[Snowflakian]

Quote:

Originally Posted by arnoldfrederick

I'm kind of young, 16, actually, and this may be extremely ignorant of me, but it's hard to get straight up answers from google about some obvious things like this, and this really bothers me.

Now, I have a couple of questions, actually.

Is it really true that in some countries factory employees, often even children, work for far less than minimum wage in very poor working conditions, and endure abuse from their employers?

Also, does Marvel use factories that employ such workers, or relate to these employees in any way?

The reason I put this in the general discussion forum is because much of Marvel's merchandise are toys.

It's dependent on a host of factors and to which you're directly talking about.

One let's remove one main thing. Outside of Disney and Marvel themselves is where the rights are "licensed to" for production of other goods. These companies bid for the rights so to speak and pay for durations or whatever else a contract may stipulate.

In this case, for toys that branches out to several smaller ones.
Lego.
Hasbro.
Diamond.
And I'm not sure who else(the list goes on for statues and minimates and more).

Now sticking to Hasbro since that's where Marvel Legends and Marvel Universe are made is the only one I could potentially answer.

Hasbro designs a prototype and has an entire internal process for checks and balances on that including passing it on to Marvel at times or asking for their input. Then they send that design off to be made that can vary in either in-house or factory prototype production.

Now, when it comes to factories. These vary.
Hasbro has had factories all over. Mostly countries where the currency exchange is quite favorable to theirs.
China, Vietnam, Taiwan, Mexico. The list can go on.
This isn't just Hasbro though.

For awhile on the China side, Mattel and Hasbro used some of the same factories allegedly. This is what made Mattel's problem of lead paint in certain toddler lines curious as it didn't show up in anyone else's. (There's more to that story on corporate greed that doesn't reflect well on those divisions of Mattel and how they caused a ripple effect to other companies that were already going out of the way to comply to standards entirely, but Mattel tried to cut back to just the letter of the standards instead which has no caused a testing processing to be implemented that's more costly overall. This has caused partially the price spike we see alongside the already growing costs of materials and labor.)

The various country factories vary in detail. Most aren't Child Labor anymore, or when made aware of it the people usually force a change. Hasbro typically is one of the better companies out there in this regard and allegedly investigates every claim into the factories they use.

The exchange rate is what really hinders wages though. While to us, 30 dollars a week or month isn't much at all, to other countries that's close to 100 to 1000 of their currency. Excuse the exageration, but it's true in essence.

Would I love to see factories stateside or in other areas though? Heck yes to that. You also have to consider theft though and corporate secrets too. Fans working at them while many would love to also leads to leaks, as we already see with ebay and other sites too. It'd also potentially raise the cost. While this isn't an excuse as there are other ways to reconcile that, it is some of the many factors that have to be taken into account too.

So does Marvel or Disney do it deliberately? No.
Out of all the companies and outside factors the deal with regularly though, some may fall through the cracks. That's why consumer groups need to be vigilant about it so that it can be pointed out once known. Then acknowledged and rectified at the appropriate levels.

The one thing we always need to remember though, and this goes for all jobs, all walks of life, and all, well, everything. Global statements do not help anyone. Large sweeping statements that hide behind arrogance simply obscures the issues that need to be handled. Especially if misunderstood.