만드는 (책임있?) 중국에서
Katherine 단의
나는 최근에 미국에 있는 중요한 할인 소매상인을 위한 데님 청바지를 생성한 Kaiping의 중국 남쪽 도시에 있는 2개의 공장을 방문하는 기회가 있었다. 나가 우연히 만났었던 중국 직물 공장의 유일한 보고가 긴요했다는 것을 고려해서, 방문은 a (유괘한) 놀람이었다.
근무 조건은 정돈되어 있고 정돈한다, 공기는 콘크리트 벽 저쪽에 혹서에도 불구하고 차가웠다 다만, 관대한 점화는 큰 퇴창에서 흐르고, 건강한 직원은 벌거벗게 저희를 처음부터 끝까지 지도해 공장 소유자의 존재를 주의하는 기계의 윙윙의 위 일시적으로 간담했다. 존경과 우정의 감은 관리와 직원 의 나이 사이에서 대기권은 평온해 그러나 직원 고갈 탄압의 감 없이 일요일 오후 동안 능률적이었는 그러나, 20-40 통과했다.
큰 시설의 각 지면은 자르기에서 꿰매고, 수를 놓고, 포장에 생산 과정의 다른 단계를, 점유했다. 지면은 놀이쇠에서 상자에 유선형 과정전산화하 을 위해 건장한 기계 얼마간으로 청초하게 편성되었다.
4000 이상 품목이 걸이로 사전 포장된 중요한 미국 큰 상자 상점의 선반 이 매일 생성한 준비되어 있는 및을 위해 꼬리표 모든 값을 매기기 위하여 조각 현재 현재 비율 당 무엇이든을 위해 어떻게지 각 역에 기계 적이고, 그러나 근면한 과정, 퍼짐을 밖으로 관찰하는 것이 각종 단계, 그것에 있는 데님 진의 토루 사이 25 미만 센트를 보는 자연의 잘랐는 동안, 중국에 있는 데님 청바지의 세척 그리고 양 유행에 따라 디자인 하십시오. 공장 빨리 프로그램하는 및 대량 생성의 기능을 고려하면 무엇이든 자르고 작풍은, 서쪽에 있는 가게 청바지 시장의 관념 upper-class 서쪽 소비자에 우스운 사기에 보였다. (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.