Researching Unfree Student Labour in Apple’s Supply Chain
Researching Unfree Student Labour in Apple’s Supply Chain
Taiwanese-owned Foxconn Technology Group, the world’s biggest electronics contract manufacturer of Apple, used the labour of 150,000 student interns – 15 per cent of its entire million-strong workforce in China – during the summer of 2010. This Chapter looks into the quasi-employment arrangements of student interns, who occupy an ambiguous space between being a student and a worker in Apple’s global supply chain. The incorporation of vocational school teachers into corporate management can strengthen control over students, who are in effect unfree labourers during their internships, which could last from three months to a year. While male and female student interns are required to do the same work as other employees, their intern labour is devalued. With the loss of their capacity to control the timing, location and training content of the internships, student-workers vent their pent-up anger and grievances in the capital accumulation process, in which their fundamental rights to labour and education are scarified.
Keywords: student internship, unfree labour, student worker regime, global supply chain, the State, vocational schools, labour agencies, China, Apple, Foxconn Technology Group
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