Holidays by Hasbro, Transformers from Hell

NEW YORK and PITTSBURGH, Dec. 19, 2011 /PRNewswire-USNewswire/ -- Today, the Institute for Global Labour and Human Rights is releasing an explosive 40 page report "Holidays by Hasbro, Transformers from Hell," including scores of photographs and documents smuggled out of the Jet Fair toy factory in China.

(Photo - http://photos.prnewswire.com/prnh/20111219/DC24826)

The Jet Fair sweatshop in China produces Hasbro's Transformers."I challenge Hasbro's executives to imagine their own sons and daughters working under such miserable sweatshop conditions," said Institute director Charles Kernaghan. "It does not have to be this way."

• Workers housed in filthy, over-crowded dorms, infested with rats and bed bugs.  Workers report they cannot sleep at night from the bed bug bites.
• Workers describe factory food as "Pretty much like swine food".
• Workers allowed less than 9 minutes to assemble each Hasbro Transformer, for which they are paid 17 cents.
• "We are drenched in sweat," workers say.  Factory temperatures soar to 104 degrees F in summer.
• During peak season, workers toil 12-hour shifts, seven days a week, while earning a take-home wage of just 92 cents an hour.
• Workers undergo three body-searches each day, are not permitted to talk or lift their heads to look around, and need permission to use the bathroom.
• Hasbro is open to the hiring of 14 and 15-year-olds on a "case-by-case basis".
• Workers in the spray paint department fear they are being exposed to dangerous solvents.
• There are no fire drills and some emergency exits are locked.
• During the slow season, hundreds of workers are fired under false charges so management does not have to pay their legal severance.
• Workers are cheated of paid sick leave and maternity leave.
• Workers describe their work as mindless, miserable, constantly monotonous, yet furious and exhausting.

"While Hasbro demands all sorts of enforceable laws backed up by sanctions to protect their Transformers and other toys," said Charles Kernaghan, director of the Institute for Global Labour and Human Rights, "when it comes to the workers in China, Hasbro is happy to offer them useless voluntary codes of conduct which are designed to fail.  Nothing will change until Hasbro and the other toy companies are held legally accountable to comply with internationally recognized workers' rights standards."

New report: Holidays by Hasbro, Transformers from Hell
http://www.globallabourrights.org/reports?id=0642

SOURCE Institute for Global Labour and Human Rights