
Culture Clash at a Chinese-Owned Plant in Ohio - vthallam
https://www.nytimes.com/2017/06/10/business/economy/ohio-factory-jobs-china.html
======
bduerst
Glass is heavy and brittle, making it both expensive and difficult to ship.

Many glass mills need to be within a certain mile radius of the factories they
supply because of this. NYT missed this in the article.

~~~
hourislate
The Chinese ship plenty of glass to NA. The weight is of no consequence since
freight is charged per volume (40' container, 20' container). Typically a 40
ft container from China to NY State is about $3600-$4200 depending on the
Logistics Company and time of year. Many of the Condo's in Toronto, Canada
(condo capital of the world) are faced with Chinese glass. Glass is typically
compromised when it is not packed or stored correctly. It is actually quite
durable and is shipped from all over the world. A good example is the glass
Apple used for its new campus, it came from Germany.

I think the problem here is "Just in Time" delivery to the Auto Manufacturers.
It takes about 12 days on the water and another 5 on rail to reach the rust
belt or east coast. So that is probably why they decided to start producing in
the USA so they can meet tighter production and delivery schedules and take
shipping lines/ports out of the equation.

~~~
Natsu
From back when I was working in that industry, I was told we couldn't really
compete on price with China. They were trying to get glass from China because
it was cheaper than what we could make in our own float plants. We were trying
to compete on quality, that is to say, delivering less broken or damaged
glass.

That said, you're right--I don't remember too much trouble shipping raw glass.
It was just coated in Lucite and the first sheet is always a write-off. We had
more trouble when people had packs fall when trying to load them into the
gantry every so often, though broken sheets were quite a pain to deal with
sometimes more from a safety perspective, when the crane can't get suction on
it to drop it and it's too big to safely handle.

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analyst74
Out of curiosity, is it a common practice to require foreign companies opening
American branches to have a "predominantly American management corps"?

I always assumed that multi-national companies tend to send executives from
their headquarters for strategic decision making, and only hire local managers
for execution.

~~~
nichtich
And the factory is set up by the Chinese company. It would be an
understandable demand to insists on local management if the Chinese bought the
already existing local operation. But for a brand new operation it's a weird
thing to ask.

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grapeshot
Reminds me of what happened in the 1980s with Japanese buyouts of American TV
manufacturers.

[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aesJTsZqm6c](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aesJTsZqm6c)

I don't know if history offers any good solutions here though.

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omegaworks
>Such lapses are common in the brutally competitive auto parts industry... but
they can easily lead to amputation or even death.

This is exactly why these regulations need to exist and be enforced as
strictly and evenhandedly as possible. If they didn't exist, your competitors
will implement any measure, including ones that compromise worker safety, to
undercut your prices. Market forces will attempt to shape this industry to be
the leanest it can possibly be.

Capitalism can grind fungible labor into a literal pulp if it is allowed.

~~~
fma
Yep. Lack of regulation can affect more than just the employees. If that plant
can pollute like they do in China - everyone in that city would all have a
negative impact. The Republican administration believes regulation is bad and
must be removed. It's a shame what people would believe in the name of 'jobs'.

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arthur_trudeau
It's somewhat surprising for the NYT to put forward the proposition that
ethnocentrism and disregard for worker safety is a part of Chinese culture,
but I guess I'll take their new wokeness as a sign of progress.

~~~
shangxiao
I think it's worth pointing out that this appears to be mainly Chinese culture
from the mainland. Chinese from other areas like Hong Kong and Taiwan seem to
be completely different. When I visited Taipei I was pleasantly surprised to
see how polite these people were, they lined up in queues to board their
subway!

~~~
lacampbell
Taiwanese people love queueing. Queueing for the train, queueing waiting for
the bus, and - of course - queueing around the block to wait to eat at a
'famous' restaurant (:

~~~
cbhl
My Taiwanese parents were the sort to enter a large queue without knowing what
it was for, because whatever was at the end of it was bound to be good.

~~~
duncan_bayne
Are you sure they weren't English? :)

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tuna-piano
China is a gigantic investor in the USA. Whenever you hear the term "trade
deficit" that the US has to China, there is an identical amount in "investment
surplus" that the US gets from China.

