Overview of Chinas Garment Industry

1
Overview of Chinas Garment Industry

• Industry
• Workers
• Conditions
• Health Problems
• Low Wages
• Transnational Corporations
• By Jenny W.L. Chan (MPhil in Sociology,
  University of Hong Kong Presentation Paper
  Gender and Global Labor Organizing Migrant
  Women Workers of Garment Industry in South
  China. Conference by Sweatshop Watch, May 8-9,
  2005. with Karin Mak, Sweatshop Watch, Trip to
  China June-July 2005.

2
Garment Industry

• Total Chinese Exports to U.S.
• In 2000, 21.6 textile and garment exports
• In 2002, USD61.69 billion export value
• Provides path towards economic development in
  China
• Pictures are from Shenzhen city, located
  northward Hong Kong in the Guangdong Province.
  Shenzhen is one of China's first Special Economic
  Zones.

What are consequences of such development? Who
gains and who loses?
3
Workers

• Most are "migrant workers" who come from rural
  provinces to work in urban factories.
• Mostly young women, commonly referred to
  dagongmei or working girls.
• In their villages and townships, women face
• limited education opportunity
• household poverty
• arranged-marriage pressure and patriarchal
  oppression
• Many seek independence and connections to the
  modern world by working in a factory.

4
Migrant Workers

• Uneven economic development policies in China has
  led to underdevelopment and poverty in rural
  areas.
• As a result, there are over 120 million internal
  migrant peasant-workers in cities(statistics
  the 5th population census of China in 2000)
• Many workers in the south are from Hunan, Hubei,
  Guizhou, Sichuan, Jiangxi, and Anhui provinces.
• Much garment production takes place in Guangdong
  province in South China.

5
Labor Conditions

• In a survey of 10 small- to medium- sized garment
  factories in the Shenzhen Special Economic Zone
• WORKFORCE ranges from 50 to 200 persons
• GENDER more than 70 female workers
• AGE young girls (16 22 years) and middle-aged
  married women
• OWNERSHIP small subcontractors (mainland
  Chinese) and bigger factories (Hong Kong-funded
  Taiwan-invested)

6
Long Working Hours
7
Very Low Wages

• piece-rate payment system (not monthly salary)

8
Other Wage Problems

• Often non-payment for 2 to 3 months
• Below the legal overtime wage rates
• 150 on regular working day
• 200 on Sat and Sun
• 300 on statutory holidays International Labor
  Day, International Womens Day, New Year Day,
  etc.
• Deductions from basic wages (rent, utilities,
  food, etc.)
• Most workers live in dormitories provided by
  factories (for replenishment of round-the-clock
  labor and tight labor control).

9
Health Conditions

• Womens health problems found in survey of 1,043
  migrant women workers of garment and other
  industries (electronics, toy, plastics and
  metal-making) downloadable from CWWN
  www.cwwn.org
• Menstrual disorder
• Muscle soreness, back pain, headaches,
  stomachaches
• Poor eyesight
• Body fatigue and extreme tiredness
• Respiratory risks or occupational diseases

10
Other Factory Conditions

• Heavy penalties and fines
• Physical and sexual abuse
• No labor contracts
• No social insurance and welfare
• Other (toilet restrictions, punishments, etc.)

11

• Workers walk to dormitories after their shift
  ends. In Shenzhen.

12

• Workers gather to watch television outside a shop
  in Shenzhen.

13
Factories

• A large-scale garment factory manager of the
  Pearl River Delta (in Guangdong Province)
  conducts
• Double bookkeeping, fake workers time cards and
  salary statements, false documentation (Reported
  by Financial Times April 21, 2005)
• the limits of factory social auditing no
  democratic participation of workers in monitoring
  codes of conducts

14
Worker Resistance

• Rise in arbitrated labor disputes (wage or
  occupational health and safety complaints taken
  to local labor officials) since elimination of
  quota-system (2005).
• Labor strikes
• Work stoppages
• Stop and block traffic
• Threaten to jump from buildings

15
Transnational structural forces at the
global-level

• an increasing domination of few giant
  corporations retailers
• Giant corporations and retailers dictate the
  production, trade and finance, and shipment
  rhythm of supplying manufacturers at the low-end
  
• Worker rights?
• A manager of a big garment factory in Dongguan,
  Guangdong province
• We are under enormous stress, customers place
  late orders, they change their orders part way
  through manufacturing and they pay their bills
  late. At the same time they ask us to provide
  better training for our staff, better health and
  safety and better accommodation. We just cannot
  do it all.

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What percentage of retail price is labor cost?

• Cost of labor is typically 2-5 of the retail
  price.
• While the example is in terms of Hong Kong
  dollars, similar ratios of labor to retail cost
  exist for garments sold in U.S.
• Source"Turning the Garment Industry Inside Out-
  Purchasing Practices and Workers' Lives" by Oxfam
  Hong Kong, April 2004

17
Pyramid Structure

• Profit maximization of factory bosses, investors,
  retailers, and manufacturers sweating profits
  out of workers.
• Weak implementation of labor laws and regulations
  by the local officials in China.
• Chinese workers are the base, but strength of
  industry, making clothes for foreign (U.S.)
  brands and companies.