Like all of our industries here in the United States, the bicycle industry is now dependent upon Chinese factories and workers to an unprecedented level. This is because our economic bosses are trying to take advantage of what they have viewed as a limitless pool of workers willing to rent their minds and bodies for wages less than two percent of the wages of their American counterparts.
The decisions that the "captains of industry" have been making over the last thirty years have devastated our economy here at home. With eyes fixed on raising profits every quarter, the longer term goals of our economy have been nearly totally ignored.
For an example in the bicycle industry, you can look at Huffy Bicycles. In July 1998 the Huffy Corporation closed its Celina, Ohio plant. It laid off 975 workers, many of whom had worked for decades for this corporation. The justification for this decision was that the company had to cut costs. This meant that they would fire unionized American workers (members of United Steelworkers of America) who made $11 dollars per hour (plus an additional $6 per hour worth of benefits), so that they could then hire Chinese workers who would work for 25-41 cents per hour.
The idea of cutting costs by reducing the CEO's pay was not considered as far as I can tell. In fact the CEO's pay was increased in the same year by 11.4 percent, bringing his yearly salary up to a respectable $771,091.00.
These are also decisions that are being made to increase the profit of a company that in that year of 1998 made $97,500,000 in profit out of the $584,000,000 in sales.
This is why real wages have not increased in our country in thirty years ... despite "the fundamentals of our economy being sound".
To quote Warren Buffet "There's class warfare, all right, but it's my class, the rich class, that's making war, and we're winning."
- New York Times, November 26, 2006.
With all of this as a backdrop, Animal BMX company has gone to visit the production of their clothing in China. I have to give the folks at Animal props here, not for making their clothes in China ... but for going to the factory, taking pictures, and showing everyone the reality of how things are made on their website. That is something that is pretty unique in the bicycle industry. If you go to everyone elses websites it seems like if they don't make the stuff here it just magically gets made and appears on retailers shelves.
http://animalbikes.com/blog/news/shanghai
http://animalbikes.com/blog/news/shanghai-day-1
http://animalbikes.com/blog/news/shanghai-day-2
http://animalbikes.com/blog/news/shanghai-day-3
There are also some nice pictures of the sponsored riders doing some huge bunny hops and and barspins on the streets of Shanghai.
This isn't the whole story either though. In recent years Chinese workers have been making gains toward improving their working condtions (to the chagrin of the rich class Mr. Buffet spoke of).
I saw this article in the NY times a few months ago:
http://www.nytimes.com/2007/08/29/business/worldbusiness/29labor.html?pagewanted=print
It tells the story of workers in China having their wages increase in a dramatic way because that limitless pool of poor migrant Chinese labor is drying up. As their example they use the Dahon folding bicycle factory. I think this is an encouraging sign for both the American and Chinese working class.
Heck ... Chinese workers have even organized a union at Wal-Mart.
http://rawstory.com/news/2008/First_WalMart_union_begins_in_China_0803.html
Like I said, our global economy is a complicated beast.
notes:
http://www.responsiblewealth.org/shareholder/2000/huffy.html
http://www.nlcnet.org/reports.php?id=265
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