Report Claims Child Labor Making Olympics Gear

[M.D. Holloway]

Report Claims Child Labor Making Olympics Gear
By Stephen Wade, AP Sports Writer
Manufacturing.Net - June 11, 2007

BEIJING (AP) - Backpacks, caps and other licensed products for the 2008 Beijing Olympics are being made in Chinese factories that use child labor and force employees to work long hours for less than minimum wage, a report released Sunday said.

The report, compiled by Play Fair 2008, an alliance of global trade unions and labor groups, identified four factories that it says are abusing Chinese and international labor standards to produce Olympics-licensed products.

The findings are likely to prove embarrassing to organizers of the 2008 Olympics and the International Olympic Committee. The communist government wants to use the Beijing Games to project a positive image of China, spending an estimated $40 billion on a complete makeover.

Officials with the Beijing Olympic organizing committee declined to comment, saying they had not seen the report.

The International Olympic Committee said it does not have direct control over all official products that carry the Olympic label but that it has created policies on fair labor standards that it expects Olympic host cities and licensed manufacturers to follow.

The Beijing Olympics are expected to be the most profitable in the games' history, attracting 500,000 foreign visitors. Corporate sponsors are using the event to raise their profiles in China's rapidly growing consumer market.

Play Fair said it looked into four factories producing Olympic-licensed products in southern China. Investigators, some of whom got jobs in the factories, found: forced overtime; 12-hour work days; failure to pay overtime; child workers as young as 12; wages below the legal minimum; long working hours and hazardous working conditions.

[the]

what?!?

underage workers, low pay, long hours and hazardous working conditions? In CHINA???

I'm shocked.

[svandamme]

the Olympic comite knew all about those poor ethics and work conditions, but turned a blind eye... anyone who says otherwise is lying... even if those directly involved would have proper work conditiongs, it's inevitable that there is indirect stuff...

the whole thing should be treated with a massive boycot

[HardDrive]

I wish people would stop seeing developing countries through their western eyes and get a clue.

China is not the United States. India is not France. The citizens in these countries face challanges that folks in the west cannot imagine. That 12 year old kid making hats? Yeah, he is HAPPY to be blessed with that job.

Stop being a mouth piece for the f*cking labor unions, and learn for yourself what the situation is really like. Go there. Talk to people.

The unions have been chased out of town here in the US, and now they are searching for their next victims.

[Superman]

Originally posted by HardDrive

The unions have been chased out of town here in the US....

You have been misinformed.

[Jim Richards]

Whenever I think about how much I save on products manufactured by Chinese children in sweatshop factories, I truly appreciate those products.

[svandamme]

Originally posted by HardDrive
I wish people would stop seeing developing countries through their western eyes and get a clue.

China is not the United States. India is not France. The citizens in these countries face challanges that folks in the west cannot imagine. That 12 year old kid making hats? Yeah, he is HAPPY to be blessed with that job.

Stop being a mouth piece for the f*cking labor unions, and learn for yourself what the situation is really like. Go there. Talk to people.

The unions have been chased out of town here in the US, and now they are searching for their next victims.

would you like your children to grow up working from the age of 12, so people in rich countries can get a cheaper baseball cap or dvd player? or would you rather have them be a child and get proper education?

The Union problem you mention , is a whole different Union then the one that got the ridd of child labour in the western countries, that old Union , did a good thing, things just got greedy in the modern age

this doesn't mean that it's OK for us westerners to accept that our rich life style can be delivered to us cheaply by children. cause if you do accept it, you might as well stretch it a bit further, by stating that the Children in Thailand are happy with the Baths they get from western pedofiles... "they're happy with the money, it's OK, damned those Childrens rights movements and legislators who outlawed incest and what not!"

[sammyg2]

Someone please answer this simple question:
Which would you prefer, children in a third world country working for a very small wage so they and their family can eat, or having them not work and starve?
I say it's better for them to work and stay alive.

