Chinese Female Laborers’ Work Conditions

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The process of globalization has covered the whole world and penetrated all of its aspects. Globalization is not only an economical happening, it affects people’s lives, their ways of living, it causes massive migrations and cultural clashes when people of different backgrounds and origins are brought together to work in one group and collaborate. Global corporations are highly influential, they need a lot of resources and they earn a lot of money. In order to be safe in the global arena and survive the competition in the global market a company has to be able to produce and distribute its products to a large number of customers, promote, invest and conduct very smart business policy.

Of course, not all corporations and factories work that way. In the modern world of high social pressure, where everybody is forced to buy not in order to show off, but in order to fit in, people started to seek for the ways of purchasing things that look like the original products, but have much lower prices. Counterfeit and contraband goods are the first things that come to mind in this situation. In the modern world there is one gigantic source of cheap goods – China. It is a well known fact that the name of this country is what people associate with fake brands and cheap products. There is even a joke, which says that when you travel to some country and bring your family and friends a souvenir from there, what you actually are bringing is a souvenir from China.

Everyone knows several facts about the products made in China: they are cheap, they will fall apart very quickly and they are everywhere. Not many people know that all of these bad quality goods are basically what we call “hand-made”. Hand-made products in the West are ones of the most important goods. The situation is completely different in China. The factories there employ millions of people for hard labor.

The working shifts there have almost no limits; payments are low, in many cases wages get held back, besides, there is a system of fines for the mistakes of the employees. After taking a look at the videos from the Chinese factories, where female employees have to spend bigger parts of the day, forgetting about their kids, neglecting their families in order to earn a little money, it becomes scary to see all of these tiny souvenirs at the street markets that say “made in China” on them. All of the low quality goods are crooked and shapeless and are falling apart only because the females that were making them were poor and oppressed citizens of China, who had to work a dozen hours a day and who are unaware of their rights because of lack of education.¹

Asia is a land of competitive nations. Countries of Asia are developing rapidly, their economies are growing stronger. China has typical for Asian countries group mentality, which makes collaboration easy for its people. At the same time, this is a communist country; this regime traditionally depersonalizes ambitions and makes the global achievements a common duty. This is why the most traditional Chinese way of achieving big goals is throwing millions of people into hard work without caring about the losses and damages that these employees may face. Chinese women are normally shy and quiet; they are taught to be submissive and devoted.

This is why they are so easy to manipulate into the hard physical labor. Infrastructure of mass production in China has ways of working with people that allows it hiring large numbers of workers and tricking them into obeying all the unreasonable rules, stick to the orders and get over the fines. Statistically, levels of employment in China are quite high. At least seventy per cent of Chinese females under the age of sixty five are either employed or seeking for employment.

With the development of this infrastructure a new class of laborers appeared in China. They are called “dagongmei”, which means working girls.² These employees are the representatives of the groups of people dwelling in rural areas. They migrate into the urban districts in order to get hired and start providing for the family. Legally, the rural citizens in China are not allowed to leave their villages permanently. Dagongmei are temporary workers. Even though they live in a patriarchal society where women are pressured into an early marriage, they still are willing to leave their birth places for several years and devote themselves to hard labor and unfair treatment. Women comprise a bigger part of the Chinese manufacturing sector. ³

Sadly, the working girls of China are exploited by three different forces in their lives. The state restricts them from moving away from their villages, their patriarchal families pressure them into marriages and certain standard lifestyles and, finally, the global companies treat them as slaves, who have no legal rights and freedoms. At the same time, no one actually makes these women seek for the employment at the factories.

Yet, they still come, they move to urban districts in order to have new lives, get away from the village societies and become modern. Independence is not what they find at the factories. Their employers know how hard these women can work and how quickly a bad worker will be replaced, this is why the employees are mistreated and their abilities are used to the fullest. The workers know how easy it is to lose such job; this is why they live in fear of being punished.⁴ It seems that a big number of work places will allow more women to find employment, but in real, the number of desperate workers is much bigger. The employers are perfectly aware of this fact; this is why they get away with their low wages and unfair attitudes.⁵ The stream of potential workers coming from the rural areas is mainly represented by poorly educated women; they find employment through contacts such as friendships, neighbors and family.⁶

The Chinese workplaces are very dangerous. Lethal outcomes there are not rare because of the low quality of equipment, poor or non-existent safety training of the employees and high speed of work that prevents the workers from paying proper attention to the rules of safety.

