Stream It Or Skip It: ‘American Factory’ On Netflix, A Documentary About A Culture Clash Between American Factory Workers And Chinese Owners

In 2009, filmmakers Julia Reichert and Steven Bognar documented the 2008 closing of a GM plant near Dayton, Ohio, and how it devastated the working class in the area. Seven years after the closing, a Chinese auto glass company decided to revive the factory and invest in American executives and workers. How did it work out? Reichert and Bognar return to that factory to find out in their latest documentary. Read on for more…

AMERICAN FACTORY: STREAM IT OR SKIP IT?

The Gist: When the GM factory near Dayton, Ohio closed in 2008, right at the beginning of the Great Recession, it seemed like the 2,000 people who lost their jobs would never get another chance to have a stable manufacturing job. But in 2015, Fuyao, a Chinese company that makes 70% of the auto glass used by various car manufacturers, decided to buy the Ford plant and renovate it into a glass factory.

American Factory, directed by Julia Reichert and Steven Bognar, documents how Fuyao came in with the intention of turning the plant over to American management as soon as it gets up to the production standards of their Chinese factories. The people who used to work with the GM plant were happy to get what seemed like a stable job, albeit at half the pay rate of their old unionized positions. When the factory opened in 2016, there was a ton of optimism that the Americans and Chinese could work together; the company’s beloved chairman, Cho Tak Wong, bet hundreds of millions of dollars on it.

But things started going south during the ribbon cutting ceremony, when U.S. Senator Sherrod Brown encouraged employees to consider unionizing, an idea that was anathema to Wong, who thinks unions impede efficiency. From there, the Chinese executives, and the workers they brought over from China in order to train and supervise the Americans, underestimated just how slow and inefficient the Americans were, wanting appalling things like weekends off, eight-hour shifts and proper break times. In a training session with the Chinese employees, an instructor tells them that Americans always need a pat on the back, always need to be praised, to feel comfortable.

When a contingent of American supervisors take a trip to Fuyao’s factory in Fuqing, Fujian Province, they marvel at the workers lining up like soldiers, and how dedicated they are to the company, despite conditions that would never past muster in the U.S., like only one or two days off a month and things like sorting broken glass without cut-proof gloves on. The supervisors come back all charged up, but the American workers aren’t interested in the “one for all, all for one” concept; they just want their paychecks and to stay safe on the job.

As a unionization movement starts to take hold, the American executives are replaced by Chinese executives, whose entreaties to the workers to not unionize and take pride in their work are met with scowls. Some of the American workers that had a lot of enthusiasm going in are fired, either for inefficiencies or for being a union activist. As the factory hemorrhages money, Wong insists that he’ll get the Americans to see things their way and not think poorly of the Chinese, but he starts to feel that investing in American workers was a big mistake.

What Movies Will It Remind You Of?: Reichert and Bognar know their way around this particular factory, because they directed The Last Truck: Closing of a GM Plant, a 2009 documentary about the plant’s closing. Going in, we thought it might be a 21st-century retelling of the story from the film Gung Ho, this time with a Chinese company coming in and trying to meet the Americans halfway. But as things start unraveling, that kind of halcyon image goes away quickly.

Performance Worth Watching: The pairing of Rob, the furnace manager, with Wong, a furnace engineer who has been working for Fuyao since he was 18, was an example of the ideal the company wanted. The two become good friends, and work long hours together trying to make sure communication is clear and things are efficient. However, that still doesn’t keep Wong from missing his family or Rob from getting booted for a seemingly minor reasons.

Memorable Dialogue: In a training session with the Chinese employees,Jeff Liu, the new Chinese president of the American division, tries to explain how Americans are overconfident: “There’s a culture in the U.S. where children are showered with encouragement, so everyone who grows up in the U.S. is overconfident. They are super confident. Americans love being flattered to death. You will get in trouble if you try to fight with them.” Then he brings up a saying that makes brings this offensive generalization home: “Donkeys like being touched in the direction their hair grows.”

Our Take: A lot is being made that American Factory is the first project from Barack and Michelle Obama’s Higher Ground Productions under their Netflix deal. But the former president and First Lady’s company merely purchased the rights to the finished film, which showed at Sundance. But it’s a worthy project for them to introduce to a wider audience, because it not only shows how tough it has been for the American middle class over the past decade or so, it also shows just how tough globalization can be when the cultures that are combining are so dramatically different.

You have to give Fuyao credit for wanting to invest in the U.S. and want to work with American executives and rank-and-file workers. Their goal was admirable, even if their execution didn’t work. They wanted to bring manufacturing back to an area where it was its lifeblood, and create jobs. What they didn’t bargain for is that they couldn’t just bend the Americans to their way of working, and the Americans didn’t anticipate just how different the Chinese way of doing business would be.

Reichert and Bognar try mightily to make sure both perspectives are equally represented. They try not to show Chairman Cho as an evil executive who exploits his workers, and they try to show that the Americans are seeking honest pay for an honest day’s hard work. But in trying to service both sides, they lean heavily on stereotypes like the ones Liu gave during that training session: The Chinese are overworked automatons who sacrifice health and family for the company, and the Americans are lazy and overprivileged, always looking for time off and threatening to unionize.

But the film is still a fascinating look at a culture clash in the beginning stages of trying to work itself out. Korean and Japanese auto manufacturers have been manufacturing cars and parts in the U.S. for decades now, so many of the culture issues that may have marked the beginning of their time here have been ironed out. But Chinese investment in the U.S. is relatively new, and their work culture has been shaped by 70 years of Communist rule — in fact, Chairman Cho’s brother-in-law is the Fuqing factory’s union chief (a much different union than in the U.S.) and Communist party leader. Seeing how wide the gulf is between the Chinese and Americans made the 110-minute running time go by quickly.

Our Call: STREAM IT. If you want to know what the future of the American working class might look like, take a look at American Factory. It’s not a pretty picture, but it’s fascinating to watch.

Joel Keller (@joelkeller) writes about food, entertainment, parenting and tech, but he doesn’t kid himself: he’s a TV junkie. His writing has appeared in the New York Times, Slate, Salon, VanityFair.com, Playboy.com, Fast Company’s Co.Create and elsewhere.

Stream American Factory on Netflix