Executive Summary

In March 2001, three international shoe companies, three Taiwan-based contract manufacturers, and four Hong Kong-based labor rights non-governmental organizations (NGOs) agreed to a joint project. The project had two primary goals: 1) to train workers, supervisors and managers in three footwear factories in the Pearl River Delta area of China in occupational safety and health principles; and 2) to establish plant-wide health and safety committees with workers as full, active members of the committees. The parties agreed to a set of common goals that governed the project, and also formed a project Coordinating Committee consisting of representatives from each participating organization.

The project lasted over two years in total and included a series of organizational meetings, a formal needs assessment process with stakeholders, curriculum development, a training, capacity building and committee support efforts, individual committee initiatives, and an evaluation process.

In August 2001 the training of 90 people occurred at the 30,000-worker Yue Yuen II shoe factory in Dongguan City involving the international brands adidas-Salomon, Nike, and Reebok; workers and supervisors from three contact factories, Kong Tai Shoes, Pegasus Shoes and Yue Yuen II; and four NGOs, Asia Monitor Resource Center, Chinese Working Women Network, Hong Kong Christian Industrial Committee, and Hong Kong Confederation of Trade Unions.

The four-day training workshop was designed to involve participants in an action-based learning process. Topics were presented in the classroom using a range of participatory training methods, including small group exercises, role playing, games, and visual demonstrations. Significant training time was also devoted to hands-on exercises and walk-around inspections in the production areas of the plant. The six-person team of instructors included trainers from the Labor Occupational Health Program at the University of California at Berkeley, the Maquiladora Health and Safety Support Network, the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, and Hong Kong University of Science and Technology.

In the three-month period following the August 2001 Dongguan training, each of the three factories established plant-wide health and safety committees involving workers as full and active members of the committees. Each of the committees at Kong Tai Shoes, Pegasus and Yue Yuen II are still in the initial phase of organizing themselves and expanding their reach and impact in the very large factories involved. Each of the committees has its own set of strengths and weaknesses, and its own set of priorities. However, the Project Coordinating Committee in March 2002 identified the following overall successes in this initial period:

• Plant-wide health and safety committees with significant worker participation were established in the three plants, qualitatively changing the character of previous management safety committees and improving communication between departments;
• Members of these committees received professional training and increased their understanding of the basic principles of occupational health and safety;
• Identification and correction of a significant number of hazards on the plant floor that were previously unrecognized, or not previously corrected despite their identification by workers on the shop floor;
• Up-to-date materials on key workplace safety topics in Chinese are now available;
• Collaboration between the three plants’ committees to further enhance their scope and effectiveness is now possible;
• Training participants gained knowledge not only of occupational health topics, but also understanding of how committees organize themselves and carry out ongoing activities;
• Training participants gained a better understanding of concepts such as "worker participation and empowerment" and the barriers and obstacles to realizing these goals;
• An increased level of dialogue between plant management, international brands and NGOs has occurred, laying the basis for additional joint projects on the issue of workplace health and safety;

The project has resulted in the creation of young, but functioning, worker-management committees, including one committee supported by a democratically elected union. These committees are the first step in building systems for worker participation in evaluating and improving health, safety, and environmental conditions inside these factories. The committees, and their members, are learning how to effectively transfer this information to factory managers, brand labor practice staff, and NGOs outside the factories. The committees are working to develop new and safer mechanisms for workers to report problems, new processes for identifying and eliminating hazards, and new systems of corporate accountability.

There have been several keys to the progress of this initiative.

First, there has been the participation and cooperation of different stakeholders who have taken a risk to collaborate with one another. The three international brands sat at the table across from their NGO critics and encouraged their contractors to participate. The contractors risked opening their facilities to the NGOs and to their competitors. The NGOs risked "being used" in a "public relations exercise" and other political problems by working with the brands. In the end, however, all of the participants gained from their cooperation.

Second, there has been the centrality of workers to the process. All of the stakeholders agreed that building worker capacity and participation is beneficial to improving conditions inside these factories. This project’s focus on worker empowerment has moved the process beyond past debates about codes and monitoring to practical, hands-on considerations about how best to achieve this goal.

This project focused squarely on capacity-building and collaborative learning. As participants have come to understand, there are no easy answers to improving conditions in these factories. This project has thus moved forward as an experimental and learning initiative. The longer-term vision is to build on this project and other pilot initiatives to advance larger-scale efforts to develop systems of monitoring and worker participation. The experience of initiating and assisting health and safety committees in these three factories may lay the basis for developing more extensive systems of worker participation and external processes of corporate responsibility in China, as well as other parts of the world.

There is no one perfect model for improving factory conditions in China, nor is there one single model that can be easily scaled up. However, each of these three factories, in its own way, has made changes which point the way towards improved systems of worker participation and worker-management collaboration to reduce hazards in factories producing goods for global consumers.