The threats that await female laborers at the Chinese factories are multiple. There is a risk of deadly diseases because of work with toxins and chemical fumes that are in the paint and materials they work with. The most dangerous industries are the ones that are involved into production of shoes, textiles and toys, which are, as we know, ones of the most popular industries in China. Young women, future mothers are exposed to chemical poisonings every day. Needless to say that the insurance system and security policies are not developed and do not cover any of the damage the work places cause to the employees.⁷ Gaining legal compensation for work related illnesses is very difficult in China.

Male workers are much more preferred and at the Chinese workplaces. This is why women have to agree to lower payments and the jobs of lower status. The society in China does not provide male and female job seekers with the equal chances of decent employment. In the patriarchal society of China the discrimination of women is done by means of lack of professional training and education for them. Unskilled workers can only obtain temporary vacancies or jobs with very poor conditions which will make the employees change their work places quite a lot. Chinese law system lacks multiple benefits for the female workers.

Among them are minimum wage, working week limitations, a guarantee of employment after maternity leave and maternity support. In general, manufacturing sector is seen as women’s work in China. The other spheres considered to be the work for women are waitressing, service industries such as housecleaning and domestic work. The stereotype about the kinds of jobs that are only suitable for women is maintained by such organizations as All China Women’s Federation.

For a Chinese manufacture worker becoming pregnant is the end of employment at their workplace. The rights of nursing mothers and pregnant women are being violated in many cases. The organizations find their ways to deflect and avoid paying maternity benefits, covering the costs of childbirth, supporting the maternity leave. Today, the government of China is working on the new laws that will address this issue and improve the social policies concerning work contracts.

At the same time, the state does not take any responsibilities as to taking care of policies for pregnant women and social security. All the benefits that a woman is supposed to receive have to be paid by the company she works for, not by the state. Besides, there is a series of educational programs launched in China and its provinces. These programs are directed at training people and teaching them about their legal rights and freedoms, behavior at the workplace, ways to deal with difficult situations and human rights violations.

The conditions at the Chinese workplaces, especially at the manufacturing sector, are horrible. The number of risks and dangers that female employees have to undergo are numerous. The rights and freedoms of these women are basically non-existent. Yet, millions of young girls aged eighteen to twenty three are leaving their villages in order to join the working community of the Chinese women and look for better, more independent and modern life. These girls are only allowed to be away from home for four or five years, and even after they come back they may experience the consequences of their work at the factories, yet they still risk everything just to get out of the rural areas and see a different type of life. The world’s society has started to pay attention to this issue and to bring it up globally, so maybe in the nearest future the Chinese government will change their attitude and start addressing their problems for real.

Bibliography

“Between the Lines”. Bsr. Web.

Chan, Sucheng. You’re Short, Besides! Jefferson City: Von Hoffman Press, 2001. Web.

“Dagongmei” – Female Migrant Laborers”, Clb. Web.

Honganeu-Sotelo, Pierette. Domestica. Oakland: University of California Press, 2001. Web.

Ngai, Pun. Made in China: Women Factory Workers in a Global Workplace. Durham: Duke University Press, 2005. Web.

Sabin, Ashley. Mardi Gras: Made in China. Vimeo. 2014. Web.

Scheineson, Andrew. China’s Internal Migrants. Cfr. 2009. Web.

Footnotes

“Dagongmei” – Female Migrant Laborers”, Clb.org.hk. 2004. Web.
Pun Ngai. Made in China: Women Factory Workers in a Global Workplace. (Durham: Duke University Press, 2005), 55.
“Between the Lines”. Bsr.org. Web.
Ashley Sabin. Mardi Gras: Made in China. Vimeo.com, 2014. Web.
Pierette Honganeu-Sotelo. Domestica. (Oakland: University of California Press, 2001), 22. Web.
Andrew Scheineson. China’s Internal Migrants. Cfr. 2009. Web.
Sucheng Chan. You’re Short, Besides! (Jefferson City: Von Hoffman Press, 2001). Web.

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Chinese Female Laborers’ Work Conditions

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