Touring a Chinese Factory

As I mentioned earlier, my campus is located in the Minhang Developmental Zone and is surrounded by factories.  Naturally, I thought it would be a good idea to explore the area and tour some factories.  Unfortunately, I didn’t know anyone who had contacts in a factory and had to ask around.  So I asked everyone that I knew; including illegal taxi drivers. 

One of the drivers has friends that work in a textile factory and offered to show us around.  I invited an Israeli friend to come along with me and my Chinese classmate.  We waited about 45 minutes for the driver to finally arrive.  While we were waiting, we asked other drivers if they could take us around factories.  All told us it was illegal to sneak into a factory and the punishment was severe.  The longer I waited the more I worried about what I was getting myself into. 

Tired of waiting, we decided to find a driver to drop us off close to a factory.  My Chinese friend figured we could bribe someone to let us sneak into one of the factories.  Ironically, the next car that pulled up was of the driver originally going to take us.  We got in and he drove us to a textile factory about 5 minutes away.  He said that he wasn’t sure we would be allowed in, and he first went entered to talk with the manager.  While he was gone, we sneaked into the factory and talked with some of the workers.  The workers were almost all women and their ages varied from teens to late 40s.  Interestingly, not one was from Shanghai district, all were from rather far provinces and lived right behind the factory.  Also, the factory is considered to have better conditions than most others in China.  However, since the factories are worried about competitors stealing their ideas, I was not allowed to take any pictures. 

After 15 minutes of independently touring the factory, the driver introduced us to one of the managers.  She is a 48 year old woman from Shanghai and will be retiring in 2 years.  In China, the retirement age is 50 for women and 60 for men.   The manager gave us a tour of the entire factory and brought us into the management room to ask questions.  I asked about the workers’ wages and benefits.  The minimum wage for all workers in the Shanghai district is 840 Yuan per month.  This translates anywhere from $3-$5 a day.  In terms of benefits, each worker is covered by some sort of health insurance.  Interestingly, workers from outside Shanghai only started using insurance last year.  This reinforces my belief  that China’s insurance market is incredibly under developed.  According to recent statistics, the number of insurance companies working in China are less than 1/10 the number in Singapore.  Singapore has a population of over 2 million, while China’s population is over 1.3 billion. 

Finally, it was very eye-opening to meet with the workers.  Many of them had left their husbands, children, and entire families to earn extra money for the family.  I met a woman who left her children with her mother, and now only sees them once a year for a few weeks.  Fortunately, the conditions in the factory were safe and clean.  I wonder if these workers would be considered lucky to work in a nicer factory.