Ikea 'used political prisoners in GDR as slave labour'

[kpete]

Source: Telegraph UK

Ikea 'used political prisoners in GDR as slave labour'
Swedish retail giant Ikea used political prisoners in East Germany as “slave labour” to make furniture, secret police files unearthed by a German broadcaster appear to show.

Ikea developed strong links with the communist state in the 1970s, opening a number of manufacturing facilities, one of which, according to Stasi records discovered by German television company WDR, used political prisoners to construct sofas.

The factory in Waldheim stood next to a prison, and inmates were used as unpaid labour, it is claimed. Gaols in the Democratic Republic housed significant numbers of political prisoners, with some estimates indicating they made up at least 20 per cent of the entire prison population.

...............

Hans Otto Klare, who had been sent to Waldheim prison for trying to escape to West Germany, described conditions in the factory as harsh.

“Our labour team lived on the upper floor of the factory with the windows covered,” he told WDR about his time making hinges and other components for Ikea furniture. “The machines were on the lower floor, and you had little rest. On the factory floor you had no proper seating, no ear protection: no gloves. Conditions were even more primitive there then in the rest of the GDR. It was slave labour.”

Read more: http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worldnews/europe/sweden/8742172/Ikea-used-political-prisoners-in-GDR-as-slave-labour.html

[Cirque du So-What]

1. Sounds like the prison system in the gool ol' US of A

I'm not gonna throw stones, living in a glass house as I do.

[Demeter]

8. And China

And any other corporatocracy.

The problem is the corporations. They are not regulated anywhere near the amount they must be, so that people will be unharmed.

When labor and capital and profits are separated into different populations, there is exploitation unless there are strong forces to prevent it.

The US revolution was fought to end the stranglehold one corporation, the East India Trading Company, had on the people in the colonies.

[EvilMonsanto]

2. What?

You are kidding meeeeeeeeeeeeee

[Waiting For Everyman]

3. Oh, but I thought Europeans were too enlightened to be doing this kind of thing.

I guess not.

[fujiyama]

21. Sometimes the adulation of "everything European" on this site is a bit much

and this story shows that greed is a universal motive and corporations, regardless of where they are based. And they are most often interested in only one thing - making a profit. However, it's less likely that a major corporation could get away using political prisoners within the EU as virtual slave labor nowadays. Much of that role now is filled by the Chinese and other Asians.

The thing Europe has done a better job realizing however is that curbing those instincts of greed at all costs is necessary for a functioning and civilized society. Compassion and a strong social safety net aren't just morally and ethically right, they make economic sense as well.

[Nihil]

26. Hi there! The 1970's would like their indignation back as soon as you've finished with it!

Just think: When Ikea was using East German prisoners, the USA was bombing
the shit out of random foreigners in the Far East whereas now that both
East Germany and the East German prisoner labour force have disappeared,
the USA is only bombing the shit out of random foreigners in the Middle East!

That's progress for you!

:eyes:

[snagglepuss]

4. This story goes to show the power of branding. Who even on DU would

ever associate IKEA with slave labor? Why would anyone do so when IKEA is branded as the helping the "little guys and gals" have sleek style at an affordable price, shunning the high end market because of its ideals.

What a lesson. :puke:

[lunasun]

7. Ikea seems cheap and poorly made,,,,wonder where in the world their slaves are now?

[Angry Dragon]

12. Here in the US

In Europe they are Union and pay about $18/hr
In US they are non-union and pay about $9/hr

[Politicalboi]

24. You're right

I work at an IKEA through a temp service and we get $9.00 an hour. And I think if one gets hired permanent they get a whopping $10.00. I see a lot of stuff made in China, and India. I heard from one employee that one time they received some glass with small hand prints on them. The employee told me IKEA claimed it was midgets. LOL! And I am serious. I really doubt now that was the truth. Even the employee who told me doesn't know for sure either.

[LoveIsNow]

5. Doesn't surprise me.

They even have signs in the store stating that if you want to find out where your furniture was built (just the country, much less the town or factory), you have to make a specific inquiry. They seem very interested in hiding their labor practices. What they constantly brag about is their cost-cutting packaging and distribution. It's always sounded very Walmart to me, so I don't shop there, even though I stop in their cafeteria occasionally.

[mwrguy]

17. Lots of their goods are marked with country of origin

I bought plates there, all marked "Made in India".

[LeftyMom]

19. I've never seen anything there that didn't have the place of origin marked

But that's a legal requirement in my state for most anything people might sell. Maybe you should get after your representatives to require it where you live?

