Dying for Christmas?

Dying for Christmas?

Are you dying for Christmas?

So are they. Literally.

Maybe someone you know has a new iPhone or other digital device on their Christmas wish list. Maybe you’re thinking of buying a new one, yourself.

Before you do, you might like to think about the impacts of wireless devices, not just from the radiation on the people who use them, but on those who manufacture them, too.

In their new book ‘Dying for an iPhone’, Jenny Chan, Mark Selden and Pun Ngai point out the human and environmental cost of producing Apple iPhones.

The book reports on undercover research conducted in manufacturing giant Foxconn’s major factories in nine Chinese cities. They find suicides, long hours, hostility and violence. They cite examples of aluminium dust damaging workers’ respiratory systems, harmful chemicals used in manufacture and untreated toxins released into the environment.

The book contains testimonials by workers from a wide range of backgrounds, including workers who took their own lives rather than continue working in these factories.

‘I was so desperate that my mind went blank,’ said Tian Yu who attempted suicide by jumping from a fourth-floor. She survived and, after 12 days in a coma, discovered she was paralysed from the waist down.

The book reveals the true cost of society’s love affair with wireless technology and of the consequences of capitalism on an impoverished and powerless workforce.

Taiwanese journalist Hsiao-Hung Pai describes the book as ‘A deep dive into exploitation and labor struggle in the world of high-tech electronics manufacturing in China during the past decade. Dying for an iPhone is an exposé of the human suffering behind the brands. Everyone should read this.’

https://www.researchgate.net/p...'s_Workers

Christmas gift considerations

  • Avoid giving Christmas gifts that:

    • emit wireless radiation

    • encourage users to spend long periods of time indoors on screens

    • harm the workers that produce them.

  • Do give Christmas gifts that:

    • support health and wellness

    • stimulate imagination and encourage reading

    • encourage users to spend time in nature

    • provide opportunities for social action.

Give a gift that supports health and safety

What else you can do

  • If you found the information above of interest, please forward this email to others.

  • If you’d like more information, you can download the November/December issue of EMR and Health here.

  • If you’ve been sent this message by a friend and would like to subscribe to future updates, you can do that here.

  • Book a phone consultation to find answers to your questions here. 

Christmas trading hours: Our office closes 5pm on Wednesday 22 December and reopens on Monday 17 January 2022.

 

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