Today, the Institute for Global Labour and Human Rights is releasing an explosive 40 page report "Holidays by Hasbro, Transformers from Hell," including scores of photographs and documents smuggled out of the Jet Fair toy factory in China. The Jet Fair sweatshop in China produces Hasbro's Transformers Prime toys. "I challenge Hasbro's executives to imagine their own sons and daughters working under such miserable sweatshop conditions," said Institute director Charles Kernaghan. "It does not have to be this way." Read the Full News Story Here

Anyone shocked? I'm not. This is how labor is done in China, regardless of who the manufacturer is.

Ah China. When it comes to freedom of thought, you're as Communist as you can be. When it comes to labor, you're as Capitalist as a late 19th century mill owner.

I think that pretty much everything we buy that says "Made in China" on it somewhere is made under similar conditions, unfortunately. The phone I'm typing this on is made at a facility that deploys suicide nets around the building to keep employees from jumping out the windows.

This is sad news but far from surprising. Its unfortunate. For the Chinese to have better work environments and quality of life, a lot of money is going to have to be needed. The price of the goods we buy will then go up. If a mark up came and i knew it was going to help the Chinese workers and their quality of life, i think i could live with it.

Not surprising. This unfortunately goes on a lot among companies. Interested to hear what Hasbro has to say....

This...

 

Anyone shocked? I'm not. This is how labor is done in China, regardless of who the manufacturer is.

...and this.

This is sad news but far from surprising. Its unfortunate. For the Chinese to have better work environments and quality of life, a lot of money is going to have to be needed. The price of the goods we buy will then go up. If a mark up came and i knew it was going to help the Chinese workers and their quality of life, i think i could live with it.

Ah, but therein is the crux. If the standard of living and labor in China suddenly went to par with other developed countries, the advantage of manufacturing there would cease to exist and these companies would move on. There's already chatter that southern African countries are being eyed for the next industrial revolution.

 

There's only one way to fix that problem. You have to tarriff these companies so there's no monetary advantage to manufacturing overseas vs. keeping it 'local'.

What is sad here are the people who are actually shocked by it. It's China they are known for human rights abuses.

 

If Hasbro and other companies actually cared also. They would take their manufacturing needs elsewhere. But they wont

I just read the report, and in addition to the "points" that appear in the news article, one big sticking point is that the company doesn't adhere to the existing Chinese labor laws. So while those laws maybe aren't the greatest in the world, these worker should be able to be just as miserable as the rest of China, rather than being even moreso.

It's called outsourcing. I'm surprised they're focusing on a toy company and not jumping at all of Walmart's throat. They don't treat their employees on US soil much better than the workers who manufacture their goods are treated.

 

edit: oh wait, they're mentioned in the report. Intriguing.