Also remember that living and working conditions/standards are different from the Western world. Looking at those photos, they just look typical of how a lot of places in China look like... I've seen worse. I've also seen better.
So while I'm not disagreeing that worker conditions should improve, we need to be careful not to use Western standards as a measuring bar... look at what conditions exist in an average Chinese factory and get them to lift their bar up to the standard for their country. I think that is a far more realistically achievable and sustainable goal.
And I hope that Hasbro pays for this through reducing their substantial profit margins and not passing the cost onto consumers. Corporations like Cadbury made a decision to use non-slave labour and absorbed the costs themselves for their Dairy Milk chocolates - choosing not to increase the cost of their products and passing the additional cost to consumers. I hope that Hasbro follows suit with this.
I don't even see how that's relevant... this notion/suggestion that just because Hasbro's factory may be lacking in work standards, that it justifies stealing from them?? (either in a physical sense, such as toys from factories, or intellectual sense) That's like saying, "That man underpays his workers. I'm gonna break in and steal his TV... justice!!" <---what?!Originally Posted by reillyd
Stealing from Hasbro or encouraging stealing from Hasbro doesn't help improve working conditions for their factory workers. If you really want to take action you can do something like boycott their products (admittedly I can't do this), sign a petition, contact Hasbro directly and let them know how you feel (e.g. letter, email etc.) -- take more positive and/or proactive measures.
The idea of using the lack of standards in HasTak's factory to justify purchasing stolen or counterfeit goods seems utterly illogical and nonsensical to me.
I honestly don't think that was HasTak's motivation for basing their manufacturing in countries like China... the reason would be because of the very cheap labour costs. And this is something that China encourages, because it's a big source of their economic prosperity.
I've seen no evidence to show that HasTak were actively aware of the conditions in their Chinese factory -- even when they do inspections it's too easy for the bosses to cover things up. And to Hasbro's credit they have said that they are investigating these allegations -- which I think is a reasonable act at this stage.
Pretty sure it's the same factory.
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