Fortune story on China Labor Watch report

Fortune reported on the investigation of China Labor Watch into widespread and serious labor rights violations in Chinese toy factories supplying to top global toy brands. Forbes received responses from a number of the implicated toy brands. The beginning of the story is below. 


Hasbro, Mattel Toy Suppliers Slammed In Labor Report
November 22, 2015
by Claire Groden

China Labor Watch released results of undercover investigation.

Laborers at some toy factories in China work without adequate protection, toiling long hours with few, if any, breaks. Many facilities lack proper fire safety measures and subject workers to poor living conditions. For some, quitting means giving up earned wages. According to a new report by China Labor Watch, which investigated five major factories that supply toys to Hasbro and Mattel, labor violations are rampant in Chinese toy factories.

China Labor Watch sent undercover investigators to the factories, which altogether employ about 20,000 laborers. “Over the past 20 years, toy brands and retailers have reaped tremendous benefits from the labor and sometimes even the lives of Chinese workers,” China Labor Watch Program Coordinator Kevin Slaten said in a press release, “yet these companies fail to respect labor rights and to ensure that workers also enjoy the fruits of the toy industry’s success.”

The report found instances of hiring discrimination, mandatory and excessive overtime work, unpaid work, broken labor contracts, poor safety measures and few paths for laborers to seek recourse. Many of these issues also break Chinese labor law.

Read the rest of the Fortune story.

"Socially Responsible" Capitalism Still Feeds the Disease

As part of an excellent analysis piece on the concept of social responsibility, I did an interview with journalist Toshio Meronek for Truthout. The article really touches on issues located at the root of the state of business ethics. I've copied the beginning of the article below. The full piece, published on September 16, can be read here.


Capitalism with a conscience? That's the idea behind so-called "socially responsible" investments - buying stocks in companies that are screened for criteria like good labor practices, sustainability and whether or not the company is involved in arms manufacturing. The Forum for Sustainable and Responsible Investment, an industry association, claimed in its latest report from 2012 that at least $3.74 trillion in the United States is invested with environmental and social impacts in mind.

Some socially responsible investments (SRI) weed out cigarette companies like Philip Morris; others shun companies with poor environmental records, like BP. But whichever investments you choose, there's a good chance you'll be profiting off companies with bad human rights records because the backbone of many SRI funds are consumer technology stocks - companies like Apple and Samsung, which have histories replete with labor and privacy abuses.

China Labor Watch (CLW) is one of the groups that investigates ongoing labor problems; Kevin Slaten is its US-based program coordinator. He spoke to Truthout about the reports his organization has conducted on Apple, which started to be heavily scrutinized around 2010 when activists brought attention to child labor in some of the factories used by the computer giant. Some of these same factories were the subjects of protests over a number of Chinese labor law violations and mass worker suicides.

According to Slaten, "We constantly find these symptoms, but the disease underlying these symptoms has not been properly taken care of for years. The disease is these companies want the most amount of products in the shortest amount of time."

Read the rest of the article here.

More Exploitation, More Happiness: How Netizens Responded to a Deadly Factory Explosion

This essay was originally published at ChinaFile on September 18, 2014.

It was one of the deadliest industrial disasters in recent Chinese history. On August 2, a massive metal dust explosion killed 75 workers and injured another 186 at a factory in Kunshan, in Jiangsu province, that supplied wheels to General Motors. Asphyxiation killed more than 40 people almost immediately as oxygen in the production facility was consumed in an instant. Many of those who escaped suffered severe burns across their entire bodies as the flames instantly ignited the dust that covered their clothes and skin.

The explosion, like many workplace safety incidents in China, was preventable, and much of the blame for it rests with the factory’s owners and clients. But Chinese Internet users, who spread news of the blast over social media, tended to direct their outrage at the Chinese government, treating the explosion as a symbol of their leaders’ failure to value human life as highly as economic growth, a sentiment mordantly expressed through the popularization of the Chinese phrase “More exploitation, more happiness.”

Media Round-up: Lack of reform to working conditions at Apple supplier Catcher

On September 4, China Labor Watch (CLW) along with Green America published an investigative report (PDF) on a long list of labor and safety violations at factory called Catcher Technology in Suqian, China that manufactures Apple computer and phone parts.

In addition to the approaching iPhone 6, this report followed 16 months after CLW had already reported similar labor abuse to Apple. But Apple failed to take the necessary action to see through reform. 

In the wake of this report, I had a chance to discuss findings and underlying causes with WSJ, The Guardian, the South China Morning Post, and CNET. Voice of America did a Chinese-language interview with me. I also stepped onto CNBC's Squawk Box, which you can view below.

What is the Chinese Dream?

