A DOCUMENTARY last night on UK TV channel BBC4 explored Nokia's ethical policies and how the Finnish firm faces some dilemmas by using cheap labour at outsourced factories based in China.

A camera crew followed a Nokia employee and a UK consultancy as they filmed a factory in China which makes components and cables for the Finnish firm, and a number of other customers.

The factory employs thousands of people, with over 90 per cent of them young women who live in dormitories, as many as eight to a room, and whose board and lodging is deducted from their monthly salaries at source.

The factory is run by European managers who only seemed to twig at the end of the film that this was a documentary being made, and the camera team weren't making a film for Nokia internal use. Director Thomas Balmes says on the BBC3 web site: "When I arrived in China no one really knew who I was or what I was doing and this confusion allowed me to film."

Balmes said that while Chinese factories are much worse than European ones, he didn't highlight this, and contemplated filing from the side of the factory managers. He says: "Finland is the most advanced country in the world in terms of social welfare and equality. Nevertheless, when the biggest company in the country needs to be global then they have to play the game the American way....How can you resist?"

Richard, the English factory manager, was the real star of the film, said Balmes, because "he is very cynical".

Balmes said that the factory looked like a camp "but it was definitely close to how you'd think of a jail." Both the Nokia employee and the ethical advisor have subsequently left their respective companies.

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