Thread: China's toy sweatshop pays 36 cents an hour

China's toy sweatshop pays 36 cents an hour
Christmas product safety recalls continue along with import mania

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Posted: December 20, 2007
3:33 p.m. Eastern



© 2007 WorldNetDaily.com

WASHINGTON – As consumer safety recalls of Christmas products made in China continue at a torrid pace, a new report shows the average Chinese worker making toys is paid a meager 36 cents an hour – just 2.5 percent of what U.S. toy manufacturers pay domestically.
Today, the U.S. Consumer Product Safety Commission announced the latest recall of a Christmas import – a holiday candle set that tips over and whose exterior coating is flammable. The snowman and Christmas tree candles were manufactured in China.

The Consumer Product Safety Commission warned the candles should not be used because of the fire hazard they pose. Instead, they should be returned to the retailer for a full refund.

Chinese-made toys accounted for 94 percent of the CPSC recalls this year. Most of the recalls were related to excessive and dangerous levels of lead used in cheap paints.

The surge in product hazards and safety recalls in recent years coincides with the relocation of toy production and other manufacturing plants in China and other countries. About 74 percent of toys sold in the U.S. are now made in China. In total, 87 percent are made overseas.

In 1970, 86 percent of U.S. toys were made in the USA, employing some 60,000 American workers.

While the shift overseas has been tough on U.S. workers, the profits of toy companies have soared as a result. Toy profits have risen from $50 million in 1970 to $930 million last year.

"Anxiety levels about the toy safety this holiday season are as high as the U.S. trade deficit, and the two trends are not unrelated," said Todd Tucker, research director of Public Citizen's Global Trade Watch division and lead author of the report, "Santa's Sweatshop: Made in D.C. With Bad Trade Policy." "Toy and retail companies have systematically pushed for 'trade' agreements that provide new investor protections and safety limits to protect their 'low road' offshoring business strategies. Our kids and families are paying the price."

U.S. toy production has declined 70 percent since the establishment of the North American Free Trade Agreement and World Trade Organization and more than 500 percent since the 1970s, claims the report.

From 1972 through 1982, when most toys were made in the U.S., there were never more than 12 toy recalls in any year. This year there were 120 – almost all from China.

A WND investigation into the safety of Chinese exports last spring triggered widespread interest in a problem that has continued right up through this Christmas season – highlighted by a series of recalls of children's toys and other holiday items.

Members of Congress specifically referenced statistics gathered in WND's investigation of product recalls from China. WND found most of the consumer product safety recalls involved imports from China. Imports from China were recalled by the CPSC twice as often as products made everywhere else in the world, including the U.S., the study of government reports showed.

Concerns with China imports began with the pet food scandal that killed or maimed up to 39,000 American cats and dogs. WND's investigation followed into imports of foods meant for human consumption. The New York Times and other major U.S. media followed.

As WND reported, China, the leading exporter of seafood to the U.S., is raising most of its fish products in water contaminated with raw sewage and compensating by using dangerous drugs and chemicals, many of which are banned by the FDA.

The stunning news followed WND's report that FDA inspectors report tainted food imports from China are being rejected with increasing frequency because they are filthy, are contaminated with pesticides and tainted with carcinogens, bacteria and banned drugs.

China consistently has topped the list of countries whose products were refused by the FDA – and that list includes many countries, including Mexico and Canada, who export far more food products to the U.S. than China.

China is the second largest source of imports for the U.S. while the U.S. is China's largest overseas market and second largest source of foreign direct investment.


http://www.worldnetdaily.com/news/artic ... E_ID=59309

Now how in the world can America compete with this... Even though it is American companies that pay for this.

These companies.. who ever subsidizes this slave labor needs to be in an international court facing charges

Americans need to boycott this crap... this is the only way to stop or slow down these horrible conditons

I don't get it. It doesn't take half a brain cell to realize that if your products are being recalled in droves, you are not making any money whether consumers boycott or not. Throw in boycotts on top of recalls and you're headed for big problems.

When do you realize that the manufacturers continuing to produce this crap are costing you more in losses than it would cost to bring the jobs back to this country to be done by the Americans who built you in the first place?

Chinese-made toys accounted for 94 percent of the CPSC recalls this year. Most of the recalls were related to excessive and dangerous levels of lead used in cheap paints.

Since this is such a frequent problem, could China be doing it deliberately?

Health Effects on Children
Children under the age of six—and fetuses—are those at greatest risk of the health effects associated with exposure to lead. They are particularly vulnerable because at that age, their brain and central nervous system are still forming. Lead is a powerful neurotoxin that interferes with the development of these systems as well as the kidney and blood-forming organs. Exposure to lead causes a wide range of health effects, and one of the interesting things about lead is that those health effects vary from child to child..........
........Even low levels of exposure to lead can result in IQ deficits, learning disabilities, behavioral problems, stunted or slowed growth, and impaired hearing. At increasingly high levels of exposure, a child may suffer kidney damage, become mentally retarded, fall into a coma, and even die from lead poisoning. Lead poisoning has been associated with a significantly increased high-school dropout rate, as well as increases in juvenile delinquency and criminal behavior.

http://www.nsc.org/issues/lead/healtheffects.htm

I do not think much of a man who is not wiser today than he was yesterday.
Abraham Lincoln

Originally Posted by MyAmerica

Chinese-made toys accounted for 94 percent of the CPSC recalls this year. Most of the recalls were related to excessive and dangerous levels of lead used in cheap paints.

Originally Posted by MyAmerica

Since this is such a frequent problem, could China be doing it deliberately?
[quote:ths3ssb3]Health Effects on Children
Children under the age of six—and fetuses—are those at greatest risk of the health effects associated with exposure to lead. They are particularly vulnerable because at that age, their brain and central nervous system are still forming. Lead is a powerful neurotoxin that interferes with the development of these systems as well as the kidney and blood-forming organs. Exposure to lead causes a wide range of health effects, and one of the interesting things about lead is that those health effects vary from child to child..........
........Even low levels of exposure to lead can result in IQ deficits, learning disabilities, behavioral problems, stunted or slowed growth, and impaired hearing. At increasingly high levels of exposure, a child may suffer kidney damage, become mentally retarded, fall into a coma, and even die from lead poisoning. Lead poisoning has been associated with a significantly increased high-school dropout rate, as well as increases in juvenile delinquency and criminal behavior.

http://www.nsc.org/issues/lead/healtheffects.htm

I do not think much of a man who is not wiser today than he was yesterday.
Abraham Lincoln[/quote:ths3ssb3]







I've said for awhile now that I felt this might be being done purposely.

It's really no secret that China is a huge threat to us, and what better way to ensure that we are a less formidable opposition, as well as to have a clear path to dominating the US.

Ensure that there are less Americans period via infertility, miscarriages, stillbirths, infant/small child mortality rates through the roof. Guarantee that the remainder are of lower IQ, brain damaged, or suffering a myriad of health problems.

Sure would cut down on our military, law enforcement, and other defenses, not to mention a civilian population who, historically, will take up arms to defend their country and prevent overthrow of our government, now wouldn't it?

Then, too, there are those who believe that this may all be part of the plan to achieve the NWO.

Whatever is going on, I think we can all be sure that it is no accident.

I don't think this is a conspiracy of any kind. It's simply a matter of too many people. China wouldn't get too excited if half their population, well the poor and unskilled at any rate, disappeared tomorrow. They don't care what happens to their people who assemble the products. The buyers there and here, like the workers, are collateral damage in the trade wars.