Under the Wheels (2019)
Cambodia: Under the Wheels

                
    
    
            
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Cambodia: Under the Wheels
    

    
    
                        Cyclists are certain they occupy the moral high ground. But few are aware that workers in Cambodia are exploited to produce their bicycles. We met with them.
                    
                
                4. Dezember 2019
    DIE ZEIT Nr. 49/2019


    








        
            
                

            
            
        









    


    
        
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        Kim doesn't seem to understand the question. Vacation? Sure, in the last
six years he has worked there, there have been a few days when he hasn't gone
to the factory. But time off? Just for relaxation? Kim laughs. Of course not. How
is such a thing even possible?
        A few young children, wandering barefoot across
the mud ground, have gathered around a man in the courtyard in front of a ramshackle
hovel. An emaciated cow nibbles on blades of grass among the trash. Kim earns
the equivalent of about five and half euros a day in the factory, equal to Cambodia's
minimum wage, plus a small bonus. "Still, that's not enough to feed my
young son, for powdered milk and our own place," the worker says. For now,
he lives in his in-law's house. 
                        Kim spends six days a week cutting aluminum tubes
that are then welded together into bicycle frames by other workers. Brakes and
derailleurs are also mounted in the factory, before the assembled bicycles are then
packed into containers and shipped out, arriving on the other side of the world
a couple of weeks later. 
        They wind up at places like a bicycle store on the
outskirts of Berlin, where a boy and his father are examining a mountain bike
on a recent November day. The BULLS-brand bike has 24 gears, an aluminum frame
and front suspension. The two do not take a look at the underside of the frame,
but if they had, they may have noticed a small tag – a sticker that is wont to
fall off when it gets wet and dirty. It reads: "Made in Cambodia." 
        It's well-known that T-shirts and sneakers are
often produced under appalling conditions in Southeast Asia. Bicycles, however,
tend to be considered environmentally friendly and sustainable, with hardly
anyone thinking much about where and how they are made. But our passion for
cycling also has a dark side. 
        Germany imports more bicycles from Cambodia than from
anywhere else in the world, and the Southeast Asian country is also the largest
supplier to the entire European Union. Official trade statistics show that
Cambodia shipped 1.5 million bikes to Europe last year, with close to 560,000
of them ending up in Germany. 
            
                

                        
                        A worker in Bavet lives here                            © Zacharias Zacharakis für ZEIT ONLINE

                
            
        The factory Kim works at in southeastern Cambodia
is called Smart Tech. It produces bicycles for several companies, including the
Cologne-based Zweirad-Einkaufs-Genossenschaft (ZEG), which sells bicycles under
the BULLS and Pegasus brands. Another factory nearby produces children's bikes
for the Austrian brand Woom, which is also popular in Germany. Even many of the
mountain bikes from the German brand Cube, which are clearly labeled as having
been "designed and engineered in Bavaria," have stickers on the
underside of the frame revealing that they were made in Cambodia. 
                        Cambodia is more than just the destination for tourists eager to visit
the temples of Angkor Wat. The capital of Phnom Penh is surrounded by large industrial
facilities and over the past 10 years, the country's economic power has
doubled, with the social divide growing just as rapidly. For the wealthy
minority, shopping centers and luxury residential towers are going up, but the
vast majority of the population must make do with little to no money, laboring
away in kitchens and small shops or on construction sites. 
            
        
        
    
        "You
are worked to the point of total exhaustion," complains a welder named
Sok. 
        The drive through Phnom Penh's dense traffic heads out of the city to
the southwest. As the city gives way to the countryside, the dwellings become
simpler and the sides of the road are covered with rice drying on tarps. The
city of Bavet, on the border with Vietnam, is located about three hours away,
and in recent years, it has become an epicenter of the international bicycle
industry. Three large factories, all of them Taiwanese-owned, have opened in
the city and they employ around 6,000 people. 
