Huffy Bikes |
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Huffy Bikes Made in China Sold at Kmart, Sears, Wal-Mart Huffy bikes are being made at Baoan Bicycle Factory IZhen Bei Road Summary: Huffy Bikes/Baoan Factory |
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·<> Forced 13½ to 15-hour shifts, from 7:00 a.m. to 11:00 p.m. seven days a week ·<> Workers are at the factory 93 hours a week ·<> Wages are between 25 cents and 41cents an hour--$16.68 for a 66-hour work week ·<> Failure to work overtime is punished with a fine of two-days’ wages; no overtime premium is paid ·<> Strong chemical odors in the painting department, excessively high temperatures in the welding section
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·<> No health insurance or social security pension ·<> Strict factory rules and harsh management; no talking during working hours ·<> 12 workers housed in each dark, stark dorm room ·<> Two meals a day; poor quality food ·<> If workers complain or attempt to raise a grievance about the harsh working conditions, excessively long forced overtime hours or low wages, they are immediately fired. In late 1999, all the workers in the delivery section who went on strike were fired.
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(There is a factory, a storehouse and nearby dorms.
The Baoan facilities are owned by the Taiwanese Zhenzhen Nan Guan
Corporation. Nearby, there is a
second smaller Baoan Bicycle Factory #2, with 200 workers.
The Baoan factories assemble bicycles from parts supplied from local
materials factories or from the Fuda Corporation of Taiwan.)
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Baoan Bicycle Factory #1 |
Low Wage:
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The major production in the factory is for Huffy Bicycles (other lesser brand names include Germini and Tec). The bikes are exported to the U.S., Canada and Europe. There are 700 to 800 workers, mostly men, but there are 200 women employees ranging in age from 21 to 24 years old, who are mostly employed in the packing section. As is typical in the export assembly industry, most workers leave after they reach 25 years of age, since they are worn out from the grueling overtime hours. The vast majority of the workers are migrants from rural provinces such as Hanin (over 1000 miles from Shenzhen), Jiangxi, Hunan and Xianxi. The factory is broken down into several sections: preparing and assembling parts, the tire section, welding, final assembly and packing. Hours: Forced
Overtime; 13½ to 15-hour Shifts; Seven Days a Week
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Working Conditions: Harsh
Treatment; No Rights
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The first month’s wages are illegally withheld as a deposit, so the workers only receive their first pay during the second month. |
The amount of 180 rmb--$21.67, more than a month’s wages—is deducted to pay for the worker’s temporary residency permit. Another 10 rmb ($1.23 U.S.) is deducted from each worker for their factory ID cards.
No Rights: Fired for Raising a Grievance
As is standard in China, no independent union is allowed at the Baoan Bicycle plant. Any public dissent or raising of a grievance is met with firings.
Workers also complain about strict factory rules and harsh management style. For example, talking during working hours is strictly prohibited. Cutting into a line is punished with a fine of up to $1.20—nearly five hours wages.
The workers said these wages were too low. One worker in the packing section explained that he earned 600 rmb per month, $72.29, and was unable to save or send any money home. Despite all the overtime hours he worked, he was just able to survive, never getting ahead.
At the Baoan Bicycle Factory there is no medical
insurance or social security pension. The
workers have nothing, not even a primitive factory clinic. If they are sick, they need to go to the local hospital in
town. But the workers said it was
then very difficult to get permission to be absent from work.
Toward the end of 1999, delivery workers at the
Baoan factory went on a wildcat strike to protest the harsh factory treatment,
excessively heavy workloads and long overtime hours and the low wages.
All the strikers were fired. Dissent
is not permitted.
Living Conditions: 12 to a Dark, Crowded Dorm Room
Twelve workers are crowded into each dorm room, which the workers described as stark and dark. There are no entertainment facilities other than a single TV in the common area. The workers explained that the only “entertainment” available to them was to hang around nearby snack and grocery stores.
