An international workshop on this topic was held by the International Center for Joint Labor Research, School of Government, Sun Yat-Sen University (SYSU), Guangzhou, P.R. China, Rosa Luxemburg Foundation, and The Institute of Social Research, University of Frankfurt, Germany, on Dec. 4-6, 2011 in Guangzhou, China.

The workshop explored the impact of global production networks in the IT industry on economic and social development in China’s high-tech manufacturing regions in the Pearl-River Delta, the Yangtze River Delta and other locations. Experts from China, Germany, and the United States focused on the often neglected dark sides of global manufacturing of IT products, which had become visible with the tragic suicides of young migrant workers at electronics contract manufacturer Foxconn in 2010. Recent academic research was presented on poor working conditions, low wages and highly flexible employment for large workforces of rural migrants, on occupational and environmental hazards in IT manufacturing, and the continuing control of global brandname companies over technologies, products, and production in developing economies.

The workshop explored strategies to link industrial upgrading and reform of labor relations in China with policies to enhance public scrutiny over global production networks and enforce labor standards in the IT industry. Democratic workplace representation and collective bargaining, as promoted in Guangdong province today, were recommended as key contributions to fundamental changes in the development model of the IT industry in China, and as an alternative to industry-sponsored codes of conduct and Corporate Social Responsibility.

by Prof. He Gaochao & PD Dr. Boy Lüthje