ASSESSING THE RELEVANCE OF “BLOODY TAYLORISM” CONCEPT IN

ADDRESSING MANAGEMENT PRACTISES AND WORKING CONDITIONS

IN MAINLAND CHINESE FACTORIES: A CASE OF FOXCONN
I. Introduction
China’s emergence as one of the major economic force as of today had been widely attributable to the
nation’s intense level of industrialisation, particularly on the country’s capacities to adopt a very
sophisticated model of manufacturing. Chinese manufacturing sector had been lauded for its capabilities
to initiate mass production and most importantly, it has been widely famed for the relatively low
production costs, which substantially attracts foreign investors and multinational enterprises, all of
which had decided to establish their production facilities in China; attracted with the premise of having
the capacities of possessing lower costs of productions to improve their overall business profitability or
to enhance their competitiveness in the low cost markets.

However, this condition is not without its own demerits. One of the most crucial issues to be recognised,
is that the lower costs of goods produced in China is highly contributed by its labour cost posts; to which
the Chinese workers are paid at lower price than workers from other nations such as Japan, India, or
various Southeast Asian nations. At the same time, Chinese workers are also known for the culture
which adheres to relatively autocratic management system: they tend not to voice complaints or
displeasure towards poor treatments imposed at their working place, and they are also less likely to
challenge management decisions, creating a condition which, as criticised by Lipietz (1997), represent a
form of despotic employment relationships.

This despotic form of employee relationships had been generally attributed as the result of China’s
market-oriented reform beginning as early as mid 1990s. The economic reformation contributes to the
condition by promoting urbanisation from Chinese rural villages to Chinese cities, where the rural
workers hoped to improve their life by working in big cities. The resulting condition generate labour
oversupply in Chinese cities, particularly from the relatively low-skilled rural workers and as the
consequences, the Chinese workers had little bargaining power against their employers; they are willing
to accept more unfavourable working conditions, vying to sustain their income sources, rather than
being unemployed or return to their home villages (Chan, 2010).
Additionally, there are various changes that remarked this transitional condition; such as China’s
approaches in attaching its labour to employment and organisations; heavy utilisation of internal
migrant labour in Chinese companies, the introduction of “hukou” (internal passport) system,
casualisation of labour contracts and most importantly, as noted by Kuruvilla et al. (2011), there are
radical changes from the former long-term bonds between workers and the workplace.

The conditions in Chinese workplace nowadays had been ubiquitously remarked with strong managerial
domination inside factories. Chan et al. (2010) as well as Lee (1998) particularly noted that the managers
possess unfettered power to discipline workers; they also possess the control regarding recreational
relationships of the workers far beyond the working lives in Chinese factories.

Henderson et al. (2009) argued that the massive rise of unskilled, rural migrant workers and the limited
presence of properly-functioning social institutions which provides welfare counsels or representing the
workers’ interests had allowed the authoritarian management to evolve deeper to represent the new
form of Taylorism; known as the “bloody Taylorism”. One of the most widely cited (as well as heavily
criticised) companies which represent the presence of “bloody Taylorism” is Foxconn. Marriott (2013)
reported that this company was notorious for the incidence of worker suicides at its southern China
plant, this incident was attributed to the intense stress and pressures experienced by the workers during
the period of the company’s intense speedups to meet the demands for the launch of the Apple iPad.
This had raised the awareness that the real “innovation” that is currently performed by capitalist
industry producers establishing their production function in China is not the pursuant of new inventions,
but rather, a customised version of organisation design which also involves the work being done by the
workers. In particular: on how the workers’ work is able to meet the company’s objectives to pursue
efficiencies and low costs.

The conditions in China merits further investigations, as it further reintroduces the questions as of
whether the classical models of management theory such as Taylorism still persists to this day; most
importantly, on how relevant these classical management theoretical models to be applied in the
modern age. Taking accounts in China’s case and the country’s allegation as one of the regions where
“bloody Taylorism” still persists in the modern era, this paper revisit the concepts of Taylorism and
appraise its benefits and drawbacks to discuss the labour conditions in Chinese manufacturing
nowadays.

II. Fundamentals of Taylorism

II.1. Taylorism and Working Conditions
Taylorism’s negative conception had been generally attributes to the relatively unfavourable view of its
inventor: Frederick Taylor related to the role of workers at workplace. While it should be admitted that
Taylor recognise the differences between workers and the fundamental needs to assign the right
employees to the right job while championing the workers by encouraging companies to adopt frequent
breaks and introducing more favourable wage system, Taylor had often been criticised for his
condescending towards less educated workers as well as on how these workers are being viewed as
‘draft animals’, where these workers had their tasks managed for them by the managers to ensure that
they could perform in efficient manner.

