HOW SHE SEES IT Consider the work behind the toys

By BETH JOYNER WALDRON
SPECIAL TO THE LOS ANGELES TIMES
Santa's ear was bent pretty hard listening to my 4-year-old son's extensive Christmas wish list.
Like many parents this time of year, I wouldn't dare bring disappointment to those puppy-dog eyes so filled with the sugarplum fantasy of Santa's darling elves happily crafting toys for good little girls and boys.
So today, on Christmas Eve, I will surely find myself slipping those long-dreamed-of toys under the tree.
But my holiday cheer will be tempered by the knowledge that Santa's toys will not have been lovingly made at a North Pole workshop but quite probably in an overseas sweatshop.
Toymaking is big business, accounting for an astounding one-tenth of the world's total trade volume, according to the International Council for Toy Industries.
Numbers
Americans must surely love toys because we spend an average of $405 per child annually, according to the Toy Industry Association. There are almost 1.7 billion children under age 14 worldwide, with only 4 percent of those living in the United States. And yet 37 percent of all toy retail sales take place in the United States.
Look closely on any mass-produced toy and you are likely to find a "Made in China" logo. That's because, as the China Toy Association likes to boast in its trade publications, 75 percent of the world's toys are manufactured in China. China is the largest single supplier of toys to U.S. children. In 2002, the U.S. imported $17 billion in toys -- and just more than $12 billion of that came from China.
China dominates the toy industry because of its comparatively low production costs. American toy workers on a production line average $11 an hour, while their Chinese counterparts earn a meager 30 cents an hour.
It is not surprising, then, that in the ever-present quest for low-cost production, toy-making has migrated overseas. Unfortunately, poor working conditions are often associated with low-wage labor.
Overseas factories have long attracted the attention of international human rights organizations, which in past years have publicized widespread sweatshop working conditions and the use of child and forced labor within China.
One such organization, the U.S.-based National Labor Committee, released a report last year that detailed abuses within China's toy industry. The group investigated eight large toy companies that operated 19 factories and employed more than 50,000 workers in the Guangdong province of China.
Among the disturbing findings that turned up in the investigation:
UMandatory daily work shifts of 15 to 161/2 hours, with 20-hour shifts during the peak holiday production season. In one stuffed-toy factory, people were found working shifts of 27 straight hours. Many workers were required to work seven-day workweeks, some allowed to take only two days off a month.
UWorkers in the surveyed factories made 12 cents to 14 cents an hour, with a mere $8.42 being earned for a 721/4-hour work week.
UWorkers were found handling toxic chemical glues, paints and solvents without adequate safety protection in factories where the temperatures rose to more than 100 degrees.
The International Council for Toy Industries, an umbrella trade group representing the toy associations of 19 countries, is trying to address the sweatshop problem. It provides certification to manufacturing facilities in member countries that comply with a standardized code of business conduct. The idea behind the program is that trade group members conduct business only with certified factories.
The concept is noble, but the council's program is still in its infancy and loopholes abound, making it easy for manufacturers to sidestep the inspection process.
Until major corporate retailers and importers take a more active role in ensuring that the toys they contract for are made without sweatshop labor, substantive reform of the toy industry is wishful thinking.
So what's a well-intentioned parent like me to do when shopping for toys during this festive time of year? Not much.
Like so many parents, I want to make my son happy on Christmas morning. And yet I know that his privileged joy might be coming at the cruel expense of toy workers halfway around the globe.
XWaldron is a public policy analyst in Chapel Hill, N.C.