foxconn employs 9,000 workers across two factories in the Czech Republic and 350 in Turkey. Differences in scale notwithstanding, we found several transnational continuities.