This project began with a series of simultaneous conversations with leading footwear manufacturers, non-governmental organizations (NGOs), and the MacArthur Foundation about improving occupational health and safety conditions in footwear factories in China. Meetings were held in the fall of 1999 with Nike, Reebok, adidas, and a number of NGOs in Hong Kong and southern China to agree on the general outlines and goals of a project to build the health and safety capacity of interested stakeholders.

In July 2000, Professor Dara O’Rourke of Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) and Garrett Brown, Coordinator of the Maquiladora Health and Safety Support Network (MHSSN) proposed that adidas-Salomon host a health and safety training at one of its sports shoe facilities in Guangdong Province, China. O’Rourke and Brown held further discussions in the fall of 2000 with adidas, Yue Yuen (a subsidiary of the Pou Chen group) which operates a large complex of footwear factories in Dongguan City, Reebok and Nike, and with representatives of several labor rights NGOs in Hong Kong.

On November 30, 2000, a meeting was held at adidas’ Hong Kong offices to formally initiate the health and safety training project at the Yue Yuen II plant in Dongguan City. Present at the meeting were representatives of adidas, Reebok, Nike, Yue Yuen (contractor for adidas), Kong Tai Shoes (KTS - contractor for Reebok), Asian Monitor Resource Center (AMRC), Hong Kong Christian Industrial Committee (HK CIC), Hong Kong Confederation of Trade Unions (HK CTU), China Labour Bulletin, Chinese Working Women Network (CWN), Labor Occupational Health Program (LOHP) at the University of California at Berkeley, and MHSSN. China Labour Bulletin later decided not to participate in the project.

The November meeting agreed to initiate a one-year capacity-building project on occupational safety and health that would include a multiple-day training at the Yue Yuen II plant involving 60 participants from the YY II, KTS and Pegasus plants, six members of the corporate responsibility staffs of the three international brands (adidas, Nike and Reebok), and 22 staff members from four NGOs (AMRC, CWN, HK CIC and HK CTU). In addition to the on-site training, the project included a post-training period of technical assistance to the three plants, which were to establish workplace health and safety committees involving the training participants.

The purpose of the project was set forth in what became the project’s governing "Memorandum of Understanding" (MOU):

"The goals and objectives of this project are the following:

1. to build the health and safety capacity of all participants (worker, supervisor/manager, labor practices staff of the international brands, and non-governmental organization (NGO) staff) to recognize, evaluate and document workplace hazards;
2. to establish baseline health and safety knowledge and inspection skills of plant health and safety committee members, and to enable in-plant workers to meaningfully participate in improving health and safety on the job;
3. to provide post-training technical assistance and support to plant health and safety committees and to NGO staff with the goal of improving conditions in the plants; and,
4. to involve US-based professionals, Hong Kong-based NGOs, international brands and China-based plant management in a collaborative process to plan, conduct and evaluate a workplace health and safety project."

Representatives from the three groups of participants — contractor plants, international brands, and NGOs — met again in February and March 2001 to finalize the MOU, which was issued on March 28, 2001.

The MOU (see Appendix 1 for the text of the agreement) established the structure and organization of the project. It represents the first-ever joint project in China involving international brands, contractor plants and labor rights NGOs to improve working conditions in factories and to establish plant-wide health and safety committees with significant worker participation.

The governing body for the project was the Coordinating Committee established by the MOU and consisting of representatives of each participating organization — international brand, contractor and NGO. A Local Project Coordinator, Juliana So of CWN, was responsible for the logistics of the training, in coordination with the lead trainer, Betty Szudy of LOHP, and Luke Lee, Project Manager for Labor Affairs at the host plant, Yue Yuen II.

In the spring of 2001, Juliana So worked with Betty Szudy to carry out a needs assessment survey with training participants (workers, supervisors, managers, and NGOs) prior to the August training.

The Coordinating Committee met before the training (June 15^th) to finalize arrangements, and then after the training (November 2001, February 2002 and March 2002) to discuss follow-up activities and evaluation of the training project.

Local Project Coordinator Juliana So visited each of the three plants in November 2001 to meet with the newly formed plant safety committees to learn of each committee’s post-training activities. She also conducted a written evaluation with all of the training participants, both from the three plants and from the NGOs.

In March 2002 a final evaluation visit was made to the three plants and with the NGO participants. The evaluation delegation consisted of project coordinators Juliana So, Dara O’Rourke and Garrett Brown, and representatives from AMRC, CWN and HK CIC. The delegation met with the full safety committees of each plant, inspected areas of each facility where the committee had made improvements, and also met with the full-time staff members coordinating the three plants’ health and safety committees.

The principal funding for the project came from a $93,000 grant from the MacArthur Foundation to Dara O’Rourke and Garrett Brown to conduct capacity-building trainings on occupational health and safety in Indonesia and China. (A description of the Indonesia activities is posted on the MHSSN’s website at: www.igc.org/mhssn ).

