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In
Chinese factories, lost fingers and low pay
By David Barboza
Saturday, January 5, 2008
GUANGZHOU, China: Nearly a
decade after some of the most powerful companies in the world — often
under considerable criticism and consumer pressure — began an effort to
eliminate sweatshop labor conditions in Asia, worker abuse is still
commonplace in many of the Chinese factories that supply Western
companies, according to labor rights groups.
The groups say some Chinese
companies routinely shortchange their employees on wages, withhold
health benefits and expose their workers to dangerous machinery and
harmful chemicals, like lead, cadmium and mercury.
"If these things are so
dangerous for the consumer, then how about the workers?" said Anita
Chan, a labor rights advocate who teaches at the Australian National
University. "We may be dealing with these things for a short time, but
they deal with them every day."
And so while American and
European consumers worry about exposing their children to Chinese-made
toys coated in lead, Chinese workers, often as young as 16, face far
more serious hazards. Here in the Pearl River Delta region near Hong
Kong, for example, factory workers lose or break about 40,000 fingers on
the job every year, according to a study published a few years ago by
the Shanghai Academy of Social Sciences.
Pushing to keep big
corporations honest, labor groups regularly smuggle photographs, videos,
pay stubs, shipping records and other evidence out of factories that
they say violate local law and international worker standards.
In 2007, factories that
supplied more than a dozen corporations, including Wal-Mart, Disney and
Dell, were accused of unfair labor practices, including using child
labor, forcing employees to work 16-hour days on fast-moving assembly
lines, and paying workers less than minimum wage. (Minimum wage in this
part of China is about 55 cents an hour.)
In recent weeks, a flood of
reports detailing labor abuse have been released, at a time when China
is still coping with last year's wave of made-in-China product safety
recalls, and as it tries to change workplace rules with a new labor law
that took effect on Jan. 1.
No company has come under
as harsh a spotlight as Wal-Mart, the world's biggest retailer, which
sourced about $9 billion in goods from China in 2006, everything from
hammers and toys to high-definition televisions.
In December, two
nongovernmental organizations, or NGO's, documented what they said were
abuse and labor violations at 15 factories that produce or supply goods
for Wal-Mart — including the use of child labor at Huanya Gifts, a
factory here in Guangzhou that makes Christmas tree ornaments.
Wal-Mart officials say they
are investigating the allegations, which were in a report issued three
weeks ago by the National Labor Committee, a New York-based NGO.
Guangzhou labor bureau
officials say they recently fined Huanya for wage violations, but
officials say they found no evidence of child labor.
A spokesman for Huanya,
which employs 8,000 workers, denied that the company broke any labor
laws.
But two workers interviewed
outside Huanya's huge complex in late December said that they were
forced to work long hours to meet production quotas in harsh conditions.
"I work on the plastic
molding machine from 6 in the morning to 6 at night," said Xu Wenquan, a
tiny, baby-faced 16-year-old whose hands were covered with blisters.
Asked what had happened to his hands, he replied, the machines are
"quite hot, so I've burned my hands."
His brother, Xu Wenjie, 18,
said the two young men left their small village in impoverished Guizhou
Province four months ago and traveled more than 500 miles to find work
at Huanya.
The brothers said they
worked 12 hours a day, six days a week, for $120 to $200 a month, far
less than they are required to be paid by law.
When government inspectors
visit the factory, the young brothers are given the day off, they said.
A former Huanya employee
who was reached by telephone gave a similar account of working
conditions, saying many workers suffered from skin rashes after working
with gold powders and that others were forced to sign papers
"volunteering" to work overtime.
"It's quite noisy, and you
stand up all day, 12 hours, and there's no air-conditioning," he said.
"We get paid by the piece we make but they never told us how much.
Sometimes I got $110, sometimes I got $150 a month."
In its 58-page report, the
National Labor Committee scolded Wal-Mart for not doing more to protect
workers. The group charged that last July, Huanya recruited about 500
16-year-old high school students to work seven days a week, often 15
hours a day, during peak production months for holiday merchandise.
