Ohio Company Investigated Over Chinese Labor Practices

The New York Times has been running a series on modern day sweatshops in China. The Ohio company that makes Etch A Stetch is the latest victim of these investigations. Ohio Art Company uses Kin Ki of China to produce the product.

Kin Ki employees, mostly teenage migrants from internal provinces, say they work many more hours and earn about 40 percent less than the company claims. They sleep head-to-toe in tiny rooms. They staged two strikes recently demanding they get paid closer to the legal minimum wage. Most do not have pensions, medical insurance or work contracts. The company's crib sheet recommends if inspectors press to see such documents, workers should "intentionally waste time and then say they can't find them," according to company memos provided to The New York Times by employees.

William C. Killgallon, the chief executive of Ohio Art Company, the owner of Etch A Sketch, said that he considered Kin Ki executives honest and that he had no knowledge of labor problems there. But he said he intended to visit China soon to "make sure they understand what we expect."

Etch A Sketch is the same child's drawing toy today that it was in 1960, when Ohio Art first produced it in Bryan, Ohio. But efforts to keep its selling price below $10 on shelves at Wal-Mart and Toys "R" Us forced the company to move production to China three years ago.

China now makes 80 percent of the toys sold in America, according to United States government figures, and no industry here has come under greater pressure to adhere to global labor codes.

Go here to read more about the Ohio Art Company China operations and click here to read about the impact of the earlier Ohio Art Company plant closing on Bryan, Ohio.