Because of the large size of the China training, the three international brands (adidas, Reebok and Nike) each contributed $7,700 to cover the expenses of participants coming from their facilities, and to help defray costs of translators, reproduction of the training manual, and other such costs. The entire cost of the project was $45,400, including expenses related to pre-training needs assessment and curriculum development, as well as post-training technical assistance and evaluation activities.

Special recognition and thanks go to the managements of adidas and Yue Yuen for hosting this project and for providing substantial in-kind and logistical support.

3. Developing and Conducting the August 2001 Training

Training Participants

As outlined in the MOU, the 90 participants in the training were drawn from four populations:

• shop floor-level workers of the participating plants (15 from each of the three plants);
• supervisors/managers with departmental or plant-wide responsibilities for occupational health and safety in the participating plants (5 from each of the three plants);
• labor practices/health and safety staff of the participating international brands (a total of 8 from the three companies); and
• staff members or active volunteers of the participating NGO’s in Hong Kong and China (a total of 22 from the four organizations).

The participants were intended to be individuals who were currently involved, or would play a future role, in the plant-wide or department health and safety committees. Each participating organization designed its own method for selecting its designated participants, with the understanding that the project goal was to increase the ability of the plants to initiate and sustain active workplace health and safety committees involving workers, supervisors and managers.

Participating organizations were encouraged to select shop-floor workers and supervisors in such a way that all participants would feel able to speak freely and openly during the training. They were also encouraged to have females make up at least 50 percent (or more) of the shop floor workers sent to the training, since young women are the majority of the workforce at the footwear factories. (See Appendix 2 for a complete list of training participants.)

Needs Assessment

In February 2001, LOHP’s Betty Szudy worked in partnership with Local Project Coordinator Juliana So to design, translate and carry out a thorough needs assessment with training participants (workers, supervisors, managers, and NGOs) prior to the August training. The two-page written survey was designed to learn more about participants’ specific jobs, what they hoped to learn during the training, and their current knowledge about health and safety.

Seventy-two training participants completed the written survey. The participants also met with Juliana So, Betty Szudy and Garrett Brown in March 2001 to verbally discuss their responses. The results showed that participants were particularly interested in learning about the following health and safety topics: chemicals, electrical and machine hazards, heat exposure, ergonomics and stress. They also expressed strong interest in learning about effective communication, legal rights, how health and safety committees work, and carrying out effective factory inspections. (See Appendix 3 for a summary of the needs assessment results.)

Training Agenda, Schedule and Approach

The survey results were incorporated into the design and development of the four-day training (32 hours) and curriculum. The training was designed to be very participatory and interactive, with the goal of involving participants in an action-based learning process. Topics were presented in the classroom using a range of participatory training methods, including small group exercises, role playing, games, and visual demonstrations, that involved participants in seeing, hearing, applying and evaluating the information. Significant training time was also devoted to hands-on exercises and walkaround inspections in the production areas of the plant. (See Appendix 4 for training goals and complete agenda.)

Given the size of the training group (90 people), the class was divided into two separate groups with both utilizing the same agenda (with staggered training times) and a shared training team. The six person training team included Betty Szudy and Pam Tau Lee from UC Berkeley’s LOHP, Garrett Brown from MHSSN, Dara O’Rourke from MIT, and Christine Chiu and Pak Ip, industrial hygienists on the occupational health and safety staff at Hong Kong University of Science and Technology (HUST). Apo Leung from AMRC, Barry Tang from adidas and Dr. Qiu Chuang Yi from the Guangdong Prevention and Treatment Center for Occupational Disease, each taught a workshop during the training.

The language of instruction was Mandarin Chinese. Instructors speaking in English or Cantonese Chinese were translated by rotating team of three Chinese translators while training.

Training Curriculum

The training curriculum was developed by LOHP and MHSSN and drew on a number of existing health and safety publications including the International Labor Organization series "Your Health and Safety at Work". It was designed to be easy to read, with simple definitions of key health and safety topics, and numerous pictures that helped illustrate the text. The 500-page training manual was first developed in English and then translated into Chinese with a copy for each participant. It included an extensive table of contents and 13 sections on different health and safety topics:

• Chemical Hazards
• Occupational Exposure Limits
• Controlling Hazards
• Noise
• Stress
• Ergonomics (the design of work)
• Safety Hazards
• Occupational Health and Safety Laws in China
• Effective Communication
• Health and Safety Committees
• Inspection Procedures
• Training Others
• Other Hazards: Reproduction, Emergency Response and Fire Safety

Follow-up Planning Session

On the fourth day of the training, five groups of participants (each factory, the NGOs, and the brands’ labor practices staff) met for several hours to map out a follow-up plan to the training. The entire group — all 90 participants — then met together to hear presentations of each group’s action plan.

Each of the three factory groups proposed establishing or expanding plant-wide safety committees with the training participants at their core. The brands’ representatives each pledged support for the effort at their contractor’s facility. The NGOs offered their support to the plant committees, while also elaborating plans for occupational safety and health activities internally and at other facilities.

