SDG8 Decent Work and Economic Growth

Labor rights have been a long-standing issue in China, especially in the manufacturing industry. Global media has shed light on the exploitation of labor and poor working conditions in factories like Foxconn. The research by HKU’s Professor Pun Ngai into such workers’ rights violations drew widespread attention and prompted further investigations by partner NGOs. Her research focused on the little-known phenomenon of Foxconn using vocational school students as a new form of labor. To meet the urgent manufacturing needs of Apple, vocational schools actively supplied students as a major source of the cheap labor. The students are taken out of their term breaks or even their school year to be placed in jobs unrelated to their studies, with no professional development, that are demeaning and have low-pay and poor working conditions. Professor Pun’s research garnered support from local and international NGOs, one of which was Students and Scholars Against Corporate Misbehaviour (SACOM). Armed with the evidence provided in the research findings, in 2017, SACOM released a report called iSlave and launched a campaign to protest against Foxconn’s exploitation and to demand improvement of workers’ rights by Apple. Later in 2017, Apple admitted instances of student interns working overtime and that immediate action would be taken to end such practices. Professor Pun also built a knowledge hub called ‘Senseware’ to disseminate knowledge among the academic and public policy circles, NGOs, activists and student-workers through training sessions, online engagement and participatory action research. To date, over 50,000 workers have benefited directly from the learning curriculum.