Mattel’s Real Toy Story: Slave Labour in Sweatshops

This is London ^ | August 16, 2007 | This is London

[Jaysun]

So sending us poison food, toys, baby bibs and who knows what else is OK?

Did I say that?

[vetsvette]

“I just don’t buy that excuse.”

I’m not making excuses for anybody, just stating what should be obvious, but apparently isn’t.

[AD from SpringBay]

This would be a great article to save for a Christmas church-bulletin insert with a friendly reminder that, “Thou shalt not covet.”

[sitetest]

“The answer is not a boycott of Chinese toys.”

I disagree.

Perhaps the time has come for a voluntary national movement to begin boycotting as much as we can of Chinese goods.

[twigs]

I agree with you. Well said.

[hedgetrimmer]

You read my mind!

Factory housing at Plant #8 consists of 6 dormitories. Of these, 4 were built in 1995 and 2 in 2000. Each dormitory is 3600 square meters, with a maximum capacity of 1032 workers. On an average, each room is assigned 8 workers. Ratio of toilets to occupancy rate is 1:18 (higher than the GMP code of 1:12) while ratio of showers to

occupants is 1:12. Common toilets and showers are located on each floor at the end of the hall and are provided with cold running water. Each room is equipped with 2 fans for air circulation. Residents are provided with individual lockers, private beds, and lighting. Individual bed lights and radios are not permitted. Housekeeping and cleaning of rooms are the responsibility of the workers. The factory provides them with brooms and mops. Dormitories have security guards and are managed by a factory employed administrative manager.

Living the dormitory is completely voluntary. Among the interviewed workers, approximately 72% lived in the dormitories. With the exception of two areas, most workers appeared highly satisfied with their living situation in the dormitories. The areas of complaint related to the lack of hot water, which is available on the ground floor only. There were also complaints about laundry space allocation, which is limited and inconvenient to use. At present only the roofs of the dormitory buildings are used for clothes hanging.

Workers pay RMB30 toward monthly rental for their dormitory space, which is deducted from their paychecks. All workers living in the dormitory are required to make a mandatory initial, non-refundable payment of RMB80 as the cost of first-time supplies, e.g., bed sheets, towel, soup, etc. The workers do not have the option of bringing their own supplies or buying them from the outside. This practice is inconsistent with GMP guidelines, which requires that all employee expenses must be voluntary.

Mattel, Inc. – VENDOR PLANTS IN CHINA

[hedgetrimmer]

Some pundits claim that the Chinese have abandoned communism, and embraced the free market system

Paid for by transnational corporations who LOVE doing business with China, precisely because they are communists and they can run slave labor factories there.

[avacado]

Toys I had as a kid.... real frogs from the yard, box turtles from the fields, lizards from the yard, and all sorts of kites that I made, bows & arrows that I made, and a Playboy magazine stolen from a friend’s dad.

[hedgetrimmer]

“free trade” with communists means slave labor produced goods sold in the US.

[WoofDog123]

darn, i had no idea china was one of their factory locations. sigh.....

[Palladin]

I agree with a boycott of Mattel and Hasbro. We used to worry about lead in tenement buildings where poor kids grew up. Now we have to worry about all the affluent kids whose rooms and toy boxes are loaded with leadbearing crap from China.

All these toys are not necessary. Our kids can live better without them.

[Fledermaus]

This is what you get when you drive the slave-labor sweatshops out of the United States! </s>

[Palladin]

Rush is a jerk. He doesn’t know from toys. He’s never had kids.

[GSWarrior]

Are single sentence paragraphs a new trend in the blogosphere?

[Palladin]

This is the answer. From time immemorial, kids have made their own toys.

I remember my sisters, back in the forties, making clothespin dolls. Each sister made a whole family of them. Painted on the faces. Made the dresses and clothing from scraps of material from Mother’s sewing basket. I wanted “in”, so they made a bunch of clothespin soldiers for me. My soldiers fought many a battle on the dirt hill in the backyard, until the dog got ahold of them and chewed them all to shreds.

[Palladin]

More happy memories...

My sisters could do without Barbie crap townhouses. They made houses for their clothespin dolls out of cardboard boxes. They cut furnishings and appliances, wallpaper, etc. from my Mother’s “ladies” magazines and glued them onto the walls of their “houses”.

One sister loved to read to me. She read to me the story of Rip Van Winkle. I got it into my head that I wanted to do a marionette show of the story. Another sister built a cardboard “set” for me out of a big box. She painted on the trees and other scenery. My marionettes were made out of a wooden bead set. Another sister did these, dressed them in costumes..it was fantastic. We all had a part in the show. We invited all the neighbor kids in for the big production. It was a hit!

We used our imaginations...flights of fancy; creativity to the ‘nth power.

Kids who play with Mattel crap are denied the opportunity to expand their minds and their imaginations.

I feel so sorry for kids today.

[JACKRUSSELL]

That’s how the article was formatted on the site. I didn’t change it.

[WilliamofCarmichael]

It's worse than toys. Rush is old enough to know that we did NOT free trade the Soviet Union into a world economic power -- many from both Parties wanted to help the "moderate" communists but people who knew how to win said, No!

Those people are mostly gone now having won both W.W.II and the Cold War. (With help from our allies, of course.)