National Labor Committee Report Examines Conditions in Wal-Mart Supplier Factories

A new report from the National Labor Committee examines the inhumane working conditions of factories in China where toys for Wal-Mart are made. Click on the image at right to download the report, or on the headline below for a wbe-based version.

Santa’s Helpers Suffer Constant Abuse While Making Barbie, Thomas & Friends, and Other Toys for Wal-Mart at the Xin Yi Factory in China [National Labor Committee Report]

Xin Yi Plastics Factory Yu Lu Industrial Zone II Gong Ming Town. Shenzhen, China
The Xin Yi Plastics Company is made up of two factories – Xin Yi and Jia Li Bao – sprawling over a large 725,500 square foot compound in the Yu Lu Industrial Zone II. There are over 5,000 workers.
Conditions in both factories are the same.

Xin Yi produces high-end electronic toys such as Barbie electric guitars and keyboards, Barbie cassette players, Barbie “Hug N’ Heal” Pet Doctor Sets; Thomas and Friends Engine Works Playset and Deluxe Cranky the Crane; and other plastic toys such as Wild Planet Toys’ “Sugar Snaps” and “Girls Living in Style Real Working Fan and Radio” as well as games like Hasbro’s Connect 4.

According to the workers, Xin Yi’s major clients are Mattel, Wal-Mart, and McDonald’s. All Xin Yi’s production is for export.

There is a Mattel Product Display room at Xin Yi, which would make it appear that Xin Yi is a direct contractor for Mattel. But only Mattel can clarify this. Mattel hides its 40 or 50 contract plants in China, refusing to release the names or addresses of these factories. There are four departments in each factory: injection molding, electronics, oil spray painting and assembly.

Xin Yi is owned by Xin Fa, or the Silver Manufacturing Holding Co LTD. of Hong Kong.

Santa’s Helpers Suffer Constant Abuse
• At the Xin Yi Plastics Factory in Shenzhen, China, there are more than 5,000 workers toiling 14 ½ hours a day making Barbie and other Mattel toys, along with toys for Wal-Mart, and Thomas and Friends for the RC2 Corporation.

• Ninety-five percent of the workers are illegally held as permanent temps, required to sign “new” employment contracts every two to three months, which is a scam to strip workers of their legal rights.

• On the very first day, after workers are forced to sign a largely blank contract, they attend a training session in which they are instructed on how to lie to corporate auditors from the U.S. Those who are questioned and answer “correctly” – that is, lie – will receive a bonus equivalent to one and a half week’s wages. Those who tell the truth are immediately fired.

• Workers are paid just 53 cents an hour and $21.34 a week. Forced to work excessive overtime, the toy workers are routinely at the factory 82 to 87 hours a week, while toiling 66 to 70 hours. The standard shift is 14 ½ hours a day, from 7:30 a.m. to 10:00 p.m., six days a week. Mandatory overtime at the Xin Yi Factory exceeds China’s legal limit by 260 percent! Workers are routinely cheated
on nearly 20 percent of the wages legally due them – resulting in the loss of two days wages each week. After deductions for primitive dorms (12 workers share each room sleeping on double-level bunk beds) and company food that the workers call “awful,” the workers’ take-home wage is just 46 cents an hour.

In 2006, it was even worse as the workers were at the factory 105 hours a week, forced to work 15-hour shifts, seven days a week, going for months on end without a single day off. No overtime premium was paid and the workers were routinely cheated of 40 percent of the wages legally due them.

• Mattel marks up the retail price of its toys by 233 percent! A “Barbie Hug N’ Heal Pet Doctor” costs just $9.00 to make in China, but Mattel sells the toy for $29.99, which is an astonishing $20.99 mark-up, or 233 percent.

• Workers in China are paid just 19 cents for every “Barbie – Jam with Me Electric Guitar” they assemble, which retails in the U.S. for $39.99. The workers’ wages amount to just one half of one percent of the toy’s retail price. On the other hand, Mattel spends $4.60 to advertise the toy, which is 24 times more than they pay the workers to make it.

Much more information can be found in the original report from the National Labor Committee.

Posted by Alex Goldschmidt on Thursday, October 25, 2007

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