CSR

Toy companies slammed for safety and labour conditions at Chinese suppliers

Multinational companies' single-minded pursuit of ever lower prices is resulting in cheap low quality Chinese toys that are posing risks to consumers, a report by US-based China Labor Watch (CLW) has alleged.

Furthermore, CLW alleges that as well as turning a blind eye to safety, companies like Hasbro are also ignoring labour conditions in their supplier factories, instead wasting their efforts on creating pamphlets on social responsibility, disputing critical reports and shifting blame.

CLW's report covers research on eight toy factories in China. The research found that wages are low, working environments are dangerous, and living conditions are humiliating. Compulsory overtime with illegally low compensation is prevalent, factories fail to provide adequate training to workers using chemicals, workers are not offered insurance as mandated by the law, and many factories verbally and physically abuse employees.

The blame for these abuses, argues CLW, lies with not principally with the manufacturers themselves, but with the prices paid to the factories by toy companies. In order to maintain even a modest profit, said CLW, many local supplier factories have no choice but to accept toy companies' low prices, and the only flexible factors of production are workers' salaries and general treatment.

CLW is demanding that toy companies offer workers a living - not just minimum - wage; not abandon supplier factories, but make a commitment to them; not only take responsibility for a suppliers' legal infractions, but go a step further and actively seek to improve its workers' lives.

The release of the report followed toy giant Mattel recalling 18.2m magnetic toys over safety concerns.

September 2007