The Hon Hai Precision Industry Company factory in Taiyuan employs 79,000 people. The WSJ noted that this one factory is equal to the size of the entire US workforce for General Motors. I would note that this factory's workforce is roughly equal to the population of Youngstown, OH. Bottom line, that's alot of people. As with many factories, security is employed to control various situations that could occur in any large environment. But these guards allegedly engage in more surrepticious activities, "enforcing" discipline in the workforce on behalf of the company.
The specific situation in this plant involved a riot that apparently included over 2,000 people reacting to what one eyewitness described began as "a drunken fight between two workers" that then resulted in a violent attack from security guards seeking to control the situation. In all fairness, what is appropriate force to one person may be perceived as excessive to another. But this situation boiled over when friends responded to aid the workers which prompted a response from more security guards...you get it. In the end, 2,000 rioters, 5,000 police on the scene and 40 injuries.
The Journal further reported the following, "Many workers said they had previous problems with the security forces, and though the confromtations varies in severity from simple scoldings to violence, they indicate China's new generation of laborers is less tolerant of the rigid, military-style of management used on earlier generations of more pliant migrant workers in China's largest factories." The company stated it was investigating the situation but the WSJ reported that they found "no evidence to suggest security guards violated company policy."
Now, let me share another news clipping:
"Police charge the rioting of the 3000 jobless men and women at the plant was planned. Sticks, stones, tear gas and bullets were used by police and rioters before the disturbance was quelled," "The Company disclaimed all blame for the riot. An official statement from the company said: 'The Company has employed more men, more continuously and at higher wages than any other industrial plant or aggregation of plants of the same size in the area. During recent months it has placed more former employees' names on the payroll than any other firm.'"
Could be the same plant? Maybe another one in the area? How about neither. The full article appears below, from April 7, 1932
Four people were killed today when unemployed workers rioted at the Ford plant in Dearborn, Michigan. "Police charge the rioting of the 3000 jobless men and women at the River Rouge plant was planned by Communists. Sticks, stones, tear gas and bullets were used by police and rioters before the disturbance was quelled," reported the Indiana Evening Gazette on March 8, 1932. "The Ford organization disclaimed all blame for the riot. An official statement from the company said: 'The Ford Company has employed more men, more continuously and at higher wages than any other industrial plant or aggregation of plants of the same size in the Detroit area. During recent months it has placed more former employees' names on the payroll than any other firm.'
Henry Ford was hailed as an industrial pioneer who understood the power of specialized and standard manufacturing. He was also a man who employed the Pinkerton Detective Agency to help him visit employees' homes to make sure they were living morally. The same Pinkerton detectives beat Walter Reuther and his associates and threw Reuther off an overpass while the Dearborn policy watched because Reuther was coming to Ford's Rouge River plant to pass out unionization leaflets for his Congress of Industrial Unions (now the CIO of AFL-CIO).
The Industrial Revolution is not over and it was never just about creating the assembly line or the cotton gin or myriad other technological innovations. It took millions of men and women (and children) toiling in the worst conditions imaginable to fuel the machine. The labor movement was a natural and critical development in response to an unchecked corporate agenda. Labor created the 8-hour day, Labor was a driving force behind U.S. laws like the Fair Labor Standards Act and the Occupational Safety and Health Act. Unions didn't prevent the expansion or the success of capitalism in the western world - they enabled it. In the US, unions got the communist monniker (in some cases, rightfully so Industrial Workers of the World). What monniker will they get in China?
China's Industrial Evolution demands a Labor Movement and here's hoping that their government is insightful enough to hold Labor's hand during this critical period.
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