Pre/Post Training Knowledge Surveys and Evaluation

Training participants were asked to fill out the same knowledge assessment worksheet at the first day of the four-day training and again at the end of the training. The surveys showed a significant increase in knowledge and problem-solving skills as a result of the training.

Prior to training, less than 25% of the 90 participants felt sure about their knowledge about four key health and safety concepts. After completing the training, 75% of the training participants stated they were "very sure" about their knowledge ability in the four key areas. They also reported that they learned most of what they knew about these concepts in the four-day training workshop.

Participants also showed a growth of knowledge in how health and safety committees work and problem-solving approaches as a result of the training. Prior to training, the most frequently reported way of getting additional information about health and safety problems at work was through books (23 participants). After training, a majority of participants (58) responded to this same question by writing that they would interview and communicate with workers and listen to their opinions to get additional information about problems. (See Appendix 5 for complete summary of pre/post knowledge surveys.)

Training participants were also asked to give feedback about the topics, activities, methods and usefulness of the training itself. They found the factory inspections and on-site practice to be the most useful, along with the sessions on communication, ergonomics, chemical hazards, noise and stress. They also gave positive feedback about the participatory training methods, and the opportunities to talk with instructors (through translators) at lunch and during breaks.

Following the Dongguan training each of the three plants established health and safety committees, or expanded existing structures to include the participants of the training and other workers, supervisors and managers. (See Appendix 7 for the organizational charts and assigned duties of each committee.)

The functioning of the recently formed committees was evaluated on site on two occasions in the six-month period following the training.

In November 2001, Local Project Coordinator Juliana So visited each plant and met with the safety committees. All participants in the training workshop were all asked to complete a written survey that asked them about their health and safety activities since the August training. The surveys were confidential, and asked participants to give feedback about the usefulness of the August training workshop as well as information about their specific health and safety committee activities during the previous three months.

Over half the participants reported on the written survey that they had used the materials in their binder, conducted a factory inspection at a plant, and participated in their factory’s health and safety committee since August. The survey results also showed that the health and safety committees were beginning to hold monthly meetings, setting up systems for reporting accidents, and developing outreach plans to inform workers and supervisors about the role of the committee. (See Appendix 6 for a summary of the written impact evaluations.)

Project coordinator Juliana So followed up the written surveys with in-person discussions with representatives of the health and safety committees at each of the three factories. These verbal discussions pointed out problems with the committees that were not captured by the written surveys. Problems included: resistance from supervisors to the committee’s workplace inspections; frustration about the committee’s ability to actually impact health and safety changes on the shop floor; problems for shop-floor workers not getting salary or overtime while they were involved in committee activities; and a hesitancy by many shop floor participants to speak up during committee meetings.

Dara O’Rourke and Garrett Brown wrote the international brands with their concerns about these issues, and recommended that each company take a closer look at the functioning of and factory support to the committees prior to the six month follow-up evaluation visit. All involved agreed that the final evaluation visit would be conducted in March 2002, instead of January as originally planned.

Ms. So also met in Hong Kong with representatives of the four participating NGOs and completed evaluation surveys with each of their participants in the Dongguan training.

In March 2002, an evaluation delegation consisting of Ms. So, project coordinators Garrett Brown and Dara O’Rourke, and representatives from the Asia Monitor Resource Center, Hong Kong Christian Industrial Committee, and Chinese Working Women Network visited each of the plants. The delegation received a presentation on the committee’s work, inspected areas of the plant where the committees had been active in identifying and correcting hazards, met with the full safety committee, and also met with the smaller group of full-time staff members of each plant’s safety committee.

• At the KTS facility, a safety committee with five separate components was established at the 5,000-worker facility. The 20 training participants formed one of the five components, the "Risk Assessment Team," later renamed the "Risk Improvement Team," whose primary function was to conduct regular inspections of the facility.

• At the Pegasus plant, a 60-member committee was formed, expanding an existing health and safety committee with the 20 participants of the Dongguan training and others. The workforce at Pegasus was approximately 16,000 at the time of the training and 12,000 in March 2002.

• At Yue Yuen II, a 100-member committee was formed covering four factories within the 30,000-worker complex. The 20 training participants are part of only two of the factory committees because the other two factories did not send participants to the training due to space limitations.

At each of the three plants, the health and safety committees have begun regular inspections of production areas, have identified safety and health hazards, and worked with the department managers and first-line supervisors to eliminate or reduce the identified hazards. In many cases, the committees have been able to identify and correct previously unrecognized hazards, as well as to highlight longstanding concerns of the workers.

Among the hazards and corrections instituted by the safety committees in one or more of the three plants are:

Fire and life safety

• Establish written fire prevention and evacuation plans.
• Establish and maintain clear pathways to exist and fire extinguishers.
• Initiate worker training in use of fire extinguishers and first aid.
• Place emergency flashlights in work areas and on evacuation routes.

