It is massive. One of their bigger plant has up to half a million factory workers. It negotiate with the local county and provincial government and the villagers for huge pieces of land to setup their own 'city' the size of Disneyworld, and in exchange the villagers in the middle of nowhere get to start businesses, build homes for a sudden influx of 500k people and become overnight millionaires.
The people who work in these mega factories are usually from farming communities that are around 16-24 years old. Base salary from public internet source is about $2k RMB (or about $300US) per month, then there's the overtime that can boost it 50% if you take 6 day work week with 10-12 hour shift each. Then if you are good and take some English training (at your own cost), you can apply for the more senior positions that works with English language equipments or "supervise" fresh labors. Those probably have a base salary of about $3k RMB (about $400US) per month. I heard the salary isn't anything to write home about, but at least it is a job and you get to go away from home to "experience life" for a while (like going away for college). Most of the local, middle class people don't bother working in these places as they have better educations and rather go to college (if possible) or work in businesses / governments.
There are suicide and death once in a while, but it happens in most town with 500k populations of young people. Nobody knows the truth in China about the cause of suicide. The security is really tight as no phones/cameras/laptops/USB drives are allowed. If a product is lost in the assembly line, the worker got fired (and according to urban legend, got beaten up by the security force / triad / gang), the supervisors 3 level up got their bonus cut in half. Most employees tend to fear even lend a device to the customer's engineers on the spot for testing, and would want supervisor to sign off to even borrow it on the spot without being out of their sight.
Most of the conversation I overheard when in the factory between coworkers are "love life" and "entertainment" related like college students:
"Hey, you know that girl we went to movie with last week? She's old, like 29"
"Finding love is hard, it is not like buying stuff, she has to like you just like you have to like her too"
"Who cares if your parents don't agree with you marrying your boy friend, just get pregnant and go home with the kid, what are they going to do about it"
"I don't like ice skating, who knows what you are going to do if you take a fall, even if you are safe if someone land on you with the blade your body parts might get crushed. Beside, the whole place stink like dirty shoes so why bother"
The buildings' condition I'd have to say is, not that great. Most of them used to be horrible according to my coworkers. The toilet stalls have a slit crossing all of them and a flush means water going from stall 1 travel all the way to stall 5 when you squat on top of one of them. Then they "upgrade" it to individually flushed squat toilet and later to sitting toilets with ventilation and mosquito incent. The janitors used to be not trained and use the same mop for the toilets and the office, so many people got sick. Now the office area get painted wall (low quality that doesn't cover all the spots at the edge) and laminated floor, and sufficient lighting (50% of US standard).
The factory floor has less lighting (25% of US standard) and are very crowded by US standard. Workers have about 2x2 feet of work space and about 20 supervisors / engineers share a 300 sqft office. Think of a typical US company hierachy and attach individual workers with 6-10 worker bees, that's how it look like there.
Workers take break in the driveway/parking lot in groups like high school. I think I've seen ash tray as big as catering tray because there're usually 30-50 smoking at the same time.
The people who work in these mega factories are usually from farming communities that are around 16-24 years old. Base salary from public internet source is about $2k RMB (or about $300US) per month, then there's the overtime that can boost it 50% if you take 6 day work week with 10-12 hour shift each. Then if you are good and take some English training (at your own cost), you can apply for the more senior positions that works with English language equipments or "supervise" fresh labors. Those probably have a base salary of about $3k RMB (about $400US) per month. I heard the salary isn't anything to write home about, but at least it is a job and you get to go away from home to "experience life" for a while (like going away for college). Most of the local, middle class people don't bother working in these places as they have better educations and rather go to college (if possible) or work in businesses / governments.
There are suicide and death once in a while, but it happens in most town with 500k populations of young people. Nobody knows the truth in China about the cause of suicide. The security is really tight as no phones/cameras/laptops/USB drives are allowed. If a product is lost in the assembly line, the worker got fired (and according to urban legend, got beaten up by the security force / triad / gang), the supervisors 3 level up got their bonus cut in half. Most employees tend to fear even lend a device to the customer's engineers on the spot for testing, and would want supervisor to sign off to even borrow it on the spot without being out of their sight.
Most of the conversation I overheard when in the factory between coworkers are "love life" and "entertainment" related like college students:
"Hey, you know that girl we went to movie with last week? She's old, like 29"
"Finding love is hard, it is not like buying stuff, she has to like you just like you have to like her too"
"Who cares if your parents don't agree with you marrying your boy friend, just get pregnant and go home with the kid, what are they going to do about it"
"I don't like ice skating, who knows what you are going to do if you take a fall, even if you are safe if someone land on you with the blade your body parts might get crushed. Beside, the whole place stink like dirty shoes so why bother"
The buildings' condition I'd have to say is, not that great. Most of them used to be horrible according to my coworkers. The toilet stalls have a slit crossing all of them and a flush means water going from stall 1 travel all the way to stall 5 when you squat on top of one of them. Then they "upgrade" it to individually flushed squat toilet and later to sitting toilets with ventilation and mosquito incent. The janitors used to be not trained and use the same mop for the toilets and the office, so many people got sick. Now the office area get painted wall (low quality that doesn't cover all the spots at the edge) and laminated floor, and sufficient lighting (50% of US standard).
The factory floor has less lighting (25% of US standard) and are very crowded by US standard. Workers have about 2x2 feet of work space and about 20 supervisors / engineers share a 300 sqft office. Think of a typical US company hierachy and attach individual workers with 6-10 worker bees, that's how it look like there.
Workers take break in the driveway/parking lot in groups like high school. I think I've seen ash tray as big as catering tray because there're usually 30-50 smoking at the same time.
