Ralf Ruckus from the Gongchao Collective in China will be in the Bay Area this weekend doing the following public presentations (called iSlaves: Workers’ Struggles in Chinese Production):
San Francisco – Friday, May 17, 2013, 3pm, California Institute of Integral Studies, 1453 Mission, St. San Francisco, CA 94103
Oakland – Saturday, May 18, 2013, 8pm, Bay Area Public School, 2141 Broadway, Oakland CA 94612
San Francisco – Monday, May 20, 2013, 7:30pm, Eric Quezada Center, 518 Valencia, near 16th Street, San Francisco
from the Gongchao collective website:
The company Foxconn employs more than one million people in China alone. As the world’s biggest contract manufacturer it works for Apple and many other electronics brands. Foxconn’s workers are the iSlaves who face horrendous working conditions while producing communication tools like iPhones and iPads. In 2010 a series of worker suicides shook the Chinese Foxconn factories and drew world-wide attention. The management promised to improve conditions and pay higher wages, but the situation has not changed much since: Foxconn accelerated the relocation of factories to the Chinese hinterland, employs student interns as “cheap” labor, covers up work accidents, and still relies on its militaristic management regime. However, Foxconn-workers are far from being quiet victims. They have used every-day forms of resistance against the rhythm of the assembly line and have been able to stage strikes in various Foxconn-factories around China.
