North Korea touts uniform success at Ninth Party Congress, but factory workers say otherwise

North Korea is celebrating the nationwide supply of school uniforms as one of its crowning socialist achievements, but factory workers tasked with producing those uniforms say the reality on the ground is a far cry from the official narrative.

A Daily NK source in North Hamgyong province said Wednesday that the Chongjin city people’s committee had ordered each district people’s committee to ensure 100% uniform distribution to students before the new semester. “But fabric is not being supplied to the uniform factories on time, so production is not proceeding as planned,” the source said.

Under a state directive requiring every student to receive a uniform without exception, North Korea’s uniform factories have been working toward the new school year. Yet fabric delays are chronic, and factories routinely find themselves launching an all-out production push only when deadlines are already bearing down on them.

“It would be great if fabric arrived well in advance, but since it doesn’t, factories always end up fighting through the night to meet their quotas right before the deadline,” the source said.

Uniform factories that do not engage in foreign currency-earning operations do not normally run night shifts. During peak uniform production season, however, overnight work becomes the rule without exception.

Overnight shifts with nothing to show

The situation is made worse by the fact that even on days when fabric shortages make work practically impossible, workers are still required to show up for night shifts in order to project the appearance of devotion to the state’s goals. In those cases, workers typically go through the motions for two or three hours before heading home, and resentment over these pointless shifts runs high, according to the source.

When fabric finally arrives just before the deadline, workers bring packed meals and push through extended hours to hit their production targets in a compressed window.

Factories are also grappling with a separately introduced system known as the “three-measurement size system,” under which uniforms are tailored to each student’s height, chest circumference, and waist circumference. The system was introduced in response to a directive from North Korean authorities to produce and supply custom-fitted uniforms. The catch is that custom production significantly complicates the manufacturing process and adds time to each order.

“Cutting fabric takes longer, and if a uniform doesn’t fit a student it has to be altered again,” the source said. “They say they’re improving the quality of uniforms supplied to students, but from the perspective of each uniform factory, the workload has multiplied several times over.”

The source described a situation in which workers are already under pressure to produce uniforms in a short window due to fabric delays, only to have that burden compounded further by a more complex production process.

Party congress claims success

All of this is unfolding even as North Korea has held up its state-led uniform supply program as a flagship achievement of the past five years. At the recently concluded Ninth Party Congress, Kim Jong Un’s summary report on the work of the Eighth Central Committee, delivered Feb. 20 and 21, cited as an accomplishment the fact that the state had “taken full charge of producing and supplying school uniforms, shoes, and bags to all students from elementary school through university, and had steadily implemented socialist policies to ensure the normal provision of textbooks, exercise books, writing utensils, and other school supplies to students and young people.”

The report for the new five-year plan period also called for continuing to “thoroughly guarantee the quality of student uniforms, bags, and shoes” so that “the party and state’s socialist policies for our students are carried out accurately without the slightest deviation.”

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