China and the United States. The two superpowers of the 21st Century trying to gain economic superiority in any way they can, in their own ways. American Factory showcases the front lines of that war at a plant in Dayton Ohio. It’s a brilliant modern tale of an economic war between cultures that don’t truly understand each other, and create a ton of damage to good hard working people in the process.
Of all the parts of the United States hit hardest by the great recession of 2008, the Rust Belt has to be near the top of the list. Dayton Ohio, housing a General Motors plant used to be a key backbone of the auto industry, but that plant had to close in 2008. Out of nowhere, in 2014, hope comes in the form of the Fuyao glass company, owned by Chinese CEO Cho Tak Wong. The documentary then takes us to the Fuyao plant’s evolution to the present day, giving us access to management’s decision making as well as the plight of the workers on the ground.
American Factory is a brilliant showcase of the similarities and differences between American and Chinese Cultures. The CEO initially takes the correct approach, merging American and Chinese workers together including in management positions, and at least providing training courses on the Chinese workers for characteristics of the American worker. Wong hoped this integration would help cross pollinate the cultures and lead to hard working profit driven workers. However, the CEO’s tentative trust in the American managers is slowly eaten away by factors outside of the managers’ control. The United Auto Workers (UAW) Union spectre hangs over the facility, wanting to get the workers to unionize, and political figures like Sherrod Brown (Ohio senator) put pressure on the CEO publicly at the Fuyao plant opening, pissing off the CEO. In addition, OSHA, which dictates how to treat and regulate working conditions in the United States, was clearly unknown to the Chinese company. The team assumes American workers are lazy because they want 8 hour shifts with a lunch break and refuse mandatory overtime on weekends. Conversely the American management is shocked when they go to China and see how overworked and overpowered the Fuyao employees are in Chinese plants, because no such regulations exist yet for the working class there. These wrong assumptions lead to the Chinese management to push out the American managers and rule over the American workers like a fascist government, making them take more hours and insisting they do it because they’re part of a “family.”
We also get to see these changes from the workers point of view, both Chinese and American. You see pieces of both cultures rub off on one other, with the boots on the ground employees developing a mutual respect for one another. Some American workers adopt the family concept and take their Chinese counterparts fishing or to gun ranges, and conversely, the Chinese workers start to speak out a little more like Americans, pointing out how they haven’t seen families in years while taking this job was good for their work family. As times goes on, the power structure instills the Chinese culture into the American plant, creating more and more frustrated American workers who reach out to the UAW for support. When they do, some of the Chinese workers totally buying into Fuyao’s cause start acting as spies and put those pro-union workers in jobs that are designed to fail, giving the company a reason to fire them. So why do these American workers put up with it? Because in the Rust Belt, there isn’t another option, so they put their head down and do the best they can, without any support from their management “family” who’s now considering just automating their jobs away.
My only real complaint about American Factory is that it needs a part 2 to study the effects of automation on the workers. As is, the documentary is a comprehensive look at a host of subjects, the global manufacturing industry, differences and similarities between East and West, the power (or lack thereof) of the working class, developing vs. developed countries, etc. It’s been a long time since I’ve been riveted by a modern tale, but American Factory is about is modern, and unfortunately ominous, as one of those tales can get.