Fuyao Glass Industry Group Co., Ltd. () is a manufacturing company in the
People's Republic of China
China, officially the People's Republic of China (PRC), is a country in East Asia. It is the world's most populous country, with a population exceeding 1.4 billion, slightly ahead of India. China spans the equivalent of five time zones and ...
, engaged in the production of
float glass
Float glass is a sheet of glass made by floating molten glass on a bed of molten metal, typically tin, although lead and other various low- melting-point alloys were used in the past. This method gives the sheet uniform thickness and very flat sur ...
,
automobile
A car or automobile is a motor vehicle with Wheel, wheels. Most definitions of ''cars'' say that they run primarily on roads, Car seat, seat one to eight people, have four wheels, and mainly transport private transport#Personal transport, pe ...
glass and
construction
Construction is a general term meaning the art and science to form objects, systems, or organizations,"Construction" def. 1.a. 1.b. and 1.c. ''Oxford English Dictionary'' Second Edition on CD-ROM (v. 4.0) Oxford University Press 2009 and com ...
glass. It is one of the largest auto glass producers in the world,
with customers including large international
automobile
A car or automobile is a motor vehicle with Wheel, wheels. Most definitions of ''cars'' say that they run primarily on roads, Car seat, seat one to eight people, have four wheels, and mainly transport private transport#Personal transport, pe ...
manufacturers such as
Ford
Ford commonly refers to:
* Ford Motor Company, an automobile manufacturer founded by Henry Ford
* Ford (crossing), a shallow crossing on a river
Ford may also refer to:
Ford Motor Company
* Henry Ford, founder of the Ford Motor Company
* Ford F ...
,
General Motors
The General Motors Company (GM) is an American Multinational corporation, multinational Automotive industry, automotive manufacturing company headquartered in Detroit, Michigan, United States. It is the largest automaker in the United States and ...
, Subaru, and
Volkswagen Group
Volkswagen AG (), known internationally as the Volkswagen Group, is a German multinational automotive manufacturer headquartered in Wolfsburg, Lower Saxony, Germany. The company designs, manufactures and distributes passenger and commercial ...
. It was established in 1987 as a joint venture company and is headquartered in
Fuqing
(; Foochow Romanized: Hók-chiăng; also romanized as Hokchia) is a county-level city of Fujian Province, China, it is under the administration of the prefecture-level city of Fuzhou.
Geography
Fuqing is located in the north-central part of ...
,
Fujian
Fujian (; alternately romanized as Fukien or Hokkien) is a province on the southeastern coast of China. Fujian is bordered by Zhejiang to the north, Jiangxi to the west, Guangdong to the south, and the Taiwan Strait to the east. Its capi ...
. It was listed on the
Shanghai Stock Exchange
The Shanghai Stock Exchange (SSE) is a stock exchange based in the city of Shanghai, China. It is one of the three stock exchanges operating independently in mainland China, the others being the Beijing Stock Exchange and the Shenzhen Stock Exc ...
in 1993 and on the
Hong Kong Stock Exchange
The Stock Exchange of Hong Kong (SEHK, also known as Hong Kong Stock Exchange) is a stock exchange based in Hong Kong. As of the end of 2020, it has 2,538 listed companies with a combined market capitalization of HK$47 trillion. It is repor ...
in 2015.
History
Cao Dewang
Cao Dewang (; born May 1946), also known as Cho Tak Wong or Tak Wong Cho, is a Chinese entrepreneur. He is the chairman of Fuyao, Fuyao Group, one of the largest glass manufacturers in the world. He is also a member of the Chinese People's Consul ...
founded Fuyao in
Fuqing
(; Foochow Romanized: Hók-chiăng; also romanized as Hokchia) is a county-level city of Fujian Province, China, it is under the administration of the prefecture-level city of Fuzhou.
Geography
Fuqing is located in the north-central part of ...
,
Fujian Province
Fujian (; alternately romanized as Fukien or Hokkien) is a province on the southeastern coast of China. Fujian is bordered by Zhejiang to the north, Jiangxi to the west, Guangdong to the south, and the Taiwan Strait to the east. Its cap ...
