作られる(責任があか。) 中国
Katherineドン著
私は最近米国の主要な割引小売商のためのデニムのジーンズを作り出したKaipingの中国の南町の2つの工場を訪問する機会を有した。 ずっと私が出くわした中国の織物の工場の唯一のレポートが重大であると考慮して、訪問はaの(気持が良い)驚きだった。
労働条件は整然として、片付ける、空気はコンクリートの壁を越える焼け付くような暑さにもかかわらず涼しかったちょうど、寛大な照明は大きいベイ・ウィンドウから流れ、健康な従業員はやっと私達を導いている工場所有者の存在に気づく機械のハム雑音の上で偶然に雑談した。 点および友情の感覚は管理と従業員の年齢の間で大気は穏やかけれども従業員の枯渇または圧迫の感覚なしで日曜日の午後の間有効だったが、20-40渡った。
大きい設備の各床は切断からの縫い、刺繍し、そして包装に工程の別の段階を、占めた。 床はボルトからの箱への合理化されたプロセスコンピュータ化のための丈夫な機械と端正に組織された。
4000以上の項目がハンガーと事前包装される主要なアメリカの大きい箱の店の棚の毎日作り出された準備ができているおよびのための札すべてに値を付けるために部分の現在の現行歩合ごとのについてはいかにか各場所の機械、けれども勤勉なプロセス、広がりを観察することが様々な段階のデニムのジーン、それの小山間で25セント以下見て自然な切れた間、中国のデニムのジーンズの洗浄そして量スタイルを作りなさい。 すぐに切られた西で、様式を、ブティックのジーンズの市場の概念はプログラムし、大量生産し工場の機能を考えると上流階級の西部の消費者の笑えるような詐欺だったようである。 (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.