Fait (de façon responsable ?) En Chine
Par Katherine Don
J'ai récemment eu l'occasion de visiter deux usines dans la ville méridionale de la Chine de Kaiping qui a produit des jeans de denim pour un détaillant important d'escompte aux Etats-Unis. Considérant que les seuls rapports des usines chinoises de textile que j'avais trouvées par hasard avaient été critiques, la visite était surprise (plaisante) d'a.
Les conditions de travail étaient ordonnées et rangent, l'air était frais en dépit de la chaleur étouffante juste au delà des murs en béton, l'éclairage généreux a découlé de grandes fenêtres en saillie, et d'employés en bonne santé en passant causés au-dessus du fredonnement des machines notant à peine la présence du propriétaire d'usine nous menant à travers. Un sens de respect et de camaraderie a passé entre la gestion et les employés, âges 20-40, alors que l'atmosphère était calme pourtant efficace pendant dimanche après-midi sans sens de l'épuisement ou de l'oppression des employés.
Chaque plancher du grand service a occupé une étape différente du procédé de production, de la coupure à la couture, à la broderie, et à l'empaquetage. Les planchers ont été d'une manière ordonnée organisés avec le machine-quelque vigoureux informatiser-pour un processus profilé de boulon dans la boîte.
Tout en observant le processus mécanique, pourtant diligent à chaque station, diffusion dehors entre les monticules en treillis de denim dans diverses étapes, il était normal de voir comment plus de 4000 articles en sont quotidiennement produit prêts pour les étagères d'un grand magasin américain important de boîte, préemballées avec des cintres et évaluer l'étiquette-tout pour moins de 25 cents par taux courant courant de morceau-le pour coupés, modèle, lavage et quantité de jeans de denim en Chine. Considering the ability of the factory to quickly program and mass produce any cut and style, the notion of a boutique jeans market in the west seemed a laughable scam on the upper-class western consumer. (I was especially impressed by the custom embroidery machine pictured below, which stitched the butterflies and curlicues you see on teenage girls’ hip-hugger back pockets, 16 at a time)
One of the more altruistic in our party spoke with the owner about increasing worker salaries and benefits in order to reverse the much-publicized “race to the bottom” of the globalized textile industry. The owner’s response demonstrated the real-world complexities of a decision that is so obvious in the eyes of western academics and journalists. Like the U.S. there is tremendous job insecurity in China. Though China makes as much as half the world’s clothes today, perpetual fear exists that less-developed markets like Vietnam, Bangladesh and Thailand will take the reins as soon as China loses its competitive edge. This fear is so much the case, that any attempts by factory owners to rock the boat have been met with threats and violence from other factory owners, fearful of losing their businesses.
Not surprisingly, the factory owner said that it was not just his workers who feel the squeeze; he himself is left with very little salary at the end of the day and the middlemen at later stages of the supply chain that eat up all of the margins.
Regardless of the veracity of the factory owner’s stories, what was immediately evident was that the stories of workers locked into dark rooms—not allowed to take bathroom breaks or talk, being worked to the brink of death—were not the case in this factory. In retrospect, it seems sheltered and naive to assume that the conditions of every factory in China are dismal chambers where laborers are enslaved in poor working conditions under management insensitive to personal health and well-being.
Inevitably it has been the reports of flawed practice and mismanagement that tend to make headlines while presumably thousands of factories, like the one I saw, prosper under relatively fair-minded and responsible business owners.
Katherine Don, reader-contribution on Managing the Dragon
December 9th, 2007 at 4:25 pm
“Monitoring contract manufacturers from abroad is not easy. Visits to factories are hard to arrange, are often canceled, and, when they do occur, are sometimes elaborately stage-managed.” - Economist 8/16/07
From a single visit to an apparently socially-responsible factory the author draws sweeping conclusions. She presumes that “thousands of factories, like the one I saw, prosper under relatively fair-minded and responsible business owners,” and argues that it is “naive to assume that the conditions of every factory in China are dismal chambers where laborers are enslaved in poor working conditions under management insensitive to personal health and well-being.”
But what does it mean if thousands of factories are socially responsible while a possibly equal number, or more, are indeed “dismal chambers where laborers are enslaved in poor working conditions”? There is no reason to assume the factory Katherine Don visited is representative of the majority of factories in China. And while sweatshops may not be the norm in China, there are certainly far too many of them.
The Western press is right to expose unfair working conditions in China’s factories. Based on Ms. Don’s snapshot of the factory she visited, the working conditions she observed are to be expected, just as policemen are expected not to be corrupt and chemical plants are expected not to dump toxic waste into the local reservoir.
This reminds me of the foreigner who goes to China, visits Beijing and Shanghai, and comes away with the impression that China is developed and prosperous. Beijing and Shanghai do not represent China, a vast country with up to 300 million impoverished people.
A socially-responsible factory in China should be held up as a model for irresponsible factories in China, not lauded as an example of why Westerners shouldn’t naively assume every factory in China is a sweatshop.