That investment is everywhere - in our stock market, in our government debt,
in our real estate and in our Ohio Windshield plants.

Every time you buy an iPhone, you're handing China hundreds of dollars which
they then invest in America.

We very literally gave them a Windshield plant in exchange for consumer goods.

[https://www.forbes.com/sites/timworstall/2016/05/16/that-
chi...](https://www.forbes.com/sites/timworstall/2016/05/16/that-china-trade-
deficit-comes-back-to-the-us-110-billion-into-real-estate-alone/#76342d974653)

~~~
nickpsecurity
The author of your link keeps repeating that things will balance simply
because they will balance. That sounds like "what I say is true because I say
it is true." Is there proof of this beyond the author's mere assertions?

Also, the author says we pay for stuff that turns into capital for them. They
use that capital to create more businesses or own more stuff here. That
doesn't sound like it's going to balance for the U.S.. It sounds more like
they'll progressively have more ownership, market share, and revenues over
time.

~~~
rukittenme
I suppose you could look at it in the classical economic sense. I give you $1
because I value it less than a cheeseburger. You give me a cheeseburger
because you value it less than a $1.

I don't think that means things even out between US and China. But I do think
it means things even out overall. We may "lose" with China and "win" with
others. But ultimately, as long as people are spending their own money (as
they _want_ to spend it) I can't see how a trade deficit/surplus will ever
affect them.

~~~
Spooky23
The US model right now is is exporting cash and hard assets in exchange for
mostly consumable goods. It's a pretty obvious bad idea.

It's ok in the sense that it isn't a moral hazard. But it's bad in that we're
exporting our wealth and hollowing out the country.

~~~
MR4D
I question the comment about not being a moral hazard. It's almost like a
free-rider problem, but shifted in time instead of person.

Not saying you're wrong, just questioning it's assumption in economics.

~~~
Spooky23
It's a good point. Economics as practiced today is very "transactional" vs
looking at the long term.

It's pretty obvious that we've morphed into a poorer country over the last 30
years. We've also shifted our thinking about prosperity from employment to
GDP.

Also there's no concept of nationalism in modern economics, and many advocates
for the current way of doing stuff inject revisionist social agendas to the
mix. (I.e. Why should Westerners be privileged?)

------
lacampbell
I am glad that in some countries there is still an ethos of standing up for
your own citizens. I couldn't imagine any action being taken against a Chinese
company for discriminatory hiring practices in New Zealand or Australia, where
such discrimination is rampant, not only in employment but also in real
estate.

~~~
andreiw
I dunno. Reading this article left a bad taste in my mouth. It wasn't the
Chinese that turned a large portion of industrial America into a rusty meth-
infused wasteland, yet it is the Chinese that are opening these factories. I
applaud a desire to maintain safety standards, but if it wasn't for Fuyao,
there wouldn't be anyone to unionize, you know?

~~~
vthallam
So, that's what all it comes down to I guess. Like, be happy because there are
jobs in the first place or unionise, make them accountable for all kinds of
regulations and give them a hard time?

Maybe the Chinese or perhaps anyone wouldn't have invested in the first place
if they think they can not generate enough profits to sustain, so giving an
easy pass for safety standards or any regulations would encourage this.

~~~
TheBobinator
Over the long-term, the way Americans are fighting Communism is by introducing
capital to modernize China which in turn should raise a middle class and cause
them to evaluate capitalism on its merits. This is part of that struggle, and
an attempt to avoid a bloody war if China were to decide on rapidly
modernizing like Japan did pre-WW2. So I'd say China can take their trade and
their factories and shove it, but that wouldn't be playing the culture war
card.

The Chinese expect to open plants here and run them in the same subjugated way
they do in China because that's their culture. They view the US as something
to conquer. What they're going to realize very quickly is that this endeavor
is a lot like trying to herd cockroaches who know how to use gunpowder. Before
you know it, they've laid traps you don't even know about in the walls.

Trump's a warning shot across the bow of foreign powers and the establishment
that the American public aren't going to put up with the lack of a social
contract and continuous exploitation forever. He's not going to get a lot
done, but that's part of the point; he's showing them that there are
repercussions to economic warfare and subjugation.