1987 with several business partners. He had previous experience having taken over management of a glass factory owned by a local government. While there were few major buyers of automobiles at first, his company targeted the market of replacement glass for large numbers of imported vehicles into China. The name derives from the first
character
Character or Characters may refer to:
Arts, entertainment, and media Literature
* ''Character'' (novel), a 1936 Dutch novel by Ferdinand Bordewijk
* ''Characters'' (Theophrastus), a classical Greek set of character sketches attributed to The ...
in the name of the city of Fuqing (福 ''fú'') and the Chinese word meaning "shine" (耀 ''yào'').
The company formed a joint venture with
Saint-Gobain
Compagnie de Saint-Gobain S.A. () is a French multinational corporation, founded in 1665 in Paris and headquartered on the outskirts of Paris, at La Défense and in Courbevoie. Originally a mirror manufacturer, it now also produces a variety of ...
in 1996 with the French firm's 51 percent stake valued at $15.3 million. Three years later, Cao bought the stake back for $30 million.
Fuyao became an
original equipment manufacturer
An original equipment manufacturer (OEM) is generally perceived as a company that produces non-aftermarket parts and equipment that may be marketed by another manufacturer. It is a common industry term recognized and used by many professional or ...
to
General Motors
The General Motors Company (GM) is an American Multinational corporation, multinational Automotive industry, automotive manufacturing company headquartered in Detroit, Michigan, United States. It is the largest automaker in the United States and ...
in June 2006. Later that year, it signed an agreement with
Goldman Sachs
Goldman Sachs () is an American multinational investment bank and financial services company. Founded in 1869, Goldman Sachs is headquartered at 200 West Street in Lower Manhattan, with regional headquarters in London, Warsaw, Bangalore, H ...
to sell 111 million new shares, to raise about
¥890 million (
$137 million). In March 2007, Fuyao landed a contract supplying
Bentley
Bentley Motors Limited is a British designer, manufacturer and marketer of luxury cars and SUVs. Headquartered in Crewe, England, the company was founded as Bentley Motors Limited by W. O. Bentley (1888–1971) in 1919 in Cricklewood, North ...
. That year, foreign sales contributed ¥5.17 billion, or almost $795 million, almost 28 percent of its sales that year. By that time, it was the fifth-largest maker of automotive glass in the world, with an estimated three percent market share, and held 60 percent
market share
Market share is the percentage of the total revenue or sales in a market that a company's business makes up. For example, if there are 50,000 units sold per year in a given industry, a company whose sales were 5,000 of those units would have a ...
of the automotive glass market in China.
Fuyao Glass America Inc.
In 2014, Fuyao began looking at establishing a factory presence in the United States, considering several sites in Ohio and Michigan before deciding on the former General Motors
Moraine Assembly
Moraine Assembly was a General Motors automobile factory in Moraine, Ohio, United States, a suburb of Dayton. A Frigidaire appliance plant had originally operated on the site from 1951 to 1979. Starting in 1981, the Chevrolet S-10 small pickup was ...
plant in
Moraine, Ohio
Moraine is a city in Montgomery County, Ohio, United States. Situated on the banks of the Great Miami River, Moraine is an inner suburb of Dayton, Ohio and a part of the Dayton metropolitan area. The population was 6,307 at the 2010 census.
H ...
.
["Moraine no longer home to former GM Assembly Plant; Site now officially home of Fuyao Glass America Inc". ''Englewood Independent''. 5/15, 2014. Retrieved 4/17/2020.] Its initial commitment to the factory, which was made public in January 2014, was to buy 1.4 million square feet of the plant from Industrial Realty Group and invest $240 million into an auto glass production facility, which would create 800 jobs.
In 2014, the company bought a
float glass
Float glass is a sheet of glass made by floating molten glass on a bed of molten metal, typically tin, although lead and other various low- melting-point alloys were used in the past. This method gives the sheet uniform thickness and very flat sur ...
plant in
Mount Zion, Illinois
Mount Zion is a village in Macon County, Illinois, United States. The population was 6,019 at the 2020 census.
Geography
Mount Zion is located in southeastern Macon County at (39.777967, -88.878614). It is bordered to the northwest by the ci ...
. In 2016, it announced an additional $131 million investment to add additional after-market glass lines at the plant, bringing it to 24
production lines
A production line is a set of sequential operations established in a factory where components are assembled to make a finished article or where materials are put through a refining process to produce an end-product that is suitable for onward c ...
