As Christmas fast approaches this year, Macy’s has started putting out big red mail boxes, houses have began to light up, and children young and old have started writing letters to Santa. When I was little my Christmas list included things like Barbies, Polly Pockets, tea sets, and whichever Disney movie I didn’t have in my collection yet. Like many kids my age I didn’t know that nearly every toy on my list was made by the same company, though that may just have been because I didn’t really think about companies at all, and the only factory I knew of was Santa’s workshop. If you walk into a toy store at the mall or the Christmas section of your local grocery store and pick up a teddy bear, a toy truck, or anything made for or aimed at children, there is a very high chance that on the bottom in little letters you’ll see the word Mattel. Think of the last toy you bought or received as a gift, odds are it was made by Mattel. Mattel is a multi billion dollar toy company that owns Barbie, Hotweels, Fisher Price, Polly Pocket, and any toy ever made from a Disney Movie. They also own games like Apples to Apples, Pictionary, Scene It, and Angry Birds. With 31,000 employees, and a net income of $684.9 million, Mattel currently produces over 800 million products every year made at factories all over the world, none of which are located in the north pole (Wikipedia).
For many years of my childhood I had one image of a toy maker. He dressed in overalls and looked something like Pinocchio’s dad. He lived in a regular house with a little shed in the back where he did all of his work. Money was never a problem for him because he made a lot of it. He could take breaks and go on vacations whenever he wanted, and most importantly he loved his job. I knew that some toy makers worked in factories and that clothes and candy and other things were also made there, but I assumed that they were all happy places as well. It was only a few years ago that through a documentary my parents introduced me to a version of the factory worker that I didn’t know existed. She was a teenage girl my age who grew up on a farm in China and moved to the city to work in a factory. She’d used all of her money getting there. After a few weeks in her new job–filled with alarming 18 hour days and strict working condition–she wanted to leave but with the company holding on to her pay she was forced to stay. She felt trapped. “In one hour I can make about half a yuan (about six cents in U.S. dollars)”. -17 year old Jasmine, a factory worker.
The documentary was called China Blue and it opened my eyes to the reality of how all of the things that filled my own house were made, something I’d never thought about before. In an interview, Jasmine never once indicated that she loved or even liked her job.
Jasmine was part of a migration in China, one of the biggest in the world, that involved millions of farmers and small town people moving to the city to get work, which was usually only found in factories. If an American consumer were to visit one of the factories in China, they would probably be astonished at the working conditions. China like the United States has minimum wage and labor laws but it is less common for them to be followed and the rules are often broken. A factory that fails to provide proper working conditions, pay minimum wage, turn away under-aged workers, or treat their employees fairly is called a sweat shop. In the rare case that a company auditor discovers the inside of a sweat shop they will often find horribly ventilated rooms with too many workers hunched over rows and rows of tables and sometimes people sleeping on tables and on the floor. When the workers happen to be children they are sometimes as young as four years old.
“In today’s globalized economy most of the everyday products Americans buy, wear, and eat are produced with labor from the developing world. Our clothes come from countries as remote as Laos or Madagascar; our toys come from China; our seafood and fresh flowers come from Chile, Columbia, or Equador” (ILRF). In china toys are produced for as little as a few cents (Johnson). Not only are most of today’s toys produced for a few cents but they are produced in sweatshop conditions. Seventy percent of the products sold in America are made in China, so as Americans, no matter how distant they may seem, any overseas factory worker that is being treated unfairly is our responsibility.
Let’s face it, elves don’t make our toys anymore, in fact the north pole has pretty much shut down completely and business has been taken up in China, and other countries around the world. While the Santa we know is either off vacationing somewhere or not in the know about the suffering behind the billion dollar industry he’s created, children are making toys for children, and toy factories aren’t colorful like we imagine them, they’re dimly lit, cold, and most would consider them inhumane working conditions. In reality the cuts to the global economy have reached the North Pole and more toy makers have needed to be hired at a cheaper price. Unfortunately I imagine that the atmosphere in these factories is hardly cheery and filled with song.
Believing in Santa Claus and believing in things that are unseen is a healthy part of life and an important thing for those who have experienced the magic of Christmas. But believing in Santa and believing that our toys are made by people or little elves that live happy lives when in reality they are suffering are two different things. Maybe it’s time to start telling the truth. If anything, that would be a start.
The holiday season is the most wonderful time of the year. Many different holidays and cultures are celebrated. For one dark cold month out of the year people come together, family members get along, and everyone starts humming those old winter tunes we’ve known since childhood. Whether it’s getting a warm hot chocolate on a snowy evening or sledding down a hill on a homemade sleigh, everyone one has memories, good and bad, of Decembers past, but we have to ask ourselves one question. When it comes to things like getting a major discount on the phone you’ve always wanted on Black Friday or putting presents under the tree on Christmas Eve. Is our happiness worth the cost or can we start thinking of ways to change consumerism so that everybody from the toy maker to the toy buyer gets a fair chance to be happy?
If you are interested in American made or fairy trade toys visit this website: http://www.veganpeace.com/sweatshops/categories/toys.htm
For more information on the documentary China Blue visit this website; http://www.pbs.org/independentlens/chinablue/film.html
Bibliography
“Mattel.” (2011): Web. http://www.mattel.com/
Shah, Anup. “Consumption and Consumerism.” (2011): Web. http://www.globalissues.org/issue/235/consumption-and-consumerism
Verite, Daniel Viederman. “Overseas Sweatshops are a U.S. Responsibility.” (2007): Web. http://www.businessweek.com/debateroom/archives/2007/06/overseas_sweats.html
“Creating a Sweatfree World.” (2011): Web. http://ilrf.org/creating-a-sweatfree-world
“Sweatshops and Child Labor.” (2004): Web. http://www.veganpeace.com/sweatshops/sweatshops_and_child_labor.htm
Johnson, Cecil. “China’s Santa’s Sweatshop.” (2007): Web. http://www.orwelltoday.com/chinatoysweatshop.shtml
Independent Lens. “China Blue.” (2007): Web. http://www.pbs.org/independentlens/chinablue/film.html
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