The Netflix documentary American Factory has made headlines for its portrayal of conditions at a Rust Belt factory after its acquisition by a Chinese glass company.

Located in a suburb of Dayton, Ohio, the former General Motors factory was bought by Fuyao Glass, a company based in China’s Fujian Province.

While Fuyao brought new jobs into the city, it also introduced the Chinese-style work culture characterized by callous management. The workers are paid just $14 per hour, compared with the $29 per hour wage once provided by GM. The state minimum wage is $16 an hour, and Fuyao Glass was recently fined $120,000 for skirting these regulations.

In 2016 and 2017, American workers at the plant attempted to unionize, pushing back against what they felt were exploitative tasks, overly long hours, and bad pay.

“In the end, the union effort fails, and its Chinese managers start replacing workers with machines,” Bloomberg summarizes.  

Work Culture Shock

American Factory raises complex and often difficult questions about industrial competition and work culture in an age of increasing globalization, and more recently, in the backdrop of the U.S.-China trade war.

Historically, American law and society has tried to improve the conditions and status of blue-collar workers. At the same time, large-scale trade with developing countries, chief among them China, has seen many U.S. manufacturers compelled to move production abroad, where labor and environmental protection laws are lighter or not as strictly enforced, or be outcompeted.

The conflicts between Fuyao’s management and the local workers, particularly their efforts to unionize and the differences in expectations between Chinese and American staff, gave these abstract concerns a personalized face.

“The Chinese work longer hours, pay little attention to safety and offer little push-back against their bosses’ demands,” Bloomberg notes.

Fuyao has spent $1 million to prevent the formation of any union, and company head, Chairman Cao, stated in the film that Fuyao would close the factory if workers successfully unionized.

Despite these harsh measures, the plant has found no shortage of willing workers, given the scarcity of jobs in the Rust Belt.

The Cost of Competitiveness

The 115-minute American Factory is the first production of the new company Higher Ground, owned by former U.S. President and first lady Barack and Michelle Obama. It premiered in the United States on Aug. 21, and was also seen hundreds of thousands of times in mainland China. There, the film was not officially screened, but shared by enthusiasts on streaming sites. It has yet to be banned.

After introducing the situation at the Dayton factory, the documentary shows viewers the company’s plant in Fuqing, the city where Fuyao is based. Workers come from the “floating population” of impoverished migrant workers who hail from the country’s vast but underdeveloped interior. They live in factory-owned dorms and are made to work 12 hours a day.

The workers have to chant slogans in the morning, pledging that they will work harder. They can only go home about once or twice a year, and are often made to pick up shattered glass with scant protection.

Many Chinese viewers commended the American workers for attempting to stand up to their employers. Meanwhile, Chinese state media used the documentary to point at what they described as the economic weaknesses of the United States in the ongoing trade war.

For U.S. President Donald Trump, the Rust Belt region and other areas affected by the loss of the manufacturing are an important aspect of his popularity. Trump won the votes of these regions by pledging to bring back businesses and jobs. He has also criticized China for leveraging its authoritarian system to undercut the United States and other countries, rather than improve domestic conditions.

It may be hard, and probably outright unethical, to outcompete Chinese producers on a level playing field, as the latter have far more power over their workers than would be acceptable in the United States.

Fuyao chairman Cao not only heads the company’s union in Fuqing, but is also the leader of the local Communist Party. He admits that the company owes a lot to its government backing.