Chinese sweatshop operators

I once had to fill out an application for membership in an organization that posted information on the web and hosted a chat room for the members. If you didn’t meet their criteria, you were not given a password and could not access anything on their site. There was no subscription fee, but you could donate if you wished, which is kind of what you have going on here. When someone is posting an application, would you be able to “see” where they are? You could offer a “sampling” of some of the content of your site just to get them interested enough to apply. Maybe the tutorials would be the only part where an application for password is needed. I’m not very web-savvy, but it’s just a thought.

Aren’t most Chinese better off now that trade with the West has been going on for some decades?

If your tutorials are being used to exploit workers (and we cannot know this, although it seems likely), isn’t any upgrade a gain? Lean manufacturing’s core concept is that all parts of the chain must talk with each other freely.

It’s difficult to get enthusiastic cooperation if workers are feeling badly used, and a manufactory where everyone must stop frequently to praise their Fearless Leader isn’t going to do as well as one where the business at hand is the business at hand.

It would be difficult to allow access to your techniques while denying access to the ethical mindset. I am horrified by self-censorship, or worse, provoking someone else to censor you.

My experience is that disseminating information freely is beneficial to everyone involved. The connections are sometimes indirect and may take time to come to fruition. An expanding readership is a sign that bridges are being built.

How to put groceries in the larder, though? An obvious way would be periodically to publish (as downloads or CDs or DVDs) compilations of specific tutorials. Sure, people will link back and forth around your site to cut and paste to assemble the same information. I have sent you a donation when I did and am only waiting for the current tutorial to achieve closure as it seems to be continuing/worth more daily.

There are clear advantages to having the tutorials available free-standing for a reasonable charge. Providing them would be driven directly by demand. It also is some insurance against another hacker trashing your site.

I have said this elsewhere, but I think before you exclude people, you have to decide what you are really trying to exclude. You cannot know that all the Chinese people are operating sweatshops, so excluding based on “Chinese” isn’t so great.

Okay, yeah, their labor laws suck, but maybe you can HELP change the attitude of the garment industry workers in China–seriously, every other country had revolts and needed labor laws instituted as it careened towards first-world status, right?. (hey, are you listening, Chinese readers? you don’t have to put up with crummy labor conditions!)

I am reminded of a passage in the “Machine that changed the World” (great book, I just read it)–when Japanese imports first became poplular, most American mass manufacturers didn’t recognize what was really going on. They had all sorts of explanations for the improving quality and low cost of Japanese cars–including the exploitation of low-cost workers. As the authors pointed out, that explanation dried up as Japan’s economy soared & Japanese labor was no longer so cheap compared to American labor.

So either Carol is right, and the price gap making chinese manufacturers so attractive will soon shrink, or they have leaner manufacturing processes, and it’s OUR responsibility to do better to surpass them in the long run! So, more posts on lean, please

It may help to think about exactly what the possible harm might be. Jinjer and Carol make some good points. I will add:

1. Chinese manufacturers already have access to what you are doing right now – reverse engineering a garment. They could buy an Armani and take it apart without trouble.

2. You could be helping sweatshops in any country, including the U.S. Excluding China may not be the solution to the problem.

3. In a lean value stream, the advantages of flexibility, short response time, simpler logistics erase the advantage of low labor costs. Not all US retailers or manufacturers realize this.

4. Any income can help raise the living standard of a population. Does the sweatshop worker have the ability to send her children to school? Can she buy things to make her family better off? A cell phone, for example? Does she have a choice between no income and low income?

5. Does the open communication foster learning and openness itself? What made the Berlin wall fall?

I have to commend you, Kathleen, for the enlightened conscience to cause you to consider the harm you might cause to disadvantaged people. Now the blog has content to make someone think before exploiting or contributing to exploitation of others. The sweatshop worker’s son or daughter might be in a Beijing internet cafe right this very minute reading this and thinking about helping the workers organize or find better opportunities. Or the exploiter’s son or daughter could be sitting across the cafe from the worker’s seeing that “smart” business might not be good business. Or the worker herself might have access to your blog and develop the knowledge that would help her start up a business to compete with the sweatshop.

Allowing another entity to influence your actions is tantamount to being under their control. In this case, that is especially frightening. I am not arguing against social protest but you should not allow other entities to limit your daily affairs.

That’s Falun Gong, not Fulan Gong. Also mention democracy, and free Tibet and you’ll be making progress on getting banned in China.

I dunno, I’ve only started reading this blog recently so maybe I’ve it all wrong. But it seems to me what Kathleen’s concern about is trying to keep the industry on her home soil still alive. She’s trying to share her information with locals rather than give it away for free to the people who have taken over the market and are threatening to wipe out the need for local manufacturers. I dunno, maybe I’m wrong.

