“There is something about this, that's so black. It's like, ‘How much more black could this be?’ And the answer is: ‘None, none ... more black.’" – Nigel Tufnel, a fictional character in the 1984 mockumentary film, “This Is Spinal Tap.”
Communist China jails dissidents for “subversion of state power,” sticks them in prison factories, and tortures them if they don’t make production quotas.
One of the many fruits from this forced labor is a sturdy pair work gloves from Milwaukee Tool, according to a lawsuit filed last week. The company denies the allegations, and it says it has found no evidence of force labor in its supply chain, but it has also said that it has terminated its relationship with the accused supplier.
This would be capitalism exploiting communist oppression. Speak out against the Chinese government, and you could end up slaving for American consumers.
If these allegations prove true, this glove stinks.
Made in China, but not with pride
Milwaukee Tool has a 100-year history in America’s industrial heartland, but Techtronic Industries, a Hong-Kong based multinational conglomerate, acquired it in 2005 for $626.6 million.
The man suing the company says he was arrested in 2019 for “subversion of state power” and sentenced to five years in prison – a common fate for those living in an oppressive regime.
What did he do? He claims he worked for a group advocating for people with disabilities as well as those afflicted with HIV/AIDS and hepatitis B.
He filed his lawsuit anonymously, using the pseudonym, Xu Lun, because he lives in the People’s Republic of China and doesn’t want to get thrown right back on the production line.
Xu says he served part of his sentence in 2022 toiling at the Chishan Prison in China’s Hunan Province, making hundreds of Milwaukee Tool-branded gloves per day, breathing clouds of fabric dust, and witnessing beatings on a cramped and poorly ventilated factory floor.
According to his lawsuit, work shifts lasted up to 13 hours with minimal breaks and limited freedom to use bathrooms. Workers got only one to three days off per month. Each inmate had only two square meters of working space. Extreme heat and humidity made the summer months particularly brutal.
Inmates frequently punctured their fingers on embroidering machines. Many lost thumbnails. Some of the injured were punished for their carelessness, others were punished for working too slowly.
According to the lawsuit, the list of punishments included being:
forced to stand or squat for long periods of time
banned from visitation with family
prohibited to buy needed goods with the scant money they earned
forbidden to use the bathroom
placed in solitary confinement
forced to walk while squatting
woken up every hour with a roll call
subjected to beatings
tortured with electric rods
“To be then subjected to forced labor for the ultimate benefit of a multibillion-dollar corporation was acutely depressing,” Xu’s lawsuit states.
Accusations fit like a glove
Chinese factory workers face a bleak life even when they’re paid well and not serving time on some bogus authoritarian charge. I’m not sure how much American consumers, who benefit immensely from their sufferings, really care because this has been going on for decades.
In 2010, I wrote about frequent suicides at Foxconn Technology Group factory in Shenzhen that made products for Apple Inc., Hewlett-Packard Co., Dell Inc. and Nintendo Co. to name a few consumer favorites. The company erected nets outside because despondent workers were jumping out the windows.
Apple’s Steve Jobs pled ignorance: “You go in this place and it’s a factory but, my gosh, they’ve got restaurants and movie theaters and hospitals and swimming pools. For a factory, it’s pretty nice.”
And I’m still talking on an iPhone and writing on a MacBook. But shouldn’t we draw the line at accepting slave labor from political dissidents in a political system that free-market Americans profess to oppose?
Xu is not the only one making these accusations.
In 2022, Shi Minglei, who now lives in Minnesota, launched a campaign to pressure Milwaukee Tool to stop sourcing gloves from Shanghai Select. In 2023, Walmart stopped selling Milwaukee Tool gloves amid the allegations. And in April, U.S. Customs and Border Protection issued an order to detain gloves made by Shanghai Select and two of its subsidiaries making Milwaukee Tool gloves.
Perhaps Milwaukee Tool didn’t know how its gloves were made, as it claims, or perhaps the gloves that were made in the Chinese prison factory were knocks offs. But at the very least, it looks like the company either failed to monitor its suppliers or protect its brand – and this blunder will likely prove costly.
It also looks like we have tried to either Build Back Better or Make America Great Again with immigrant workers sporting communist Chinese gloves.
Happy Fourth of July, everybody!
"None, none ... more black”
The 1984 mockumentary, “This is Spinal Tap,” chronicled the hilarious blunders of a fictional rock band suffering through the many cliches of the music industry.
The record company chastised the band as overtly sexist because of their proposed album cover, which featured a dog-collared, naked woman on all fours being forced to “Smell the Glove.” In a pinch, the record company swapped it out with a plain black cover that presaged the band’s failed American tour.
Accusations against Milwaukee Tool reminded my free-associative mind of this scene because they involved both darkness and a glove. After decades of writing about bad business practices, I’m afraid it’s become my habit to laugh when I should be crying.
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This is truly bleak. On a side note, This Is Spinal Tap - one of my favorite movies.