Trapped by work??

Trip Start Oct 05, 2004

Trip End Jun 30, 2005

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Flag of China Dongguan, China
Thursday, January 20, 2005

You wake in the room you share with 1-3 others and take yourself down the corridor to the communal washrooms and showers. The several thousand people in your and neighbouring blocks file to the dining halls for breakfast. Don't be late - there'll be nothing left! You head for the workshop or the office area for an 8 to 12 hour shift. If you get a lunch break the post office and bank are inside the fence or you can grab a nap. Come the end of the working day the bell tolls and if your supervisor gives you the nod then you can punch your card. Then, after the dining halls or street cafes it's into the courtyard to play or watch basketball, or off to the common room for pool, table tennis or cards, or must likely you head for the huge communal TV room. If you're hungry or thirsty you might get to one of the small snack stalls around the perimeter of the compound. Lights will be out at 11pm when the power gets cut, but if you have an early shift tomorrow there is an earlier curfew to meet or else! This unrelenting regime is 6 or sometimes 7 days a week.

Where? A low risk or open prison perhaps? No, this is the reality of life for millions of workers in production facilities in Southern China. The operating model is used by local and international firms alike and often applies to blue and white collar staff.

It sounds grim and when you see it for the first time it's a shock. Some sites hold 10 or 20000 people. Actually, a lot of people are migrant workers and seem relatively happy to be looked after and to belong to a clearly identifiable body of people. The queues of people at the banks waiting to send money home at the week or month end are always huge.

To employees in developed countries, this is anathema - it's a throwback to Dickensian work houses. In Western Europe it would be legally impossible. People are effectively owned by their boss and controlled 24/7 by the company. Here - for now at least - it works. Economically, it's a powerful model for the companies competing on a global market: overtime is largely unquestioned, labour resource is rapidly transferable around the country if you have accommodation ready, and if you are clever in providing recreational facilities you can create psychological ties drawing your people together in a community. That's what the couch potatoes in developed countries are competing with and they haven't got a clue what's coming!