While the proponents of Taylorism should not be neglected, and sometimes, lauded for its emphases in
the need of establishing efficient production model which allows for faster production and lesser costs,
its views on workers as expendable resources had been shunned at best. New theories had arise and
advocating that management should pay attention to the needs of the workers, not solely on the needs
of the whole company. The rise of human relations school of management, in particular, had been
complementing Taylorism’s idea of scientific management. In this process, Taylorism assumes the new
position to determine the organization of the work process, whereas the human relations theories
assume the role to assist the workers to adapt into the new procedures. A good example of this change
can be seen from the modern-day concept of lean manufacturing; which also includes the respect for
workers and the fulfilment of their needs and satisfactions as an integral component in the theory (Paez
et al., 2004). While Niepcel and Molleman (1998) criticised this notion, remarking that it is not
uncommon to encounter flawed implementations of these theories and there remains perceptions of
unpleasant workplace even in advanced economic countries, Pettersen (2009) remarked that such
circumstances are actually caused by the lack of managerial competence in matching the theories to
execution. Therefore, this does not negate the fact that syncretism had actually been happened since
Taylor’s era. Instead, this case marked that there are uneven implementations of the theories, where
lean management model executed by capable, competent managers had generate favourable results,
for both managers and workers, but incompetent managers would still cause damages to enterprises,
despite of the theoretical advancements.
Taylorism’s core premise in relation to the division of labour in manufacturing had also been criticised
for generating a sense of ‘loss of connection’ with the production of goods process, especially in the
realm of mechanised manufacturing process. Dankbaar (1997) remarked that before Taylorism was
introduced, workers have a sense of pride for the completions of their goods. This sense of pride is
diminished as Taylorism only requires them to complete “partial” productions; this dynamic is also
regarded to be responsible in generating a sense of disenfranchisement, as workers are exposed to
monotonous, unfulfilling work in Taylorist-based factories. This can be regarded as quite ironic, as the
resulting dynamics is actually the total opposite of what Taylor advocates as the effect of efficiencies
brought by the divisions of labours.
Jauch and Traub-Merz (2006) remarked that the partial adoptions of Taylor’s principles by management
which aims to increase corporate efficiencies often caused the management to ignore fundamental
principles of fair wage and direct engagement between managers and their respective employees, which
generates tensions and rise of unions to protect the workers’ needs. Taylorist views also fundamentally
view the workers’ unions under negative light; painting unions as a factor that could led to decreased
productivity. Despite this, Fuchs (2014) commented that it is not possible to neglect the fact that the
proponents of Taylorist view of workers as expendable resources or as yet another source of production
is actually responsible in emphasising the role of unions in production activities, as disenfranchised
workers would look for unions for support in case that they encounter unfavourable; or inhumane
working conditions as advocated in Taylorist views.

II.2. China and “Bloody Taylorism”

China had been alleged as one of the countries that still apply the approach of Taylorism, and translating
it into ‘bloody Taylorism’. The term ‘bloody Taylorism’ itself was first introduced by Lipietz (1982), to
describe primitive accumulation in developing nations caused by a profit-driven movements of
international manufacturing capital, where these firms from developed countries would co-produce a
deregulated labour market, which promotes various fundamental Taylorism values such as labour
repression and detailed division of labour.
Again, in China, the presence of this production model had been widely epitomised by the work regime
which had been applied in Foxconn’s labour regime. Lipietz (1997) described that the mega-scale
electronic assembly plants is sustained and heavily characterised by military-style discipline and
ideology. Chan and Pun (2010) also noted that the company’s manufacturing model is heavily
characterised with intensive work and task simplifications. To this very end: Foxxcon combines the
production and reproduction function of their labour power within a large-scale industrial compound,
which also functions similar to an enclosed city.

The fundamental concept of bloody Taylorism itself mainly encapsulates the delocalisation of certain,
limited Taylorist industrial activities towards social formations. This delocalisation, in particular, is
characterised with extremely high rates of exploitation, where the workers are exposed to unfavourably
low wages, long length of working hours and extremely intense working conditions.

In bloody Taylorist conditions, it was outlined that the multinationals and the capital holders would
enjoy the local privileges, but the harsh international competitions that is heightened by globalisation
would generate unfavourable effects for these multinational companies, especially in their bargaining
process with the governments. As a mitigation effort, Jauch and Traub-Merz (2006) explained that this
pressure is being ‘transferred downwards’, where the multinational companies would seek greater
bargaining power by establishing their facilities at developing economic countries; especially in those
that seek FDIs as a way to combat overpopulation or high rate of unemployment. In this sense, workers
are positioned at the bottom, despite of them having indispensable role as the key to success for the
multinational companies to venture beyond their local borders. Ironically, the “key to success” is often
being described as the multinational company’s capacities to obtain “more efficient, low cost”
production model than those they could obtain in their home country. In this regards, Endresen and
Jauch (2001) suggest that the workers at the country of destination has the capacities to fulfil those
needs through their willingness to accept lower wages and less safe working conditions. It is also not
uncommon during this process, that workers have (and actually willing) to be enlisted to inhumane
working conditions which was caused by the capital owners’ pursues in establishing production facilities
which generates lowest costs possible.

