In the Thomas Balmès-directed documentary A DECENT FACTORY, Finnish cell phone company Nokia resolves to enforce ethical standards in their business practices and enlists the help of an outside consultant, Louise Jamison. Led by Nokia executive Hanna Kaskinen, a team travels to China to visit one of their supplying factories, staffed by quiet young men and women completing repetitive, endless tasks. The initially cordial visit quickly turns contentious as the reality of the poor working
conditions, mistreatment, and lack of proper compensation are revealed. The first such instance is the discovery of hazardous chemicals being stored in the women's restroom next to drinking water and cups. After being asked to remove the chemicals, a member of factory management orders their immediate relocation to the kitchen--not exactly a practical solution.The findings presented in A DECENT FACTORY do not come as a surprise, but they are nonetheless moving. As the filmmakers visit one of the female dormitories (men and women are kept separate and forbidden to be romantically involved), the squalid rooms are brightened by posters and potted flowers. Interviews with the workers are further revealing, as they detail the low pay, bad food, and abusive tactics of their supervisors on the factory floor. By film's end, it becomes clear that Nokia's team members must be patient and wait for conditions to slowly improve. A DECENT FACTORY illustrates that reform is sometimes not sweeping, but instead a gradual and difficult journey.
Though it lacks a focus or greater artistic vision, Thomas Balmès' no-frills documentary offers Westerners a valuable glimpse into the sweatshops of the new China.
Ethical capitalism may sound like an oxymoron to some, but that concept is a linchpin of this cursory, irritatingly facile look at the human cost of globalization.
Unintentionally funny is still funny, and the documentary A Decent Factory, which opens with a misspelled quotation from Milton Friedman, had me giggling.
Thomas Balmés's fly-on-the-wall documentary uses your cell phone charger as a case study in how multibillion-dollar multinationals are dealing with multihorrible working conditions in the overseas plants run by their subcontractors.
Spotlights what definitely does not come with your Nokia cell phone: who assembled all those microscopic parts, in what country, and whether or not they were paid minimum wage.
Spotlights what definitely does not come with your Nokia cell phone: who assembled all those microscopic parts, in what country, and whether or not they were paid minimum wage.
What follows during an assembly plant inspection is a more specific exposé on outsourcing in the developing world than last year's fact-filled The Corporation.
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