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Losing at Chinese Roulette |
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“We’re always reviewing where the optimal place is to make our products,” Mattel Chairman Robert Eckert told The Washington Post.
One thing’s become clear—that “optimal place” isn’t China:
Government regulators recalled more than 9 million Chinese-made Mattel toys yesterday, hitting some of the company’s most popular lines, including Barbie and Batman action figures….
Mattel also said that one of its Chinese subcontractors subverted its safety standards and used lead-based paint on promotional toys for the movie “Cars.”…
This is Mattel’s second major recall this month and the third time since June that Chinese firms have been blamed for using lead-based paint, which is banned in the United States, on children’s toys.
Potentially dangerous toys and possibly poisonous consumer products aren’t the only fallout from U.S. corporations’ search for the cheapest possible labor by moving production overseas. The Economic Policy Institute (EPI) found that from 1997 to 2006, the massive U.S. trade deficit with China has cost 2.17 million U.S. jobs—1.8 million of which came after China entered the World Trade Organization (WTO). Nearly three-quarters of these lost jobs were in the manufacturing sector.
Meanwhile, Mattel isn’t the only company dealing with tainted toys. CNN Money reports:
Certain vinyl baby bibs sold at Toys “R” Us stores appear to be contaminated with lead, but this latest Chinese-made product to raise safety concerns is not being recalled.
Tests conducted on the bibs for the public interest group Center for Environmental Health (CEH) as well as tests conducted separately by the New York Times showed lead as high as three times the level allowed in paint in the bibs.
Unfortunately, the problem is not isolated to a few bad apples. Sean McGowan, an analyst from Wedbush Morgan Securities, gave a grim assessment of the entire toy industry:
If I went down the shelves of Wal-Mart and tested everything, I’m going to find serious problems….The idea that Mattel—with its high standards—has a bigger problem than everybody else is laughable. If we don’t see an increase of recalls in this industry, then it’s a case of denial.
Not everyone’s in denial about the problem. Senate Majority Whip Dick Durbin (D-Ill.) called for the inspection of all toys from China that contain paint.
We’re about to enter into a holiday season. To avoid the obvious consumer concerns, we have to do something dramatic. American families should not have to play Chinese roulette when they go to a toy store.
The U.S. Consumer Product Safety Commission (CPSC), the federal agency in charge of making sure the products we buy are safe, has been without a full-time director for a year. (In May, Michael Baroody, former executive vice president of the anti-worker National Association of Manufacturers, was forced to withdraw his nomination for the top spot.) “The commission still lacks the needed resources to perform its important mission,” said Rep. Edward Markey (D-Mass.).
The failure of leadership at the agency has kept the CPSC behind the times. Ninety years after scientists discovered that “any dose of lead is toxic to the developing brain,” lead still is allowed in products children play with.
“We have begun the rule-making process to ban lead in all children’s products,” a CPSC spokesperson said today.
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Is China being made a scapegoat? Some interesting analysis was done at a blog on consumer product recalls at http://consumerproductrecalls.blogspot.com/2007/08/recall-stats-for-january-2007.html which tells a different story.
The CEO of Mattel claims they are doing ‘everything’ they can about the situation. He said every product batch of toys is being tested and Mattel will continue to ‘enforce the highest quality standards in the industry’. I don’t about the rest of you but IMO the only way Mattel, or any other company, is going to convince me that they are enforcing the highest quality standards in the industry is to bring those jobs back to the US. These other countries don’t have the high standards in manufacturing that we do in this country. Buying cheap means buying DANGER! Let those countries sell their inferior products to their own citizens. GIVE US AMERICAN MADE!
Any country would be scapegoated if it had done this. That said, Americans have a 150+ year history of extreme racism against Chinese, especially Chinese-Americans, but also all Asians in America. So, you do have to check on that issue. The same goes for the situation with tainted food from Mexico - it’s bad, it’s their fault, but given how much hatred some Americans have toward people of Mexico, you have to do a quick “racism check”. Calling shopping for toys “Chinese Roulette” is as racist as “Russian Roulette”.
It’s sad, I think, that the CEO of Mattel committed suicide because of this. It’s doubly sad, because these subcontractors are completely capable of delivering untainted products. They do it for European customers. So, to a gret extent, this poison in our toys is the result of the American companies that keep pushing for “harmonization” and “deregulation” of health and environmental laws, politicians who go out on a limb to promote these policies, and all the other companies like Wal-Mart that participate in this “toxic relationship.”
These American companies complain about the enviro regulations in America, but, they never say that it’s their goal to bring in imports that are less safe, for cheaper, to sell more, to poorer people. Ultimately, these companies are getting rich by giving us poison.
