LESSONS FROM FACTORY FIELD TRIP

Last week, we had an interesting field trip to a textile and garment factory named Hanosimex. It's located around 2 km from my living area yet that was the first time I have had chance to have a thorough view around such a big factory like that.

We received warm welcome from the board of management and one among them was a graduate from Hanoi university around 20 years ago.

At first, we watched a nice introduction video clip about the development and achievements of the Corporation. Then we were taken around the premise of the factory, visiting 3 main working areas: thread and fibre production, sewing area and finished-product exhibition.

My first impression when looking around the fibre production area was its bad and noisy working condition. All female and male workers have to wear masks and there are a huge number of big machines running and operating. We have to shout or at least speak loudly if we want to be heard. From my observation, workers there are quite hard-working and it seems their working attitudes are quite positive, reflecting by their facial expression. 

FEMALE WORKERS IN FIBRE PRODUCTION AREA

However, the dust and noise from such working comdition may result in some kinds of occupational hazards like skin irritation, deaf, back pain (as most of them have to stand or walk along the aisle to do some repeated tasks).

Leaving the first area, we visisted the sewing area where female workers accounted for around 80% of the labor force. The working condition here seems to be better with adequate light and fan systems and everyone have their own tables with sewing machines.

They sat in line and rows and concentrate well in their job except some curious eyes turning to our crew to see what's happening.

And I tried to make a quick interview to a very young and beautiful female worker about her feeling of her job. She is only 19 years old and has been working there for just around 3 months and in her traning period. Salary for an apprentice during training time is just VND 950,000. But after deduction for the 2 meal expenses provided by the factory, she only gets VND450,000 left for her daily living expenses. I asked her the reason why she chose to work in a factory but not another kind of job, she told me about her failure to get higher education to University and College and the decision to work in a factory as a way to contribute financially to her family. "I plan to work here for a long time as human resource policy of my factory is quite good and I can manage my living expenses with the salary I earn. It's going to increase soon after I finish my traning period."

The field trip has provided me with more real knowledge of what I learn from the text book about the life and working condition of factory workers. It's true that working condition in a factory is not good enough for female workers and if company does not have good policy to protect rights and provide approriate compensation to their employees in case of occupational hazards, company may have more difficulty in hiring labor force in case of need.