COMMENT Chinese factories first won international attention for their ability to copy everything from Louis Vuitton handbags to Hollywood films. Now, as they win a growing share of the world's legitimate consumer goods production, the manufacturers are engaged in another kind of deception: creating fake factory records.
Factory managers in China are becoming increasingly sophisticated at falsifying worker time cards and payroll documents to disguise irregularities including underpayment, excessive hours and inadequate health and safety provision. Auditors estimate that more than half of factories they see in China are forging some of their records - meaning that many of the international companies that source from China are learning less about the actual working conditions in the factories they use, even as they step up efforts to monitor them.
