American Christmas: A holiday made in China

December 18, 201212:12 AM MST

Child labor in China

May 18th, 2008 Southern Daily Photographer: Mo Weinong

During this season of goodwill, cheer, toys that will be broken and thrown away within the next year, and ornaments that will gather in your garage, basement or attic, it is nice to reflect a bit on the objects of our short-lived affection; where they are made, who makes them, and why we buy them. When you are making your final perusal of near-empty store shelves and online catalogs, stop to think, "Did the person who made this Christmas ornament even get paid? Am I adding to the problem if I purchase this?" Many of the products that will be sold throughout this holiday season are made in China and other 'cheap-labor' countries by workers who suffer in a system that depends on our consumerist behavior. Every time a Chinese made Nativity scene is sold it not only helps an American show the certainty of their faith, it also puts another dollar into the pocket of a corporation that uses the lax labor laws in under developed countries to make a killing every holiday season.

Last month, Samsung released that they sold a record high 30 million Galaxy S III smartphones. Two months earlier, Chinese Labor Watch issued a report that in eight different Samsung factories, workers had forced overtime that involved standing for 12 hours a day and unsafe working conditions. Recent reports had brought up 16 counts of child labor, and in a new report issued just three days ago, Chinese Labor Watch uncovered two 15 year-olds and a 14 year-old working in poor conditions at a Samsung owned assembly factory. Samsung promptly issued a press release denying the accusations. How many homes this Christmas are going to have a Galaxy S III smartphone for every member of the family? Well, at a shipping rate of one smartphone every 0.45 seconds, you can imagine there will be a few.

In Bangladesh, a garment factory that supplies retail chains like Walmart and Sears caught fire from an alleged sabotage by one of its workers killing 112 people. This happened after the fire regulations at Bangladesh's approximately 4,000 garment factories were discussed at an annual meeting by many of the companies involved. According to one report, a Walmart representative said that "it is not financially feasible" to improve fire safety at these factories. Walmart is now saying that they had disapproved of this factory based on the poor conditions, but they have little control over who their suppliers get products from. Even with a profit of $30.5 billion just in this quarter, it seems that for Walmart spending some money to provide safer conditions for impoverished factory workers is not as important as getting cheap clothing to holiday shoppers.

A recent raid on a sweatshop in India found 14 children, as young as 8 years-old, making Christmas decorations that would allegedly be imported to the U.S. The children were victims of human-trafficking and worked up to 19 hours a day without pay or sufficient food and water. Is this what Christmas has come to? A factory in China making the new Nintendo Wii U had used underage 'interns' to meet the huge supply demand that it faced for Nintendo's anticipated product release. The company Foxconn legally used these 'interns' as laborers, according to China's work-study laws. However, they were forced to work long hours in unsafe environments or face expulsion from school if they were fired.

Consumerism is the true 'C' word in this season of ritual. Our image of this holiday is an illusion if we do not take steps to ensure that we do not support this system. There is so much hypocrisy in paying for products made by underpaid children to give to our children. Yet, so little can be done to stop people from being inundated by commercialism, it is a losing battle to proselytize against it.

This holiday season, take some time to think about what we really need in this life. Hopefully we can realize who suffers for the superficial gratification we cherish.