Electrical and physical safety

• Replace worn or frayed electrical wiring.
• Eliminate trip and fall hazards created by wiring on the floor.
• Cover or protect hot surfaces to prevent burns.
• Install simple metal latches to prevent heavy metal molds from falling onto hands and forearms.
• Install shields at eye-level to prevent ultra-violet light exposures.
• Install glass/plastic shields on high-speed sewing machines to protect eyes.
• Install local lighting on sewing machines to reduce eye strain.
• Replace broken glass in light fixtures to improve lighting.
• Lower stacks of materials (cement barrels) in storage areas to prevent falls.
• Install mesh covers on hanging lights in areas with forklifts to prevent breakage and potential electrical hazards.
• Increase the number of toilets.

Machine guarding

• Guard v-belts, chain and sprockets, other moving parts to prevent amputations.
• Establish the use of tools (wooden sticks) to replace fingers in operations where amputation/cut hazards exist.
• Install two-hand controls on equipment to eliminate amputation hazards.
• Install covers on foot pedals of machines to prevent accidental activation.

Chemical safety

• Upgrade general ventilation and specific hazard "local exhaust ventilation".
• Cover glue pots to reduce airborne vapors.
• Translate and post at work stations Material Safety Date Sheets (MSDS) with information on chemicals in use.
• Substitute less hazardous cleaners and solvents for ones with more toxic components.
• Place labels on secondary containers of glues and solvents with content information.

• Rearrange work stations and/or process flows to reduce hazards.
• Put better wheels on carts to reduce pull/push stress.
• Mechanize the handling of shoe boxes to reduce repetitive motions.
• Develop and provide new stools with foot rests.
• Install pressure relief valves on pneumatic equipment to the force needed to activate the equipment.

• Install pressure relief valves on pneumatic equipment to reduce noise levels.
• Replace high-noise abrasive wheels with lower-noise abrasive wheels.

• Post warning signs and instructions on equipment to prevent unintentional operation and resulting injuries.
• Establish prominent safety bulletin boards with information and photos of safety committee members.
• Post written reports of accident investigations, including photos of equipment and processes.
• Install safety suggestion boxes in work areas.
• Promote more widespread, and correct, use of personal protective equipment.

Plant Committees

In the first few months of functioning, each of the plant committees has displayed particular strengths in one or another area.

At KTS, the identification of hazards through inspections, and follow-up visits to ensure timely correction, has been a strength of the committee. A Risk Assessment Team (RAT), consisting of the Dongguan training participants, was established last fall. For the first several months of the committee’s functioning, RAT members were released from their regular duties four times a month to conduct full-day inspections of the plant. Having identified the major hazards in its first months, RAT members now perform all-day inspections twice a month. After the RAT was formed, a Risk Improvement Team (RIT) was formed of four full time safety inspectors (including two women), all of whom participated in the Dongguan training, to ensure correction of the hazards identified by the RAT inspections.

The RAT and RIT inspectors, who wear distinctive red caps while conducting the walk-around audits, give the first-line supervisors a written notice of identified hazards with a deadline for correction ranging between two weeks and three months, depending of the severity of the hazard and difficulty in correcting it. The inspectors make follow-up visits to ensure that the hazard abatement has occurred, and if it is not corrected after three notices, the safety committee takes the issue to managers higher up on the management chain.

By March 2002, the committee had compiled a binder about three inches thick of specific "tickets" given to supervisors during inspections and documentation of follow-up visits and hazard correction. The committee has developed its own inspection checklist and a standardized accident investigation form. The results of the accident investigations are posted in the affected work areas.

Each department of the plant has a supervisor-selected health and safety coordinator who has responsibility for tracking identified hazards and their correction. The four full-time health and safety RIT members interact with the department coordinators on a daily basis. The committee also writes a regular column on safety for the plant newspaper.

After initial uncertainty about the role and purpose of the new committee, safety committee members reported in March 2002 an increasing number of suggestions from workers about hazards in their work areas and an increasing willingness of first-line supervisors to act on the committee’s recommendations.

The KTS committee reported having benefited from a technical assistance visit and interaction with the Hong Kong Christian Industrial Committee, Asia Monitor Resource Center, and the newly formed Labor Education and Services Network, all of which are based in Hong Kong.

There is also an overlap of several worker committee members between the safety committee and a recently elected union committee at the KTS plant.

At Pegasus, the 60-member committee’s strengths were in the areas of accident investigations and initiating worker training on various subjects by committee members themselves.

Committee members have been part of formal investigations of accidents involving partial amputation of fingers and hair being caught in moving parts of equipment. The accident investigations have resulted in new machine guarding being installed, and in work practice changes including wearing caps to prevent long hair from being caught in machinery.

The Pegasus committee, largely male in composition, has three full-time members (one of whom is female) who have developed a plant-specific inspection checklist and accident investigation protocol. The full-time committee members have trained other members of the committee and the general workforce on chemical exposures, noise hazards, ergonomic hazards, stress and fire safety.

