Gap, Mattel, Speedo, Wal-Mart Products Linked to Child P1

Charles Kernaghan executive director of the National Labor Committee, discusses recent scandals linking children's products to sweatshop labor. National Labor Committee recently found forced labor of up to 90 hours a week and pay as low as 46 cents an hour in Chinese factories linked to Mateel. The clothing company the Gap has announced its cut ties with a subcontractor found to be holding children in slave-like conditions in India to make clothing sold by Gap Kids. The London Observer revealed Sunday that children as young as ten years old have been subjected to work long hours without pay and regular threats and beatings. Gap began auditing its labor conditions in 2004, years after reports of abusive conditions at its factories first emerged.

The Gap expose is only the latest scandal linking children's products to sweatshop labor. Earlier this year the toy giant Mattel recalled some 21 million China-made toys found to contain lead paint easily swallowed by children. Last week the National Labor Committee in Support of Human and Worker Rights released three reports documenting the conditions for workers making those toys. The reports found forced labor of up to 90 hours a week and pay as low as 46 cents an hour. Aside from Mattel, other companies using the factories include Wal-Mart, McDonalds and the swimwear manufacturer Speedo.

Charles Kernaghan is the executive director of the National Labor Committee, widely considered this country's leading voice in exposing the foreign labor abuses of major U.S. corporations. He joins me in the firehouse studio. * Charles Kernaghan, Executive Director of the National Labor Committee.

Category:

News & Politics

Tags:

• Gap
• Mattel
• Speedo
• Wal-Mart
• Child
• Sweatshop
• Labor
• in
• China
• and
• India

[kbb28]

fuck walmart and all these fucking pigs, i hope someone subjects them to the treatment they impliment in their sweatshops.

[icore64]

nobody cares. this low IQ population (USA) care only shopping and eating.

[TheAnnafisher]

1 womb 1 heart 1 love

[sevenelizabeth]

@icore64 It is a false perception that all Americans are like that. That is what "the man" wants the world to think of us.

[jdrw1987]

I just gave "mattel" and "gap" the consumer bitching session of a LIFETIME! lol As an american consumer, I feel like I just took a stand for whoever is out there suffering. I told both of the companies that I will no longer be purchasing toys or clothes from either, they were INTENSE conversations! those consumer relations people are easy to piss off! hahahaha peace on earth! :D

[musicalidea]

@ccheng21 No one is suggesting raising assembly line workers' wages in China to $15.00/hr. That's a straw man argument. What is being proposed here is that the demand for labor would not decline at the companies Kernaghan has cited - Mattel, the Gap, Walmart, etc - if they were to as much as double their wages to $.90/hr. The highest min. wage in China is in Shenzhen (1000 RMB) or $143/mo (@ 80 hrs/wk, that's abt $.6/hr). Mattel wld benefit if wages were raised bc domestic markets wld grow.

[musicalidea]

@icore64 50 hrs/wk and $.45 in China is much better than what they get paid in Bangladesh - now it's about $.11-$.13/hr for an 80-100 hr work week (in 2010). We must remember, nobody cares in this (US) low IQ population concerned only with surfaces, shopping and eating, because it has been systematically diluted of the faculties and sentiments it might possess were it not left to educate itself and work min. wage jobs without health care. The potential for conscience still remains.

[mcapps1]

why are we still allowing companies to waste resources to make this useless crap for our children, instead of EDUCATIONAL toys?

[TheArson74]

thank you for all you do charlie im a steelworker with8183 and enjoy when you come to speak with us. thanks and keep up the great work

[MyTenToes]

@MyTenToes Even if you properly convert the different kinds of currencies, money is still worth more is poorer countries like China. But anyway, the workers are paid below minimum wage, and the WHOLE point that this person is trying to make is that the company will still survive if they improved working conditions and paid their workers more fairly. If the company was incapable of treating their workers more fairly they wouldn't be having this TV interview.

[MyTenToes]

@ccheng21 Didn't you hear what this guy said? "There's enough money in the mok-up of these toys to treat the workers like human beings." And that is obvious seeing that the mok-up of the toy is $20.99 and the workers are paid $0.19. Also, you can't compare the value of money in the US to China.

[iTweet2010]

@icore64 i care.... this is important!