‘It is greatly disturbing that Chinese sweatshop operators are using my tutorials to get yet more work.’
This post started an interesting debate that touches me and my company directly.
First, let me say that I value the content of this site; I find most of it very useful for myself and my needs since it answers many questions. But I must also say that in general, the Chinese don’t need this site or its content to get more work. They have other means to get information on whatever they need or want, and they already know about everything they need to know, such as making a welt pocket or a centered zipper. And if they want to take the direction of lean manufacturing, they’ll just hire a consulting firm.
I greatly doubt that most of the chinese coming to this site are factory workers, supervisors or owners. Remember: China is NOT the USA; China is a completly different world. Most of the chinese factory workers cannot read, they do not have access to internet or have a computer, they dont even know how to use a computer; and most of the supervisors and owners don’t speak english, and for the few that do (in most cases their english is very poor and the ones that can speak english are in sales or in job positions that try to attract new clients or negotiate with overseas clients), at the end of their more than 12 hours day of work, they are not interested in trying to get information to get more work. (And yes workers, supervisors, even owners, often work more than 12 hours per day for 10 days in a row. And no, its not inhumane, over there, its just normal, its just life. Different culture, different standards).

All the production for my clothing line as well as for my clients (we offer private label manufacturing) is done in China or Taiwan. I am Canadian and my business partners are Chinese-Canadian, Taiwanese and Chinese (chinese citizens). We have direct access to some factories having privileged relationships with some factory owners. Like in many other countries, such as Bengladesh and India to name only two, China does have sweatshops; even though I have never been in one. Last summer, I spent 2 months in China, and been to factories. What I saw was actually better than many factories in North America. The working environment was extremely clean and organized. The working conditions are within the laws, and many times better than the minimums of the law because owners want to keep the good labor; they don’t want to loose their good employees to the factory next door.

A lot of Americans and Canadians today are getting somewhat scared by China and call for a panic everytime a factory closes down or cut jobs to outsource to China or another country.

I invite anyone who thinks that outsourcing to other countries is a bad thing to read ABC’s 20/20 John Stossel’s ‘Myths, Lies and Nasty Behavior’ Myth No. 4 – MYTH: Outsourcing Is Bad for American Workers at this web page: http://abcnews.go.com/2020/story?id=448934&page=2 (Myth no.4 is about half-way down the page).

As for the large amount of chinese visitors on this site, here’s a thought: first keep in mind that the chinese population is about 1,306,313,812 (compared to 295,734,134 for the USA = that’s about a billion more!!), so things should be kept in proportions. I think it is possible that many, I grant you not all, of the chinese visitors are probably fashion students. I used to know someone who went to Shanghai many years ago to teach fashion in a fashion school. Apparently, its something quite common for schools and the likes in China to hire foreigners; and of course the foreigners bring with them what they know, such as internet fashion ressources…and students have the education and therefore know some english to go on web sites such as this one.

And by the way, what may seem like crummy working conditions to North Americans, can be decent conditions for Chinese. Did you know that in China, North Americans have the reputation of being lazy and ungrateful for what they have? You just cannot compare apples and oranges, even though they are both fruits.

I think a pay section for tutorials would be great, as they are basically a textbook that is given away for free at this point.
On China: don’t get me started..
I just returned from MAGIC and some other sourcing shows. There were hardly any American or Canadian sources.
China was so cheap that even people who have never been designers and who don’t design anything, but were there as a guest with their friends were picking up info. I spoke with one of these people who was at a lunch table with us. She said..I’m going to be producing something by these Chinese people. I asked what she designed. She said I’m not a designer, I’m here with a friend but I’m going to come up with something because it’s insane not to..
So she’s off to a cheap sweater manufacturer’s booth who has about 12 samples of basic shapes there and you can pick your colors and a few trims and have them loomed there for about three bucks with a 200 piece minimum.
Now these types of “designers” are rampant.. and they have NO idea how the factories are run- nor do they care. All they care about are the cheap prices and how much markup they can gouge their customer for.
It sucks. I’m sick of it.
Free Tibet.

You can go back and forth on this topic forever. I still think owners bear the responsibility of where they place their contracts be it good or bad. Yeah, I know -is a 15 year old mother, a child or a mother with children to support? I can’t save the world but I’ll keep my work in a corner in which I can keep watch and assume responsibility.

Christy sent me a link today regarding a fire in Bangladesh. Reuters says 65 died. A more in depth article from Der Spiegel regarding the hazards of outsourcing in Bangladesh can be found here.