Unless you are willing to step up and support them, IMO you have no gripe here. The only thing you are trying to do is to take away their low paying jobs and condeming them to starvation. Nice going. I'm sure they appreciate it.

[M.D. Holloway]

No agenda - I just would like to see kids have the chance to learn and play before they have to take on a lifetime of labor. At least let them have their childhood.

I don't have the answers but I do know what I think is fair and what is not. Kids working isn't cool no matter how you slice it. Wages could improve if the corporations would comprmise the op margins.

Why do I think that it would not bankrupt them? If it would then they have a crappy model.

[ronin]

I'm still pissed about how the chinese get away with having longer hours while we're still limited to 60 minutes! bastards!

[911pcars]

"Which would you prefer, children in a third world country working for a very small wage so they and their family can eat, or having them not work and starve? "

Why do we only get the black and white answers to choose from? You couldn't think of other scenarios?

Would it kill most folks here to pay $6 instead of $5 for a shirt made in China so the 12 year old works "only" 10 hours instead of 12, or does the thrill of a deal deaden the capitalistic conscience?

Or we can bring off-shore production back to the states and reverse child labor laws so 12 year olds can work 13 hour shifts. That way, the $5 shirt might only cost $4. But probably not. The Walton's and their share holders require the bottom line.

Sherwood

[Rick Lee]

Originally posted by 911pcars
"Which would you prefer, children in a third world country working for a very small wage so they and their family can eat, or having them not work and starve? "

Why do we only get the black and white answers to choose from? You couldn't think of other scenarios?

Would it kill most folks here to pay $6 instead of $5 for a shirt made in China so the 12 year old works "only" 10 hours instead of 12, or does the thrill of a deal deaden the capitalistic conscience?

Or we can bring off-shore production back to the states and reverse child labor laws so 12 year olds can work 13 hour shifts. That way, the $5 shirt might only cost $4. But probably not. The Walton's and their share holders require the bottom line.

Sherwood

Do you think paying more a Chinese-made shirt is going to raise the wages of the kids who made them? No f&cking way. The factory owner(s) would pocket the extra profit. People who have a problem with Chinese wages need to get a clue about the population and demographics there. You could take the entire population out of the US out of China and not put a dent in their labor pool. Remember the Russian general who was asked why they didn't invade China? He said if they killed a million people per day, they'd still have three years of work ahead of them. People in the countryside there are so poor, they can't afford to pay attention. And the factories in the cities lure the kids there, which A) takes them off their parents' hands and B) gets them another source of income. BTW, most factories in China provide room and board for their workers. So, while they may only make $100 per month, they have no rent or food costs and much of their pay gets sent back to their families in the countryside.

One of the first lessons I learned in China, where they refuse tips and you see poverty like you can't imagine, is that they are not waiting for rich westerners to rescue them. If you give money to a beggar child on the street there, it will go straight to their adult minder. If you pay more for a product made there, the people who made that product will not see one extra mao, fen or yuan for it.

[svandamme]

missing the point

it's not about paying more money , hoping they will improve their ways

it's about setting demands/expectations, to make them improve their ways, and the result is you pay a bit more money

big difference

[Tervuren]

Originally posted by Rick Lee
Do you think paying more a Chinese-made shirt is going to raise the wages of the kids who made them? No f&cking way. The factory owner(s) would pocket the extra profit. People who have a problem with Chinese wages need to get a clue about the population and demographics there. You could take the entire population out of the US out of China and not put a dent in their labor pool. Remember the Russian general who was asked why they didn't invade China? He said if they killed a million people per day, they'd still have three years of work ahead of them. People in the countryside there are so poor, they can't afford to pay attention. And the factories in the cities lure the kids there, which A) takes them off their parents' hands and B) gets them another source of income. BTW, most factories in China provide room and board for their workers. So, while they may only make $100 per month, they have no rent or food costs and much of their pay gets sent back to their families in the countryside.

