CHINA BLUE

My local PBS station (KQED) pairs FRONTLINE with INDEPENDENT LENS. It makes for a very stimulating, thought provoking evening of tv. IL basically showcases amazing indie film and video from around the globe. As the website mentions, an episode can feature a variety of programs from documentaries to dramas to comic shorts to animation. While one may not know what exactly to expect in each episode, rest assured you will be viewing some of the finest independent film and video around.

Which brings me to one particular independent documentary I viewed on IL a few months back, CHINA BLUE. CHINA BLUE follows the story of Jasmine, a 17 year-old Chinese girl who (like many of her compatriots) leaves her rural family to look for work in the booming Chinese cities. She, like many others, finds work in a export oriented factory. In this case, a jeans factory. Made surreptitiously and without the approval of China's one party, totalitarian government, CHINA BLUE details just how harsh and repressive the environment is in which Chinese factory workers work. They work 12+ hours a day, 7 days a week, sometimes in unsafe conditions, with very little (if any) labor rights and protections. In Jasmine's case, she and her fellow workers are placed on a 8am to 2am shift (16 hours) in order to complete an upcoming deadline. This in addition to a recent cut in pay. They work so hard, for such long hours, and without enough sleep that Jasmine and some of her coworkers use clothespins to clip their eyelids open.



And if you think you have a terrible boss, imagine working for the factory owner in CHINA BLUE. Not only does he overwork and underpay his employees but he nonchalantly calls them inferior criminals (murderers and thieves) from the countryside. It is the type of social prejudice that makes one shudder. For those curious, his previous occupation was as the city's Police Chief.

And yet the factory owner makes an insightful point when he states he doesn't make the big profits (he, however, does quite well driving a Mercedes) because the big profits are made by the multinational corporations which buy his jeans. As the CHINA BLUE website details, companies like Levi Strauss, Guess?, The Limited, Wal-Mart, etc get their jeans from these sweatshop factories. The website has some startling information, I highly recommend it for those curious. Yes, these multinational corporations state they have a "code of labor ethics" they demand their contractors to enforce and utilize inspectors. Yet, the repercussions are only for gross, repeat offenders and, more importantly, factories obtain advanced warning of an inspection allowing them to manipulate the working environment and coach the employees.

So what's the solution? Well, for me, there seems to be only one main solution. We must pressure the multinational corporations to do more to prevent sweatshop environments. If the companies actually do more, they will most likely get some added help from the US and Chinese governments. Unfortunately I really have no clue how to help apply this pressure. But the CHINA BLUE website does have some very valuable resources. One of the websites is Behind the Label, a great place for labor related news and currently spotlighting two campaigns (one of which is directed toward American Eagle Outfitters which allegedly harassed some of its Canadian employees when they wanted to form a union). There are also links to companies that produce sweatshop free jeans.

And equally as important in combating sweatshop labor practices is to simply get the word out. Piercing documentaries like CHINA BLUE do just that. I'm not sure when IL will rebroadcast CHINA BLUE, but it is a film I could not recommend more highly. For those interested, DVDs are available from the non-profit production company Teddy Bear Films.

It's a documentary that will stay with you for a long time. It has been months since I saw it, but I still remember the opening scene vividly. A group of representatives from some US company is taking a tour of the factory. One of the reps, an older, well-dressed woman, comments in an eerily faux-genuine manner at how "nice and convenient" it is that the workers live in dorms adjacent to the factory and eat at a cafeteria right in the factory building (the dorms are, of course, extremely crowded and both rent and food are taken out of each worker's paycheck). Strangely, the tour guide (a yes-man employee, most likely payed a bit better than the workers) repeatedly asks the older woman rep if she would like to try a dish at the cafeteria (no doubt the food is better than what is normally served in order to impress the representatives or in case they brought along an inspector). The older woman rep finds the offer beneath her and her condescendingly polite "no" soon turns into a slightly grimaced face trying hard not to shout "NO!" as the tour guide repeatedly offers to stop by the cafeteria. Of course this purported "slight" doesn't hinder the business deal. How big of her.

It is this type of ignorance, venality, and prejudice (the same type displayed by the factory owner, though quite a bit uglier) that needs to be combated. It's a view that gives a wink and a nudge (if not more) to inequality. And it is a view that is completely un-American.