Last Train Home

A documentary film following the lives of a Chinese migrant worker family over the course of two years, Last Train Home is a terrific if harrowing insight into the lives of factory workers. Parents Zhang Changhua and Chen Suqin have spent the last sixteen years working in factories in Dongguan, several thousand miles away from their home village.

As a result they have hardly seen their two children, who have been raised by their grandparents. Giving up everything in order to make a better life for their children, their absence instead drives teenage daughter Qin to leave herself to join the factory workforce, leaving mother Chen to question whether their sacrifice was worthwhile.

However changes are afoot in China, the domestic market is thriving, and factories in Guangdong now lie empty while manufacturing chases labour to the north. It would be interesting to see how this family and others fare as we enter into the next 5 Year Plan.

Is British Best?

There was an interesting documentary on Channel 4 last night which followed the fortunes of Cooper and Stollbrand, a garment factory in Salford. I thought it was particularly poignant that while many bemoan the loss of our manufacturing industries to the far east and elsewhere, most of the younger members of the factory’s staff had come from outside the UK, and they feel that young British people are no longer interested in working in secondary industry.

At the same time, the factory was producing what looked like some beautiful garments, with the added benefits for retailers of quick sampling and lead times and a lot less in freight charges just to get it up and down the M1. Perhaps with the increasing cost of labour and shipping from the further reaches of the world, Made in Britain will become a familiar label again. Of course if you happen to be sourcing something like tweed or Italian leather for your garments, it might be easy to be based within the UK, but as long technical fabrics are being manufactured in countries like Taiwan and China, there will remain a big argument for keeping the cutting and sewing close by.