Several students
interviewed at the Guangzhou Technical School, less than two miles from
Huanya, confirmed that classmates ages 16 to 18 had spent the summer
working at the factory.
Some high school students
later went on strike to protest the harsh conditions, the report said.
The students also told labor officials that at least seven children, as
young as 12 years old, were working in the factory.
"At Wal-Mart, Christmas
ornaments are cheap, and so are the lives of the young workers in China
who make them," the National Labor Committee report said.
Jonathan Dong, a Wal-Mart
spokesman in Beijing, said the company would soon release details of its
own investigation into working conditions at Huanya.
Disney and Dell have also
been criticized by labor rights groups. Officials of Disney and Dell
declined to comment on specific allegations, but both companies said
they carefully monitor factories in China and take action when they find
problems or unfair labor practices.
"The Walt Disney Company
and its affiliates take claims of unfair labor practices very seriously
and investigates any such allegations thoroughly," the company said in a
statement. "We have a strong commitment to the safety and well-being of
workers, and fair and just labor standards."
Many multinationals were
harshly criticized in the 1990s for using suppliers that maintained
sweatshop conditions. Iconic brand names, like Nike, Mattel and Gap
responded by forming corporate social responsibility operations and
working with contractors to create a system of factory audits and
inspections. Those changes have won praise in some quarters for
improving worker conditions.
But despite spending
millions of dollars and hiring thousands of auditors, some companies
admit many of the programs are flawed.
"The factories have
improved immeasurably over the past few years," says Alan Hassenfeld,
chairman of the toy maker Hasbro and co-chairman of Care, the
ethical-manufacturing program of the International Council of Toy
Industries. "But let me be honest: there are some bad factories. We have
bribery and corruption occurring but we are doing our best."
Some factories are warned
about audits beforehand and some factory owners or managers bribe
auditors. Inexperienced inspectors may also be a problem.
Some major Western auditing
firms working in China even hire college students from the United States
to work during the summer as inspectors, an indication that they are not
willing to invest in more expensive or sophisticated auditing programs,
critics say.
Chinese suppliers regularly
outsource to other suppliers, who may in turn outsource to yet another
operation, creating a supply chain that is hard to follow — let alone
inspect.
"The convoluted supply
chain is probably one of the most underestimated and unrecognized risks
in China," says Dane Chamorro, general manager for Greater China at
Control Risks, a risk-consulting firm. "You really have to have
experienced people on the ground who know what they're doing and know
the language."
Many labor experts say part
of the problem is cost: Western companies are constantly pressing their
Chinese suppliers for lower prices while also insisting that factory
owners spend more to upgrade operations, treat workers properly and
improve product quality.
At the same time, rising
food, energy and raw material costs in China — as well as a shortage of
labor in the biggest southern manufacturing zones — are hampering
factory owners' ability to make a profit.
The situation may get worse
before it improves. The labor law that took effect on Jan. 1 makes it
more difficult to dismiss workers and creates a whole new set of laws
that experts say will almost certainly increase labor costs. Yet it may
become more difficult for human rights groups to investigate abuses.
Concerned about the growing array of threats to profitability, as well
as embarrassing exposés, factories are heightening security, harassing
labor rights groups and calling the police when journalists show up at
their gates.
At the center of the
problem is a labor system that relies on young migrant workers, who
often leave small rural villages for two- or three-year stints at
factories, where they hope to earn enough to return home to start
families.
As long as life in the
cities promises more money than in rural areas, they will brave the
harsh conditions in factories in this and other Chinese cities. And as
long as China outlaws independent unions and proves unable to enforce
its own labor rules, there is little hope for change.
"This is a problem that has
been difficult to solve," said Liu Kaiming, the director of the
Institute on Contemporary Observation, which aids migrant workers in
nearby Shenzhen, of sweatshop labor. "China has too many factories. The
workers' bargaining position is weak and the government's regulation is
slack."
There is little that any
Western company can do about those issues, no matter how seriously they
take corporate social responsibility — other than leaving China.
Copyright © 2008 The
International Herald Tribune | www.iht.com
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