One of the first lessons I learned in China, where they refuse tips and you see poverty like you can't imagine, is that they are not waiting for rich westerners to rescue them. If you give money to a beggar child on the street there, it will go straight to their adult minder. If you pay more for a product made there, the people who made that product will not see one extra mao, fen or yuan for it.

You completely missed his point! If you increase the wages first, then the price will rise because of it, not increasing the price for it. He asked which you would rather buy, a $5 shirt made with one standard, and a $6 with another.

The problem is, when you raise the price of labour, all other costs will go up as well, food, etc. Its not like it really has much of a benefit except for a very short period.

[Rick Lee]

WE can't raise the wages. WE don't run the factories. American companies buy products from Chinese companies and I doubt many companies offer to pay more than asking price for what they're buying. Since every single factory worker in China is immediately replaceable with someone who will work for the same or even less money, I don't know why managers there would offer to pay more than they have to.

[svandamme]

still missing the point
the factories are run by Chinese, but they can't sell their stuff the way they do now, if the customers set demands on working conditions...

i've seen documentaries bout car factories in China, i beieve it was Volvo, and they had great working conditions compared to what normal Chinese factories would have... still not western working conditions, but at least the worst abuse was worked out of the picture...

why would that be such a hard thing to aim for??
i for one, would not want products, if i know that some kid works in that factory , 12 hours a day , 6/7 days a week...

[Rick Lee]

Then stop buying those products. You will be in the tiny, tiny minority of people and will have zero effect on anything on the ground in China. If everyone chose to pay more than they had to, it would be the biggest break with human nature and every natural law of economics in history and I can't even predict how out of whack all our economies would become.

[Porsche-O-Phile]

"Won't someone please think of the children!!!" LOL!

Not this again. Sheesh.

At the outset, let me say I'm not a fan of sweatshop labor, HOWEVER. . .

Someone MADE A CHOICE to bring these kids into the world, knowing full well what they'd be in for. If the conditions were SO horrible, why on earth would someone choose this?

As with most things, I think the truth lies somewhere in the middle. I'm certainly not saying Chinese factories/sweatshops are pleasant places, but I don't think they're dungeons with bare-chested, bald-headed guys walking around with whips either.

Most likely the impetus comes from (1) people not being able to keep their flies zipped up and (2) people deluding themselves into thinking that somehow, things might be better for their kids, when they know in their hearts it very likely won't be.

[svandamme]

sure, i do try to avoid things like that, it's not always easy, since many products come with Chinese components in em... and it's difficult to trace back, but in general, Big Western Companies, will try to get things to improve... some try harder then others, but at least they try

you say minority, with little impact
but realistically, the big Companies do allready behave according to that impact, they are afraid of the news headding if their company is in the news with "children treated as slaves" header


This thread, however, is about the Olympic Organisation, which has things in it's motto about Chivalry and what not in the Olympic Oath

now, Child Labor, 12 hours a day , is not very Olympic now is it?
and i do say boycot the snot out of it if this keeps going, or if more substandard crap comes up...

it's very easy for us to not watch the TV related to the Olympic Games... and it would make a big impact, since the advertisement business is big bucks , few of which will go to those who have little of it...

[svandamme]

Originally posted by Porsche-O-Phile

Someone MADE A CHOICE to bring these kids into the world, knowing full well what they'd be in for. If the conditions were SO horrible, why on earth would someone choose this?

...

Most likely the impetus comes from (1) people not being able to keep their flies zipped up and (2) people deluding themselves into thinking that somehow, things might be better for their kids, when they know in their hearts it very likely won't be.

first , folks make babies, it's a primal urge
few make em , thinking he'll end up in a sweatshop, they usually make em, based on hormones

second, they know damn well how to keep their flies zipped, because they can only make one, more then one, is big fines and even jail time in China... the State zips it up for them