I doubt the plant is going to be there in a few years. They are going to deal
with everything from EEOC lawsuits to unions being unreasonable because of the
way promotions are done. They won't be able to shake that. Period. The only
way to shake a union is to shut down long enough everyone leaves or treat
people well enough they don't feel the need.

~~~
andreiw
So destroying America's manufacturing potential in everything from textiles,
to electronics and heavy industries was all part of a scorched-earth secretive
plan to fight Communism in China?

~~~
paulmd
Meanwhile, back in the "reality-based community"...

[https://danielmiessler.com/images/mfg1.jpg](https://danielmiessler.com/images/mfg1.jpg)

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nfriedly
I drive past this plant on occasion, and I think it's been a generally
positive impact on the area. It was kind of sad when the old GM plant shut
down and sat empty for several years.

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k_sze
"Fuyao faces [...] a lawsuit by a former manager who says he was let go in
part because he is not Chinese."

Somehow the opposite scenario could sound absurd in China. Imagine "General
Motors in China faces a lawsuit by a former manager who says he was let go in
part because he is not white."

I'm not implying anything. I'm just pointing out that _for some reason_ , that
scenario could sound absurd, even if irrationally so. It might not have to do
with differences of the judicial systems, but with differences in value and
prejudice between the two cultures.

------
nodesocket
Makes absolute sense for Fuyao to move where their customers are. I also
applaud the US growth and job creation they are creating in the process.

~~~
jacquesm
Those jobs were historically there to begin with, then tooling + process +
jobs were shipped overseas because that was cheaper, the resulting trade
surplus made it possible for the Chinese to ship the factory back to the
United States.

The big question then is can they remain profitable in the long run if they do
things the US way, and if they can why couldn't the same plant be owned and
operated by Americans?

~~~
nickpsecurity
"and if they can why couldn't the same plant be owned and operated by
Americans?"

You already know the answer to that. It's why they shipped the jobs overseas
in the first place. In many cases, the workers even keep voting for the kinds
of people that do it. I especially found it amusing that Trump was appealing
as a capitalist to workers whose jobs were lost due to capitalism like this.
Many of these areas are self-defeating. Not all but many.

~~~
Sunset
Ah yes, all of those protectionist politicians who want to levy import taxes.
Do you even listen to yourself?

~~~
nickpsecurity
Have they passed one of those with a majority Democrat or Republican Congress?
Or have they just "wanted" to levy import taxes? The actual legislation seems
to favor globalization over protectionism. I think TPP showed more their true
colors where they tried to expand globalization but including very, specific
provisions to protect the profits of very, specific companies or groups of
them here. Some of those companies were themselves helping do the deal. They
didn't care about American jobs: just the profits of big companies that
donated to them.

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jbscpa
"Take This Job and Shove It"

A corporate executive is assigned to help improve the efficiency of a small-
town brewery in this comedy inspired by the Johnny Paycheck song. When the
small town turns out to be his old hometown, however, the executive finds
himself torn between his loyalties to his company and his old friends.

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MachinShinn-
Do you know why manufacturing left America? It has nothing to do with costs.
It has everything to do with regulations and attitudes.

If you want a manufacturing industry, workers WILL get killed on site. Workers
WILL get cancer from dangerous chemicals. There's no free lunch. Everyone
knows this, but somehow we care more about a high school dropout getting
exposed to fumes in a factory than one that ODs on heroin because he has zero
job prospects.

Either blue collar workers die at 65-70 after a lifetime of work related
exposure, or they die at 30 due to drug overdose. Those are your 2 and only 2
choices.

~~~
rhcom2
Why are those the only two options? Why can't we continue make manufacturing
safer like we have been since the Triangle Shirtwaist Factory fire?

~~~
someguydave
Because at a certain point increasing safety regulation causes production
under a regime to be less profitable than moving to another country with fewer
safety rules. Regulators are usually not punished for destroying profit and
are usually incentivized to choose safety over private profit.

~~~
legacynl
What's the point in making profit if it gets people killed?

What do you think the ultimate goal is? More money? Better lives?