Several non-full-time committee members, including two participants in the Dongguan training, have conducted 1-2 hour trainings with plant workers on the topics of electrical hazards and noise, using written materials and videos as well as lectures. Twice a week the committee shows a safety video in the plant’s canteen area during the lunch break.

The Pegasus committee has also organized activities for "Safety Month" at the plant, the first of the annual campaigns being conducted in March 2002. Pegasus, like the two other plants, will be giving out "safety awards" for the production unit or department with the best safety record and activities.

At the YY II plant, the focus of the first six months has been devoted to additional training of the 100 committee members to enhance their knowledge and confidence on workplace safety issues.

There were five monthly meetings, or "symposiums," of committee members between November 2001 and March 2002, covering subjects such as fundamental concepts of workplace health and safety, hazard identification techniques, chemical handling and management, use of personal protective equipment, and fire safety. The symposiums have been held for 1-2 hours in the evening, after the work shift on unpaid time, with members of the four factory committees, each of which consist of a full-time coordinator and 25 volunteer members.

Each of the four plants at YY II with safety committees has a safety coordinator or "commissioner," selected by management. Women make up 40-50% of the safety committee’s membership, although all four plant commissioners are male. The departments have also posted safety materials on bulletin boards, including photographs of the committee members from that work area.

A working group of the four factory commissioners and the full-time manager and assistant manager of the plant’s labor practices staff, have developed the curriculum for three of the five trainings held on site by adapting material from the Chinese-language binder of the Dongguan training. Labor practices staff of the adidas office in Hong Kong conducted the two other trainings. The fire safety class also involved hands-on training with fire extinguishers.

Non-Governmental Organizations

Three of the four participating non-governmental organizations (NGOs) have also enhanced their work on health and safety issues following the Dongguan training.

Training participants from the Chinese Working Women Network (CWN) included six young women from various parts of China who were workers in Pearl River Delta factories before joining the CWN staff. They work in the CWN’s Nanshan women workers’ center and staff a mobile van, the "Women’s Health Express," that visits industrial areas in Guangdong province. Both Nanshan center and van provide women workers with key information on workplace health and safety, as well as other topics.

The CWN participants have adapted parts of the training binder for their educational activities, including integrating health and safety materials into their "Sister Whisper" newsletter distributed to plant workers. The technical level of CWN’s presentations on occupational health and safety while visiting dormitories and plants with their "Women’s Health Express" van also increased after the training.

The Asia Monitor Resource Center (AMRC) used part of the materials of the Dongguan training binder, as well as incorporating some teaching methods and lesson plans from the July-August 2001 training into their own training health and safety seminars in Cambodia later in 2001, as well as other ongoing educational activities.

The Hong Kong Christian Industrial Committee (HK CIC) has used the Dongguan training to move forward with proposals to conduct similar trainings and related activities in other industries in China, such as toy production.

Both HK CIC and AMRC were invited in November 2001 to the KTS plant to meet with the safety committee for discussions on developing the committee’s activities, and strengthening interactions with the plant’s union.

HK CIC and AMRC have also continued their relationship with the two local industrial hygienists, Pak Ip and Christine Chiu from Hong Kong University of Science and Technology, who were part of the teams of instructors in the August training. The two IHs have provided consultation on several health and safety issues for both groups.

The NGOs’ March 2002 evaluation of the training project’s successes included increased awareness of and capacity within the organizations on occupational health and safety issues, and the existence of new Chinese-language materials on the topic which can be used by the groups.

Overall Progress

Each of the committees at KTS, Pegasus and YYII are still in the initial phase of organizing themselves and expanding their reach and impact in the very large factories involved. Each of the committees has its own set of strengths and weaknesses, and its own set of priorities. However, each of the committees indicated in the March 2002 evaluation visit the following overall successes in this initial period:

• Increased awareness among workers, supervisors and managers of workplace health and safety issues, and increased willingness to alter some aspects of work organization and processes to increase worker safety;

• The ability to implement safety measures in all areas of the plant via the safety committees, thus breaking down communication barriers between departments to share information about identical or similar hazards and corrective measures;

• The ability to have a deeper impact in the specific departments due to the new participation of worker members in the committees, and the potential to build even broader networks of worker participation in inspections, accident investigations and peer training.

• Identification and correction of a significant number of hazards on the plant floor that were previously unrecognized, or not previously corrected despite their identification by workers on the shop floor;

• The existence of a Chinese-language training manual which can be adapted for use in trainings of the general workforce as well as being a reference resource for members of the safety committees.

