Fuyao bought a closed GM plant — and hit a wall of American labor culture

In January 2014 Fuyao Glass America, the US arm of Chinese glassmaker Fuyao, bought 1.4 million square feet of the shuttered GM Moraine Assembly plant in Ohio, investing $240 million and promising 800 jobs. By October 2016 the plant was in full-scale production and total US investment had reached $1 billion. It was the most visible experiment in transplanting a Chinese factory system onto American soil.

The transplant did not take. The Chinese management style — tight control, long hours, loyalty to the boss — collided with the expectations of a Rust Belt workforce that knew the union shop. In 2017 the plant's workers voted 886 to 441 against forming a union, a defeat that left safety and pay grievances unresolved. In July 2019 OSHA fined the plant $724,380 for nine repeated and 13 serious violations, after inspecting the site twelve times in four years. The plant struggled to turn a profit in its first two years.

The story spread beyond the factory when American Factory, a film shot inside the plant, premiered at Sundance in January 2019 and won the Academy Award for Best Documentary Feature — putting Fuyao's culture clash in front of the world. Where Toyota had translated its production system for Kentucky, Fuyao imported the system and expected the town to adapt to it.