The Baoan workers are charged 45 rmb per month ($5.42) for food--two meals a day, which is deducted from their wages along with a small dorm fee of $1.81 U.S. The workers report that the quality of the food is very poor.
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Huffy Wages in China are Less than 2 Percent of What They Paid in the U.S. 1,800 U.S. Workers Lose Their Jobs |
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The average wage of the workers in China currently making Huffy bicycles is 33 cents an hour, less than two percent of what the USWA members made. |
In the last 17 months, 1,800 Huffy Bicycle workers have lost their jobs as Huffy shut down its last three remaining U.S. plants to outsource its production to China, Mexico and Taiwan. The plants closed were in Celina, Ohio; Farmington, Missouri, and Mississippi. The 850 Huffy workers fired in July 1998 from the Celina, Ohio plant were members of the United Steelworkers of America (USWA), who earned $17 an hour--$11 in wages and $6 in benefits. Their last job was to cover an American flag sticker that was on bikes made in China with a new sticker representing the globe. The average wage of the workers in China currently making Huffy bicycles is 33 cents an hour, less than two percent of what the USWA members made. The Huffy Bicycle Company (which owns the Huffy, Royce Union Bikes and American Sports Design brands as well as producing private brands for other companies) controls over 20 percent of the U.S. bicycle market. In 1998, the Huffy Corporation had sales of $584 million and a gross profit of $97.5 million. Huffy Corporation CEO, Don R. Garber, paid himself $771.091 in 1999. Many of the fired Huffy workers are now working two, or even three, minimum wage jobs to try to make ends meet and not fall behind in mortgage and car payments, school and other expenses for their children.
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483,000 U.S. Manufacturing Jobs Lost |
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In a single year, 1999, we lost 256,000 well paying manufacturing jobs in the United States. And in just the last two years, 1998 and 1999, we lost 483,000 manufacturing jobs. At the beginning of 1998, there were 18,838,000 U.S. workers employed in manufacturing. By the end of 1999, there were just 18,355,000 left. The single greatest factor contributing to the growing income disparity between the rich from the poor in the U.S., is the loss of well paying, largely union, manufacturing jobs. For example, General Motors used to be the largest employer in the U.S., with wages of $26 an hour and $20 an hour in benefits. Today, Wal-Mart is the largest private sector employer in the U.S. with 885,000 employees, nearly half of whom qualify for federal assistance under the Food Stamp program. Citation: Bureau of Labor Statistics 3/10/00
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Want Ad: "Urgently Wanted: Assembly Workers -- many, female, assembly of handbags, related experience preferred, will consider good quality workers if not experienced."
Want
Ad: "Ten general electronic workers: female, under 24, experienced, good in
handling electronic parts, 3-month trial period, meals and dwelling included,
discuss income upon interview." |
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The Race to The Bottom -- $9.32 an hour versus 25 cents an hour |
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One shoe company in China, Pou Yuen, employs over 100,000 workers to assemble Nike, Timberland, Reebok, and New Balance sneakers and shoes for export to the U.S. Meanwhile…In the United States there are only 24,800 footwear workers left in the entire country from coast to coast. This means that just one Taiwanese-owned shoe conglomerate with multiple factories in China employs almost four times as many footwear workers as are left in the entire U.S. |
Between 1990 and 1999, 37,900 footwear workers lost their jobs in the U.S. Employment in the shoe industry was slashed by 60 percent, falling from 62,700 jobs in 1990 to 24,800 today. The average footwear worker in the U.S. earns $9.32 an hour, while in China workers making Nike, Reebok, Timberland and New Balance are paid approximately 25 cents an hour. So, footwear workers in China are paid just 3 percent of what U.S. workers earn. Citation: Bureau of Labor Statistics 2/07/00 |
Today, Wal Mart is the largest private sector employer in the U.S. with 885,000 employees, nearly half of whom qualify for federal assistance under the Food Stamp program |
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