At the meeting of the project Coordinating Committee on March 15, 2002, held at the YY II plant, representatives of all participating organizations identified the following successes of the project as a whole:

• Plant-wide health and safety committees with significant worker participation were established in the three plants, qualitatively changing the character of previous management safety committees;
• Members of these committees received professional training and have exhibited their understanding of the basic principles of occupational health and safety after the training;
• Up-to-date materials on key workplace safety topics in Chinese are now available;
• Collaboration between the three plants’ committees to further enhance their scope and effectiveness is now possible;
• Training participants gained knowledge not only of occupational health topics, but also understanding of how committees organize themselves and carry out ongoing activities;
• Training participants gained a better understanding of what concepts like "worker participation and empowerment" mean in a specific key area of work, and what barriers and obstacles exist to realizing these goals;
• An increased awareness of safety issues has resulted among these plants’ workers, supervisors and managers, as well as within the NGOs participating in the project, and areas for further training and action have been identified;
• An increased level of dialogue between plant management, international brands and NGOs has occurred, laying the basis for additional joint projects on the issue of workplace health and safety;

The Coordinating Committee also noted that the recent approval of a national occupational diseases law in China, and the current consideration of a comprehensive workplace health and safety law, opens the door for expanded work in this area by each of the fours groups of participants — plant management, international brands, NGOs, and workers themselves.

5. Key obstacles and initial responses

During the March 2002 evaluation visits to the plant, a number of obstacles were reported, both for the functioning of the committees themselves and for maximizing the impact of the safety committees on the plant floor.

Among the problems reported for the functioning of the committees were:

• Committee members need additional training, both on technical subjects of occupational safety and health, but also in areas such as effective communication and committee development;

• The committees themselves need additional management commitment and resources, such as more members, paid release time to complete and expand their work, and additional equipment and materials;

• Non-full-time members of committees at some plants are expected to meet their production quotas or complete other production-related tasks on days when they have been "released" to undertake safety committee assignments, such as inspections, accident investigations or trainings;

• The committees need to gain and maintain credibility with both line workers and with supervisors and departmental managers;

• The committees need to be able to keep unpaid, volunteer members motivated, active and enthusiastic in performing their assigned activities;

• The committees need more worker involvement in plants of this size (5,000, 11,000 and 30,000 employees at these three facilities) to be able to have a significant impact;

Among the obstacles reported by committee members in terms of realizing their work on the plant floor were:

• Some supervisors and managers, concerned about the impact on production levels, have ignored recommendations for improving health and safety from the committees which involve changing work procedures or processes;

• Some safety recommendations have involved older equipment which is difficult to make safe and expensive to replace, while some forms of engineering controls (ventilation systems, substitution of products, mechanization of procedures, etc.) are expensive and time-consuming to implement;

• Some workers, concerned about the impact of personal protective equipment (PPE) on their production-dependent pay or on their personal comfort, do not use, or improperly use, PPE provided by the plant;

• Effective worker training in plants the size of these facilities will involve developing networks of "peer trainers" (who themselves will need training) to reach the thousands of employees needing training, and requires a management commitment to giving workers at all levels the time away from production needed to attend these trainings;

• The literacy or formal education level of some workers is low, making it difficult for them to understand and implement safety training.

• Some committee members reported workers complaining of "being nagged" by the committee, while others have noted some workers are "hesitant" to speak up;

• The committees need assistance in overcoming longstanding "cultural barriers" to successfully implementing a "bottom up" approach to workplace safety in a social context where there are few examples of meaningful worker participation in hierarchical structures in the workplace.

The safety committees have identified some short-term and long-term measures needed to address some of these problems.

All three committees considered an ongoing series of trainings for committee members on both technical and organizational topics (especially effective communication) essential. Training with first-line supervisors and department managers on the importance of protecting worker health, and the productivity and morale benefits resulting improved safety, was also reported as vital.

Increasing the number of worker members of the committee or related networks, and ensuring that these workers have the ability to identify hazards and the authority to implement corrective actions, was reported as key to both improving the effectiveness of the committees and for gaining and sustaining credibility for the committee.

Eliminating disincentives to worker participation on safety committees — such as the requirement that committee members "make up" lost production time while performing committee duties, or managers not making arrangements to assist the committee members’ co-workers to meet their unit’s production goals or quotas — was also viewed as important.

According to the evaluation discussions, plant management also needs to ensure that committee members have a voice and meaningful role to play in the development of committee decisions, which can generate more effective solutions to problems and also maintain the morale and activity level of the committee members.

Finally, an ongoing commitment by senior management to allocate the necessary resources — human, technical and financial — to establish an effective health and safety program led by a broad-based committee was seen as a prerequisite for improving workplace health and safety in these plants.

The evaluation meetings with NGO participants indicated that the resources and experiences of these organizations were under-utilized in the post-training period. The NGOs expressed a willingness to provide or develop resources, especially in the areas of communication and organizational development, to assist the growth and effectiveness of
the plant safety committees.

All three plant safety committees recognized that they are still in the development phase of their operations. Continuing efforts to train committee members and expand their activities and impact are planned at each of the facilities.

The plant committees are each developing site-specific inspection checklists and accident investigation procedures. The KTS committee wants to develop a comprehensive health and safety manual for the plant, and the full-time safety staff at YY II have already developed their own training curriculum on several key topics. Expanding written safety materials, including newsletter columns, bulletin boards, flyers and brochures, on site is also a goal of the committees.

