"It's more comfortable," Lisa, 50, said through an interpreter. "It can raise up and down.... Now I'm happy."
W&S owners Sing and Wing Ma bluntly tell Fong they want more free chairs. They love them, they say, but they cannot afford to buy them. Some months, Wing Ma said, he bleeds as much as $10,000. "I can't put in money if I am losing money," he said.
Last fall, county funding allowed the ergonomics project to expand beyond the model factories. But contractors were still reluctant to purchase the chairs -- which sell for about $160 -- so AIWA created a chair "library," lending the equipment to participating factories for about one-tenth of their retail value.
Among the recipients is Mimi Chung. Chung curls her frame over a sewing machine next to her employees at the family-run Hong Hing Sewing in Oakland's Chinatown. She knows all too well how the body can ache.
"With the chair now, the sitting posture holds my back," she said. "I feel more comfortable and don't so easily get tired."
Chung rented 10 chairs through the library. Her husband built footrests based on the suggested AIWA design, and the couple rigged a version of the table extension from hard-surfaced boxes. Earlier this year, Chung and dozens of garment workers and youths successfully pleaded with the Oakland City Council for a $25,000 economic development grant that would bring 135 additional chairs to up to 15 more factories through the chair library.
When the council awarded the money, garment worker May Yeung wept.
"These 135 chairs are not the end of it," said Yeung. "This project should be known nationwide and throughout the world -- for making working conditions safer."
