Workers Suffer in Sweat Shops to Make Our Toys
http://www.truthout.org/docs_04/112704V.shtmlSweat, Fear and Resignation Amid All the Toys
By Abigail Goldman
The Los Angeles Times
Friday 26 November 2004
Despite Mattel's efforts to police factories, thousands of workers are suffering.
Just off a wide dirt road that leads to a densely packed jumble of factories, workers behind one guarded metal gate toil seven days a week, sometimes as many as 24 hours straight, making toys for about 20 cents an hour.
It is a pace that makes them almost numb to the poor ventilation, the lack of bathroom breaks and a fear that they will be beaten if they complain.
Sweatshops aren't unusual, of course, in a country that possesses a large and cheap workforce and a permissive government hungry to attract big business. What makes this situation notable is that these workers make products for a company widely considered one of the most socially responsible American firms: Mattel Inc.
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When it comes to limiting work hours, ensuring fair pay and improving health and safety standards, "Mattel is one of the best," said Chan Ka Wai, associate director of the Hong Kong Christian Industrial Committee, which has done extensive investigations into working conditions in the Chinese toy industry.
Yet for all of that, tens of thousands of workers who make Mattel products still suffer.
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