How best to integrate workplace health and safety into the life of the plants — through campaigns to reduce injuries, competitions between departments including awards and bonuses for workers and managers for best safety performance, and incorporating health and safety into the performance evaluations of supervisors and production units — is under consideration by the committees.

At the March 15, 2002, Coordinating Committee meeting, it was agreed in principle to organize a joint meeting of the three plants’ safety committees in mid-2002. The purpose of the gathering would be to obtain additional training from resources available in China and Hong Kong, and to exchange experiences, both successes and ongoing difficulties. There is a particular interest in learning from the "best practices" and case studies of building effective safety committees in other plants and industries in China, in Asia and internationally.

A planning committee will be established to organize the program and activities for the mid-year meeting of the three safety committees and members of the NGOs who participated in the Dongguan training.

The committees are also looking to share written resources, lesson plans and teaching techniques learned at the Dongguan training and/or developed by the committees themselves. The Labor Occupational Health Program (LOHP) at the University of California at Berkeley is currently compiling a booklet of lesson plans and training resources that can be used by the committees for training workers on the shop floor and for training of committee members themselves.

Among the training topics given highest priority are: effective communication, teaching techniques, committee functioning, basic occupational health and safety principles, and specific hazards such as stress, radio frequency radiation, chemical exposures, ergonomics and noise.

The NGOs participating in the training also have plans to further develop their work on occupational safety and health issues.

Training participants from the Chinese Working Women Network are planning to conduct their own "training of trainers" with young women workers that the Network has collaborated with in visits to industrial towns and plant dormitories. CWN is currently collecting Chinese-language lesson plans to establish a library of safety and health training materials available in Chinese.

The Asia Monitor Resource Center will continue its ongoing work on workplace health and safety throughout Asia. A meeting of the Asian Network for the Rights of Occupational Accident Victims (ANROAV), of which AMRC is a leading member, will be held in Thailand in May 2002 to organize future regional activities.

The Hong Kong Christian Industrial Committee has plans to continue its collaboration on occupational health and safety in the footwear industry, but is also considering projects to expand this work to other industries in southern China such as toy production.

Both the plant safety committees and NGOs are interested in obtaining support from private and governmental funders interested in supporting these initiatives, and in developing relationships both with other plant committees and with occupational health professionals around the world.

The China Capacity Building Project on Occupational Health and Safety is in many ways a first-of-its-kind undertaking. The project has brought together key stakeholders in footwear production — brands, manufacturers, NGOs, and workers — in a collaborative effort to address real issues in an extremely challenging environment. As participants have come to understand, there are no easy answers to improving conditions in these factories. This project has thus moved forward as an experimental and learning initiative.

This project has resulted in the creation of young, but functioning, worker-management committees, including one committee supported by a democratically elected union. These committees are the first step in building systems for worker participation in evaluating and improving health, safety, and environmental conditions inside these factories. The committees, and their members, are learning how to effectively transfer this information to factory managers, brand labor practice staff, and NGOs outside the factories. The committees are working to develop new and safer mechanisms for workers to report problems, new processes for identifying and eliminating hazards, and new systems of corporate accountability.

There have been several keys to the progress of this initiative.

First, there has been the participation and cooperation of different stakeholders who have taken a risk to collaborate with one another. The three international brands sat at the table across from their NGO critics and they pushed their contractors to participate. The contractors risked opening their facilities to the NGOs and to their competitors. The NGOs risked "being used" in a "public relations exercise" and other political problems by working with the brands. In the end, however, all of the participants gained from their cooperation.

Second, there has been the centrality of workers to the process. All of the stakeholders agreed that building worker capacity and participation is beneficial to improving conditions inside these factories. This project’s focus on worker empowerment has moved the process beyond past debates about codes and monitoring to practical, hands-on considerations about how best to achieve this goal.

Finally, the initiative has benefited from, and supported in a small way, the development of civil society actors in China. The increased connections between the NGOs and factory workers offers an interesting example of a potential way forward for civic participation in China.

This project focused squarely on capacity-building and collaborative learning. The longer-term vision is to build on this project and other pilot initiatives to advance larger-scale efforts to develop systems of monitoring and worker participation. The experience of initiating and assisting health and safety committees in these three factories may lay the basis for developing more extensive systems of worker participation and external processes of corporate responsibility in China.

There is no one perfect model for improving factory conditions in China, nor is there one single model that can be easily scaled up. However, each of these three factories, in its own way, has made changes which point the way towards improved systems of worker participation and worker-management dialogues to reduce hazards in factories producing goods for global consumers.

This Final Report is issued by the Project Coordinating Committee consisting of representatives of each participating organization: adidas-Salomon, Asia Monitor Resource Center, Chinese Working Women Network, Hong Kong Christian Industrial Committee, Hong Kong Confederation of Trade Unions, Kong Tai Shoes, Labor Occupational Health Program, Maquiladora Health and Safety Support Network, Nike, Pegasus Shoes, Reebok, Yue Yuen.

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