. In exchange it received $6.6 million in incentives from JobsOhio. By then, the company planned to produce enough auto glass for 4 million to 5 million automobiles a year,
taking advantage of the recent contraction in the
U.S. auto market during the
Great Recession
The Great Recession was a period of marked general decline, i.e. a recession, observed in national economies globally that occurred from late 2007 into 2009. The scale and timing of the recession varied from country to country (see map). At ...
. By the time the plant entered full-scale production in October 2016, it had invested $1 billion in the U.S. subsidiary. It has long-term plans to grow to 5,000 employees in the United States. As of early 2020, Fuyao had opened additional operating facilities in
Greenville, South Carolina
Greenville (; locally ) is a city in and the seat of Greenville County, South Carolina, United States. With a population of 70,720 at the 2020 census, it is the sixth-largest city in the state. Greenville is located approximately halfway be ...
and
Detroit, Michigan
Detroit ( , ; , ) is the largest city in the U.S. state of Michigan. It is also the largest U.S. city on the United States–Canada border, and the seat of government of Wayne County. The City of Detroit had a population of 639,111 at ...
. By 2018, after losing tens of millions of dollars per year, the plant turned its first annual profit.
Worker relations
The plant saw some obstacles during the first two years of operation within the United States, including concerns about safety, inability to turn a profit, and politicizing employee concerns regarding the unionization of the Moraine Assembly plant's labor force. Conflicts arose from clashes in cultural norms and customs between the Chinese and American employees within the Moraine assembly.
Shortly after the Moraine Assembly opened, it was cited by the
Occupational Safety and Health Administration
The Occupational Safety and Health Administration'' (OSHA ) is a large regulatory agency of the United States Department of Labor that originally had federal visitorial powers to inspect and examine workplaces. Congress established the agenc ...
(OSHA) for several critical safety violations, including the failure to provide protective equipment, the lack of
HAZMAT
Dangerous goods, abbreviated DG, are substances that when transported are a risk to health, safety, property or the environment. Certain dangerous goods that pose risks even when not being transported are known as hazardous materials ( syllabi ...
training, and the failure to properly cover moving machinery. The infractions violated the
Occupational Safety and Health Act (United States)
The Occupational Safety and Health Act of 1970 is a US labor law governing the federal law of occupational health and safety in the private sector and federal government in the United States. It was enacted by Congress in 1970 and was signed by P ...
of 1970, which prevents employers from knowingly exposing employees to hazardous work conditions.
OSHA cited Fuyao for thirteen safety violations and fined it approximately $725,000.
Subsequently, Fuyao invested $7 million in safety features throughout the Moraine Assembly plant.
Fuyao also formed an environmental safety team within the Moraine assembly to provide in-depth training to the plant employees in both English and Mandarin Chinese.
Since the majority of the labor force at Fuyao Glass America's Moraine Assembly plant had previously worked at the
General Motors Moraine Assembly that was located on the same property, many workers wished to reform their connections with a major American
labor union
A trade union (labor union in American English), often simply referred to as a union, is an organization of workers intent on "maintaining or improving the conditions of their employment", ch. I such as attaining better wages and benefits ( ...
. A large portion of the plant's workforce organized and launched a campaign to form a union through the
United Auto Workers
The International Union, United Automobile, Aerospace, and Agricultural Implement Workers of America, better known as the United Auto Workers (UAW), is an American labor union that represents workers in the United States (including Puerto Rico ...
, but company management promoted anti-union policies, hired anti-union organization contractors LRI to dissuade voters, and threatened union organizers with termination. In 2017 a union vote was held and anti-unionists defeated pro-unionists by 886 to 441 votes.
Following management's victory, several prominent employees in favour of
trade unions
A trade union (labor union in American English), often simply referred to as a union, is an organization of workers intent on "maintaining or improving the conditions of their employment", ch. I such as attaining better wages and Employee ben ...
and plant executives faced workplace repercussions ranging from losses in working hours to termination. Three pro-union employees, who had been terminated for reasons considered questionable by American cultural workplace standards, filed cases with the
National Labor Relations Board
The National Labor Relations Board (NLRB) is an independent agency of the federal government of the United States with responsibilities for enforcing U.S. labor law in relation to collective bargaining and unfair labor practices. Under the Natio ...
(NLRB) against the company, which settled the case in 2018 by agreeing to cover back pay and interest totaling $120,000.