The opening credits of the documentary titled China Blue details the greatest human migration from rural regions of China to the central city, fulfilling their wish to get a job in a garment factory. The Chinese economy thrives off of this exploitation, using 150 million impoverished people to thread the needle of their success. Because they fall so below the poverty line, on average making as meager a wage as $2 a day, these workers do not qualify to receive benefits of any kind. Workers are then trapped in a positively reinforced system, where one type of poverty is exchanged for another. A system which in some instances, is perpetuated here in the United States.
The conditions that workers are exposed to are, in the mildest sense, horrific. In the film, the people featured were shown working shifts that began at 8:00 in the morning and lasted until 7:00 at night. The eleven-hour work day was deemed by the owner of the Leifang Factory as a suitable workload, in which each worker is tasked with a quota of 3,000 pairs of jeans. If a worker is unable to complete their allotted work, they then must continue toiling without pay. The second shift begins at 11:30 p.m. and draws to a close at 3:00 in the morning – only to be repeated again in five hours. The factory tenements where workers reside are packed with anywhere between 6 and 12 people. They share an all-in-one shower, toilet, and sink, and wash their clothes on the the balcony in between their shifts. These conditions are unduly harsh toward the women that work in these factories. They are not provided child care and oftentimes must send their children back to the countryside.
The role that the United States plays in the global marketplace involving garment workers is meticulously unclear. A branch of Havard Law published reports that children in factories in Bangladesh had been sewing clothes for American companies Hanes, Walmart, Puma, and J.C. Penney. Corporate monitoring of these factories failed, whether intentionally or accidentally, in the name of profit. It would seem that both constituents of the United States and the companies that reside here should aim to become educated on the ills that befall garment workers, highlighted in documentaries like Blue China. Consumers across the globe should be made aware of the corruption, greed, death, and deceit that goes into the production of a good labeled “Made in China.”
Photos courtsey of Unsplash.