Over the past three decades, every Chinese Communist Party chairman, upon his taking the reigns of power, has developed a grand guiding principle rolled up into a nifty rhetorical package. Not much unlike U.S. politicians' campaign slogans, in the 1990s, it was Jiang Zemin's "Three Represents" (三个代表), and in the 2000s, Hu Jintao's "Scientific Development" (科学发展观).

Soon after Xi Jinping became the top official in China, he developed a phrase that would become his political slogan: "The Chinese Dream" (中国梦). But amidst increasing amounts of both real and perceived inequality, some in China do not feel that they are enjoying the dream, especially migrant workers who built much of that dream with their bare hands.

Over at ChinaFile, Sharron Lovell and Tom Wang asked a few young Chinese people about their dreams. One of the most memorable quotes for me was from a young man who said:

"If there weren't any migrant workers, it would be impossible for China to develop this fast." ... "The place you live was built by migrant workers. What you're eating was grown by migrant workers. What you're wearing was produced by migrant workers."     

“如果没有农民的话，中国不可能发展这么快。”... “你住的地方农民工建的，你吃的农民工种的，你穿的农民工做。”

See the entire video below.

The end of newsies

Child newsies in 1906. "Midnight at the Brooklyn Bridge" -- Photo by Lewis W. Hine. Transfer from Photo League Lewis Hine Memorial Committee. Ex-collection of Corydon Hine. Copyright George Eastman House Collection.

Stepping off the Long Island Railroad train, I look up to catch my bearings. Seventh Avenue is to the right, and I follow the stream of morning passengers toward the steps that lead up into the main hall of the train station.

After squeezing out of the narrow stairway, people around me seem to multiply into a enormous crowd of commuters, filling the large hallways of Pennsylvania Station. The mass of people flows like an urgent river toward the main exit up to the street level. I jump into the stream, bobbing and weaving between groggy businesspeople and office workers.

Government Steps Up To Labor’s Demands: Importance of Yue Yuen Shoe Factory Strike

Photo provided to China Labor Watch by Yue Yuen worker.

This essay was originally published at ChinaFile.

On April 14, most of the 40,000 workers at the Dongguan Yue Yuen shoe factory—supplier to Nike, Adidas, and other international brands—began what would become a two-week work stoppage. While there are thousands of strikes in China every year, the Yue Yuen action broke the mold by attracting an unprecedented show of government support for worker demands.

CBC (The Current) interview on Yue Yuen strike

On Monday April 28, I went to CBC's studio in Midtown Manahattan to chat with The Current's Anna Maria Tremonti about the progress of the hitoric Yue Yuen strike. The entire segment on the story can be listened to hear: http://www.cbc.ca/thecurrent/popupaudio.html?clipIds=2452825479

NBC News interview on progressing Yue Yuen Strike

As it entered the 40,000-strong Yue Yuen shoe factory strike entered its second week, NBC New's Alastair Jamieson interviewed me on some aspects of the protest. The full article is below.

Worsening China Factory Strike Threatens Adidas, Nike Sneakers
By Alastair Jamieson and Eric Baculinao

BEIJING - A wage dispute at a huge sneaker factory that supplies brands including Adidas and Nike escalated Wednesday, highlighting the growing problems faced by China’s manufacturing powerhouse. 

Workers at the plant – owned by the world's largest maker of sneakers, Yue Yuen – earn as little as $1.67 an hour making shoes that can sell for up to 100 times as much in the United States. 

Tens of thousands of employees have been off work for a second week, forcing Adidas to switch production to some of its other suppliers. At least one organizer was arrested by police and has not been seen for 24 hours, activists told NBC News Wednesday after a settlement offer was rejected. 

At the core of the dispute is the issue of historic underpayments for social security and housing fund contributions, but the issue goes far beyond the shoe plant. 

Workers throughout China are demanding not just higher wages but better social insurance as they face the prospect of supporting a rapidly aging population.

“The fact that something as nuanced as social insurance has led to a strike shows just how much things are changing,” said Kevin Slaten of U.S.-based non-profit China Labor Watch. “This generation of workers is a lot more aware of its rights and this problem is not unique to this factory.” 

Interview on BBC World News about massive Chinese shoe factory strike

On April 15, 2014, a day after a Dongguan shoe factory strike began that would continue ont April 28 and involve about 40,000 worker, BBC World News interviewed me about the event.

Apple responds to campaign, but falls short of progress

This post (with the exception of date changes) first appeared in the blog of Green America.

Co-authored by Kevin Slaten, China Labor Watch, and Elizabeth O’Connell, Green America 
 
On March 12 in partnership with Students and Scholars Against Corporate Misbehaviour and the activism arm of the Nation, Green America and China Labor Watch launched a petition to Apple to improve worker health and safety in the factories that make Apple products.

Apple was quick to respond to our campaign, in a statement shared with Computer World, however, their statement falls far short of meeting the demands of the campaign.  