In a somewhat related experience, I shopped at the 99 Cents Only store here, a big importer of cheap goods from overseas. They had a lot of glassware and ceramics for 99 cents, but they all had little stickers warning people that these products contained LEAD. So, you can’t use these product for their intended purpose. I can only imagine that all the toys at 99 Cents also contain toxins.
People still buy them, though, because most of the people shopping at 99 cents only aren’t fluent in English, and many are seniors. In fact, I notice that many shoppers at my 99 Cents are Chinese or Asian. That brings us full circle, to the racism issue — “yes,” criticizing Chinese and Mexican companies might seem racist, but the real effect of these products, in America, is the *real* racism, because these hazardous products disproportionately affect working class and poor people, many of whom are people of color. They’re not only the ones in America, either — the people in China and Mexico are suffering from the toxic chemicals use to make the products.
Ultimately, the real racism is in the way the international relationships are structured. If we, as an international power, respected the desires of workers in China, Mexico, or anywhere, to work in safe conditions, with limited exposure to dangerous chemicals, we wouldn’t be facing this problem. If we Americans believed that our fellow workers in these other countries deserved the same protections, and then worked with them to prevent the production of toxic products, we’d all be doing better.
What we need is simple: at the ports, we should have definitive tracking of all products from source to manufacturing to retail; testing of all imported products for children; and a tariff or fee to fund this testing. This is simple after-the-fact testing that should mirror the inspections and testing already performed on American products.
I just posted that the suicide was a Mattel person. I was wrong. It was the head of a China-based manufacturer of Mattel toys.
I have known for many years that products manufactured in China presented a clear and present danger to American consumers. I knew this because I subscribed to the CONSUMER PRODUCTS SAFETY COMMISION’s website, and they send emails to all subscribers about all of their recalls. Every American who owns a computer needs to go to the CPSC’s website, and sign up for automatic notification of their recalls. AND all American consumers MUST also be aware that the CPSC, by their own admission, is under staffed and under funded. So we Americans are only seeing the tip of this ice berg. And all Americans should also be aware that vehicle recalls are NOT covered by the CPSC, but by the NATIONAL HIGHWAY SAFETY ADMINISTRATION. And this federal agency, (again, by it’s own admission), has NO provision for email notification for interested consumers.
Big deal! Trade deficit! Corporate America has not cared for the American for so long and yet American still buy foreign produced eveerything. We do not have enough manufacturing plants, workers or equipment to convert to war production if we were attacked. Cheap! Not just the corporations but we the People as well. Politically there is still a glimmer of hope to get out of this and that is Ron Paul. If you are not familiar with himand still you want a future for our children you had at least better spend 10 minutes viewing http://www.ronpaul2008.com
If we keep losing our jobs to countries like China. Soon we will be a third world country.
THE U.S. SHOULD NOT BE DOING ANY BUSINESS AT ALL WITH CHINA! ALL IMPORTING FROM CHINA SHOULD BE STOPPED IMMEDIATELY! CHINA IS STILL A COMMUNIST COUNTRY. THEY ARE NOT CONCERNED WITH THE SAFETY OF THERE OWN PEOPLE LET ALONE OUR PEOPLE. MOST OF THE THINGS THEY SEND HERE IS JUNK, CHECK YOUR HOUSE, YOU WILL SEE FOR YOURSELF. AMERICA HAS THE PEOPLE AND RESOURSES TO PRODUCE BETTER PRODUCTS THAN CHINA. OUR HEALTH AND SAFETY LAWS ARE HERE, WE JUST NEED TO USE THEM. ANY ONE THAT THINKS IT IS OK FOR THE CHINESE JUNK TO BE IMPORTED TO THE US, SHOULD GO TO CHINA AND WORK THERE IN ONE OF THERE FACTORIES. I’M SURE YOU’LL CHANGE YOUR MIND THE FIRST DAY.
Many years ago when Chinese products started flooding American markets I searched in vain to find and buy American made products. The fact that there was none to be found got more unsettling as the years passed. I was aware that many products, particularly those made in China, had lead in them, from candles to toys, yet I felt helpless to do anything about it. I could not understand why government regulators did not step in to stop the imports of dangerous products.
One is always subtlely aware of corporate greed as being one of the deciding factors, but I could never understand why any company would willingly put the lives of so many in danger by sidestepping the necessary safety measures and protocols that would allow for safe, untainted products. We know that industries never seem to police themselves and chose to look the other way when there are safety concerns, at least until the problem is so huge that there is no more denying it.
The answer is simple, bring American industries back to America. Make the “MADE IN AMERICA” a slogan to be proud of again. Elect governmnet officials who are truly concerned about product safety, and fine heavily those companies that break the rules, or do not let them operate here, and should they go overseas, do not allow them to sell their products here. And TAX them heavily. Make it hurt their pockets. We’ll see some real changes then.