In particular, Lipietz (1982) criticised the imports of Taylorist concept of “time management regimes”
and physical control system into the conditions where lenient, more ‘humane’ working conditions
regarding working hours and conditions as what constitutes the elements of “bloody Taylorism”.
Fundamentally, Lipietz (1982) denote the dangerous degree of labour exploitation in these cases as a
risky way in the industrialisation process of a nation. Aside from the moral issue, these manufacturing
concepts would generate social unrests which could in turn, destabilise the economy.

Jauch and Traub-Merz (2006) outlined that there are two prominent characteristics of this regime that
should be noted. First of all, although being described as another form of Taylorism and having activities
that are primarily Taylorist, these Taylorist activities are poorly mechanised at best, as the technical
capital compositions of these firms are relatively low. Through this manner, the bloody Taylorist strategy
avoids a fundamental inconvenience of import substitution, to which the firms are imposed to the costs
related to importation of large quantities of equipment. Jauch and Traub-Merz (2006) also noted that as
this strategy mainly mobilise a large number of female workforce, the bloody Taylorism conveniently
inherits the entire traditions related to the domestic ‘patriarchal’ exploitations. Secondly, the reason as
of why this approach of Taylorism is labelled as “bloody” is that it incorporates Karl Marx’s commentary
regarding bloody legislation at the outset of English capitalism. Along with the traditional oppression of
women, these strategies become the key highlights of anti-labour repressions.

III. Analysis and Conclusions

First of all, analysing the model of manufacturing in Foxconn as described by Chan and Pun (2010), it can
be postulated that to some extent, the concepts of Taylorism is still useful and relevant in explaining the
company’s management model; especially based on the task simplifications model in the company,
which designates workers based on their specialties in the assembly line. This undoubtedly, is a
representation of Taylorist view to “assign the right employees to the right job”. Furthermore, Lipietz
(1997)’s directly accuses the company as a perfect model of Taylorism, pointing out the heavily
characterised by military-style discipline and ideology of the company.
However, the author raises a question on this accusation; pointing out to the fact that the views of
assigning assign the right employees to the right job is actually commonly, if not applied widespread by
various companies. Certainly, it would be unreasonable to generalise all companies which adopts these
fundamental work assignment philosophy as harbinger of Taylorism, although this do not diminish the
idea that Taylorism concept does persist in Foxconn.

In retrospective to Jauch and Traub-Merz (2006)’s characteristics of ‘bloody Taylorism’, the

characteristics of operational management in Foxconn is interestingly, failed to fulfil Jauch and Traub-
Merz (2006)’s definitions. First, despite of it employing substantial amount of factory workers, the
company is actually heavily mechanised due to the nature of its products. Second: the company’s labour
force is not ‘majorly composed’ by female workforces; there are also male workers, and although
Chinese society is patriarchal in nature at best, the author personally find it hard to see that there are
domestic ‘patriarchal’ exploitations which mirrors Jauch and Traub-Merz (2006)’s ‘feminist-related’
descriptions, in a sense that it also happens to male workforce; therefore, to Jauch and Traub-Merz
(2006)’s description of bloody Taylorism would yield very small relevance in discussing Foxconn’s
Taylorism concept.

Despite of this disagreement however, the author sees that the original concept of bloody Taylorism by
Lipietz (1982) to have greater relevancies and consistencies in explaining the case of Foxconn. Marriott
(2013)’s case of workers suicide due to tight deadline in Foxconn for instance, is a good evidence to
assert that the introduction of stringent “time management regimes” and physical control system that
characterised pure Taylorism view is actually in greater favour in Foxconn’s management’s view than
introducing where lenient, more ‘humane’ working conditions regarding working hours and conditions.
This consistency suggests that the original concept of bloody Taylorism is actually more advantageous in
explaining Foxconn’s management policy under Taylorism lenses.

Explaining Foxconn’s management policy using Taylorism is also more relevant as we revisit the initial
conception of its inventor towards workers that workers are described similarly as ‘draft animals’ whose
works should be managed and designed for them to work efficiently. What happens in Foxconn can be
considered as a good evidence of pure Taylorism; that it only focused on achieving efficiencies whilst
sacrificing the need to respect for workers and the fulfilment of their needs and satisfactions as
advocated in newer Taylorist viewers such as Paez et al. (2004); and the managerial willingness to
embark on this destination should not be viewed as managerial incompetence as remarked by Pettersen
(2009), but instead, as a deliberate pure pursuing of efficiencies that is based on the most basic view of
Taylorism; hence this study concluded that these dynamics had caused Taylorism view to become
extremely relevant as an explanatory model to assess Foxconn’s managerial model.
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