A Decent Factory

[2005, Movie]

A Decent Factory: Review

There are no scenes of sweltering sweatshops in this subtle but telling documentary, nor do we see children chained to looms or poor pregnant women forced to harvest pesticide-soaked crops. Instead of the usual horrors associated with unregulated labor practices in impoverished countries, this film exposes a more insidious kind of exploitation, one far more difficult to detect. In an attempt to maintain a higher standard of "corporate social responsibility," the Finnish mobile-phone giant Nokia began taking a closer look at the foreign companies it contracted to manufacture Nokia products. Hanna Kaskinen, the company's in-house ethical auditor, and British ethics consultant Louise Jamison, arranged to conduct an on-site "ethical assessment" at one of their China-based suppliers in order to ensure that Nokia's products aren't, in Hanna's words, "stained with the blood of the children of Asia." Once they arrive in Shenzhen, China, where a German-owned factory manufactures Nokia charging units, their initial relief is palpable: The factory, overseen by a British and Chinese management team, appears to be clean, safe and efficiently managed, and its mostly female workers seem relatively content. There are a few troubling signs of carelessness — toxic chemicals left too close to the employees' teacups and drinking water, the poorly ventilated varnishing room — but on the whole things seem to be in tip-top shape and on the level. The managers freely own up to the fact that workers have no contracts because the factory does not conform to local labor laws, and they openly discuss the difference between what the law requires and what the market demands. Once Kaskinen and Jamison examine the company's payroll books — the real books, not the set kept for government regulators — they see exactly how the company uses inflated overtime premiums to conceal the fact that employees earn less than minimum wage. French filmmaker Thomas Balmes is no Michael Moore — thankfully, there are no contrived confrontations or dramatic ambushes — but his fly-on-the-wall approach doesn't allow him to ask the questions Kaskinen and Jamison — both of whom are on the Nokia payroll — avoid. To what extent is Nokia committed to fairly compensating the employees toiling away in a factory halfway around the world? Is the company simply responding to pressures now being asserted by ethical investment companies who might steer potential investors away from a company? Is Nokia's strategy ultimately just a more benign form of profit-over-people? The absence of these questions — and the fact that Kaskinen left the company soon after this ethical audit — speak volumes. --Ken Fox

TV Guide Spotlight

Photo courtesy First Run/Icarus FIlms

A Decent Factory

[2005, Movie]

A Decent Factory: Review

Advertisement

TV Guide Spotlight