The Guardian interview on worker safety in Apple factories

I talked with The Guardian's Samual Gibbs to discuss worker safety in Chinese plants making Apple products as part the following article:

Apple urged to stop using harmful chemicals in its factories

Labour and eco groups call for chemical safety in manufacturing at Apple factories in China, and say Samsung, Dell and HP should change too

Pressure groups China Labor Watch and Green America say Apple should stop using harmful chemicals including the solvents n-hexane and benzene in its manufacturing.

But they said that they were not calling for a customer boycott of the products, and that any reports suggesting that were “misinterpretation”.

The groups will call on Wednesday for Apple to “stop needlessly exposing workers in Chinese manufacturing facilities to toxic chemicals now causing severe illnesses” arguing that using those chemicals rather than alternatives saves it a “shockingly small amount of money”.

“Together with Green America, we demand that Apple takes responsibility and removes chemicals like the solvents n-hexane and the carcinogen benzene, which is known to cause leukaemia providing its workers with a legal standard of welfare,” Kevin Slaten, programme co-ordinator at China Labor Watch, told the Guardian.

Apple's child labor

Apple iPhone child worker Shi Zhaokun who died last year
(Photo: China Labor Watch)

In writing a piece on child labor in Apple's supply chain, a reporter for Quartz magazine talked with me about the issue as it pertains to China. The article is an interesting read, but (as I told the reporter in an email after the article was publsihed), despite the seriousness of child labor, from a numbers perspective, child labor is a relatively minor aspect of the labor abuse going on in Apple's supply chain.

Quoted in E-Commerce Times on IBM factory strike of 1,000 workers

IBM is selling its low-end server business to Lenevo, and this includes the sale of an electronics factory in Guangdong Province. But during the process, the factory did not offer economic compensation to its workers as required by law. Over 1,000 workers from the plant went on striek to protest this and other issues, like working hours. A reporter from E-Commerce Times contacted me to talk more about the legal background and labor context. Please see the article here.

It just got harder to prosecute corporate abuse

Credit: James Burke via Flickr (Creative Commons)

A Supreme Court ruling in January has made it easier for large multinational corporations to avoid responsibility for its abuses anywhere in the world.

"Could you help me find a sweatshop for my friend?"

(Reuters)

On Monday, I attended the fifth annual Forecast of China's Economy at the New York Stock Exchange, an event organized by the National Committee on United States-China Relations which invites Chinese experts to discuss China's economic policy and its potential to influence the economy in the coming year.

Snowden case is at the soul of America

On Facebook today, a friend (you know who you are) posted on my wall that some of the labor rights denied to Chinese workers are also regularly denied to American workers. Unfortunately true.

Soon after reading this post, I read the New York Times' editorial that ambitiously kicked off the new year by demanding amnesty for Edward Snowden, the NSA whistleblower now self-exiled in Russia.

How, you ask, is Snowden related to labor rights defense?

Protest and interview on the streets of Paris

I had the fortune to be a part of the dramatic protest/media campaign on the streets of Paris against the abuse of Mattel workers in China. This protest was carried out with the leadership of Peuples Solidaires, a dynamic French rights advocacy group. I cannot remember the exact location in Paris, but there were about two to three dozen reporters present, including the AP. Below is the footage and interview shot by GNC News Network.

Don’t Feel Guilty About Chinese Worker Abuse. Get mad instead.

This article originally appeared in In These Times. The photo was published by China Labor Watch.

In October, China Labor Watch (CLW) published a report that exposed a laundry list of labor rights violations in six Chinese factories producing Mattel toys. These undercover investigations revealed that workers perform up to 110 hours of monthly overtime, live in hot, crowded dormitories and do not receive effective safety training or adequate protective equipment. Moreover, the report estimated the factories steal $11 million from workers each year through a combination of “unpaid overtime, work hour trickery and voluntary social insurance.” For more than a decade, the CLW pointed out, Mattel itself has also performed audits of supplier factories—and uncovered similar awful labor conditions.

Quoted in Huffington Post on exploitation in factories producing Dell products

Prolific labor rights advocate/reporter Michelle Chen interviewed me for an article about the latest revelations of labor abuse in Dell-producing factories in China, based on a detailed report by DanWatch. Much of the report is based on undercover investigation by China Labor Watch.

In Chen's article, I was quoted speaking on the issue of temp workers:

The tremendous use of student workers and dispatch or temporary workers is in part a symptom of brand companies, like Dell, driving down prices for production. The factories run on relatively slim profit margins, and the factories attempt to use every trick in the book to cut labor costs, including the use of illegally large proportions of temporary workers.

Back in March, together with Chinese right activist Xue Chao, I published an in-depth essay on the topic of Chinese temp workers.