Fatto (responsabile?) In Cina
Da Katherine Don
Recentemente ho avuto l'occasione visitare due fabbriche nella città del sud della Cina di Kaiping che ha prodotto i jeans del denim per un rivenditore importante di sconto negli Stati Uniti. Considerando che gli unici rapporti delle fabbriche cinesi della tessile che avevo trovato erano stati critici, la chiamata era sorpresa (piacevole) di a.
Le condizioni di lavoro erano ordinate e riordinano, l'aria era fredda malgrado calore scorching appena oltre le pareti concrete, l'illuminazione generosa ha scorso dalle grandi finestre di baia e gli impiegati in buona salute hanno chiacchierato con indifferenza sopra il ronzio delle macchine che notano a mala pena la presenza del proprietario della fabbrica che li conduce attraverso. Un senso di rispetto e di camaraderie ha passato fra l'amministrazione e gli impiegati, età 20-40, mentre l'atmosfera era calmo tuttavia efficiente per un pomeriggio di domenica senza un senso di esaurimento o del oppression degli impiegati.
Ogni pavimento di grande funzione ha occupato una fase differente del processo di produzione, dal taglio al cucito, al ricamo ed all'imballaggio. I pavimenti sono stati organizzati ordinatamente con il macchina-qualche robusto automatizz-per un processo streamlined dal bullone alla scatola.
Mentre osservare il processo meccanico, tuttavia diligente ad ogni stazione, diffusione fuori fra i monticelli del tralicco del denim in varie fasi, esso era naturale da vedere quanto più di 4000 articoli sono prodotti giornalmente aspettano per le mensole di un deposito grande americano importante della scatola, preimballate con i ganci e valutano il modifica-tutto per più meno di 25 centesimi per il tasso corrente corrente della parte- per c'è ne tagliati, designano, lavata e quantità di jeans del denim in Cina. 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.