WASHINGTON, D.C. – With the Holidays approaching, U.S. Sen. Sherrod Brown (D-OH), chair of the Congressional Executive Commission on China (CECC), held a hearing today to examine working conditions at toy factories in China. The vast majority of toys bought and sold in the United States are made in China.

“We’ve seen this story repeated over and over again – American companies moving production to China to take advantage of cheap labor and poor labor enforcement and then reselling these goods back to the U.S.,” Brown said. “Something must be done. We need to be able to tell our children that the person who made theirs toys—perhaps the mother of another child—worked in a good place where she made a decent living.”

Last month, the labor rights NGO, China Labor Watch, issued a report alleging poor working conditions at four Chinese factories that manufacture toys for several major toy companies and retailers, including Mattel, Fisher-Price, Disney, Hasbro, and Crayola. The hearing examined these allegations, what the toy industry is doing to audit factories in China and address reports of poor working conditions, and the effectiveness of private-sector auditing and business codes of conduct in China.

The witnesses included:

  • Li Qiang, Executive Director and Founder, China Labor Watch
  • William S. Reese, President and CEO, International Youth Foundation, Member of the ICTI CARE Foundation Governance Board
  • Earl Brown, Labor and Employment Law Counsel and China Program Director, Solidarity Center, AFL-CIO
  • Brian Campbell, Director of Policy and Legal Programs, International Labor Rights Forum

Brown’s statement, as prepared for delivery, is below.

Today is the last hearing for this Congress. It has been an honor to chair this Commission with my counterpart Congressman Chris Smith, over these last three and a half years. I want to thank our other Commissioners for their participation and support. Finally, the great work of this Commission would not have been possible without our incredible staff.

It is fitting that we end this year on an issue that hits so close to home this holiday season.

As parents, grandparents, aunts, and uncles, we care deeply about the toys we buy our children.

We care about their safety. And we should care about who makes these toys.

It used to be the case that toys were made in America, in proud towns across this country.

Towns like Bryan, Ohio, where for 40 years, workers at the Ohio Art Company made Etch A Sketch, a toy many of us played with as kids.

In Bryan, the company was a family. Etch A Sketch was the town mascot.

But then Walmart told the company that in order keep its business they would need to sell the product for less than $10. And so what did Ohio Art do? In 2001, they moved production of Etch A Sketch to Shenzhen, China. A hundred people lost their jobs. A community lost its pride.

Today, some 75 percent of our toys come from China.

They will be made by factory workers like the ones investigated in China Labor Watch’s most recent report.

Some of them are temp workers or students, making as little as $1.23 an hour and working more than 100 hours of overtime a month, in blatant violation of China’s overtime laws.

They live in crowded dorms, as many as 18 people to a room. They stand for long hours at work. Emergency exit doors are locked.

At the base monthly wage they are making, it would take nearly two months for one of these workers to afford the Thomas the Train mountain set that sells for $400 and is made in China.

We’ve seen this story repeated over and over again – American companies moving production to China to take advantage of cheap labor and poor labor enforcement and then resell these goods back to the United States. This business model is unprecedented in human history.

Seven years ago I co-sponsored legislation to expand the Tariff Act of 1930 to prohibit the importation of goods made with sweatshop labor. But private industry said it didn’t need a law, that members could deal with the problem on their own through codes of conduct, certifications, and audits. But seven years later, the problem hasn’t gone away.

What I want to know today is, are corporate codes and self-policing sufficient, or do we need a new approach?

Does the toy industry in China need something like the legally-binding Bangladesh Accord, which I urged companies like Walmart and Target to join last year, or an anti-sweatshop law like the one I helped introduce seven years ago?

Something must be done. We need to be able to tell our children that the person who made theirs toys—perhaps the  mother or father of another child—worked in a good place where she made a decent living.

We can’t say that now.

I look forward to hearing from our witnesses and turn it over to my co-chair Congressman Smith for his statement.

 

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