做(負責任地？) 在中國
由Katherine ・唐
我在美國生產牛仔布牛仔褲為一個主要折扣販商Kaiping的南部的中國鎮最近有機會參觀二家工廠。 考慮我遇到中國紡織品工廠的唯一的報告是重要的，參觀是a (宜人的)驚奇。
工作環境是井然的并且整理，空氣儘管焦熱是涼快的在混凝土牆之外，慷慨的照明設備從大凸出的三面窗流動了，并且健康雇員在幾乎沒有注意工廠所有者的存在的機器的嗡嗡聲之上偶然地聊天了通過帶領我們。 而大氣是鎮靜，並且高效率的在星期天下午沒有雇員精疲力盡或壓迫，感覺尊敬和同志愛感覺通過了在管理和雇員，年齡之間20-40。
大設施的每個地板佔領了生產過程的一個不同的階段，從切開到縫合，繡和包裝。 地板整潔地組織了與健壯機器一些計算機化為一個效率化的過程從螺栓到箱子。
當觀察機械，努力過程在每個駐地，傳播在牛仔布斜紋布之間土墩以各種各樣的階段，它是自然為其中任一看怎樣超過4000個項目每日被生產的準備好一家主要美國大箱子商店的架子，預先包裝與掛衣架和定價標記所有為少於時每片斷這當前現行利率25分切開了，稱呼，牛仔布牛仔褲的洗滌和數量在中國。 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.