Dongguan, the factory of the world
Oppo’s factory is located in a city in southeast China called Dongguan. The journey takes one hour from the center of Shenzhen and the best way to get there is by truck, from where you can see a strong contrast between the economic activities that both cities support.
On the one hand, in Shenzhen are the corporate offices of all kinds of companies, although technology ones stand out, such as Oppo, as well as other skyscrapers that house personnel from Alibaba, Baidu, Lenovo or Hisense, among others. On the other hand, Dongguan is known as the factory of the world.
Within this city of just over 8.3 million inhabitants there are more than 10,000 factories of companies with a strong focus on those of technology and electronics, such as Oppo, Samsung, Huawei or Nikon, which shows their strong commitment to investment direct foreigner.
Here, as in other areas of China, factories become small cities, as workers have housing areas where they live and have all kinds of facilities, from recreation and exercise areas, cafeterias, to their rooms where they can rest.
For the Chinese government, these types of organizations do not represent a problem, as long as they comply with strict labor laws, says a source familiar with the matter who preferred anonymity.
“The government makes sure that companies do not abuse workers,” he mentions and details that all companies must comply with a standard of living for their employees, who are informed that they will be provided during their work period in the company, from food to recreation, such as gyms and fields for various sports, something that seems attractive to them.
However, these types of factories have not been far from controversy. In November of last year, the Foxconn plant in Zhengzhou became one of the most important places of the technological year, since strong protests were registered there by employees, who complained about the working conditions in which they were they found.
During that period, the company that is a manufacturing partner for Apple’s iPhones, went through one of the most critical moments due to layoffs, non-payment of workers’ wages, in addition to the strong measures that the government was still implementing at that time. So to contain the covid-19 pandemic.
Some media reported that the situation was so intense for the workers that many of them could not return to their homes -which are even close to the factories- and decided to sleep on the ground or in areas that were not suitable for habitation, only with the in order to continue working.
“I can’t say if (the workers) are happy or not,” he concludes. “It is the way they have built their life, if they had another option, maybe they would take it, but for many of them they may not have enough skills for other types of jobs and therefore they opt for factories.”