[Codeine]

28. Everything I've ever bought from IKEA was clearly marked

as to country of origin and materials used.

[Tripod]

6. K/R

[w0nderer]

9. k&r n/t

[socialshockwave]

10. You mean the "workers paradise" had slave labor?

I'm surprised defenders of the USSR/GDR aren't here to unrec your post into oblivion.

[Alcibiades]

11. We lived in Berlin at that time

My parents furnished their entire house from Ikea. A good percentage of the stuff did have "DDR" stamped on it, which made me wonder if Ikea made a lot of their stuff there, or just the furniture for the German market. Seemed pretty obvious to me at the time that the cost of labor would have been a big reason, but I never would have guessed this.

Anyway, I know most people think their furniture etc. looks good, but it's not a good quality product. It's all particleboard with veneer. You're better off learning to make furniture yourself and using good quality materials to copy the designs you like.

[DrunkenBoat]

22. Or buying second-hand & refinishing/recovering/ repurposing. I agree, IKEA is cheap crap,

for the most part.

And the one time I entered one of their monster stores, I just wanted to get out. Too big, too many people. There was a path you had to follow because all the traffic was going that way. I felt like I was in a funhouse.

[DissedByBush]

13. What's the difference?

Prisoners building it or regular East Germans building it?

It's slave labor in either case.

Neither were allowed to leave their area of confinement, both would be punished for refusing to work where assigned by the state.

Sounds like slave labor to me.

[Alcibiades]

27. It says why right in the article

It includes a quote from one former prisoner who notes that the safety standards, already rudimentary in the GDR, were nonexistent at his facility.

It's a complicated subject, but, whatever the economic problems of the GDR and the other countries of the Eastern Bloc, chief among them was not that they were "slave labor" economies. They were set up to achieve full employment, which meant that there were usually issues with too little work to go around, not the speed-ups and hyper-exploitation you find with systems that operate, for example, on a piecework basis. While the work may have not have been equally distributed, with some few people working extremely hard in work that was unsafe, dangerous and dirty and others engaged in makework, the main problem with the GDR seemed to be the dissatisfaction with the material standard of living in comparison to the west and the extreme police state and political repression.

[DissedByBush]

30. That's only about the safety standards

To me a slave is someone who can't leave his work and can be punished for not working.

You couldn't leave the DDR if they didn't want you to.

To not work was considered subversive and counterrevolutionary, landing you in some type of "correctional" facility, probably making IKEA furniture.

Sounds like a slave labor economy to me.

[Alcibiades]

31. Sure it was

But plenty of folks slow-walked it, and this was tolerated, because of slack demand, lack of raw materials, no hard currency, etc.

You might think that the political repression would have the consequence of being a slave labor state, and you would be partly right. But the main knock on the GDR (other than the drabness of life in the "workers' and peasants' state") wasn't that people were being worked too hard so much as the lack of political freedom and the extreme, Orwellian police state. The Stasi infiltrated every aspect of life in the GDR: through their repression, they achieved a level of official orthodoxy in defiance of reality that Fox News and other right-wing media outlets aim at, but have yet to accomplish.

[DissedByBush]

32. I have some ex-DDR friends

"Shocking" doesn't describe the effect on them of the opening of the Stasi files.

[buckrogers1965]

14. I don't blame IKEA

I blame the corporate system. Any corporation would use slave labor if they could get away with it. Anything to squeeze a penny.

[blank space]

18. I blame the people - us -

the corporations of the US and BRitain used slaves, were built on it - your President lives in it.

We insisted that it be banned, it was, we longer gave a crap they brought it back.

[SleeplessinSoCal]

15. highly suspicous story. The customer builds the furniture cause it's purchased in pieces.

[dipsydoodle]

23. I'm suspicious too

I'd never even heard them in the '70s.

They didn't open their first store in the USA until 1985 and the UK until 1987.

[No Elephants]

16. Unpaid labor: It's not just for criminals any more.

Coming soon--working unpaid for businesses in the U.S. who will "train" us without charging us.

Well, at least they are not yet mentioning any charge.

Maybe they add a charge if the program takes hold.

On the bright side, I assume that it will be voluntary, at least, in theory, and you will still be free to do as you please while not being "trained."

On the other hand, lodging, meals and clothing will not be free and there will be transportation costs.

Is it soup yet?

[defendandprotect]

20. K/R -- Wish people knew more about the stores they are giving business to --

[DFW]

25. This is news?

We knew this in Germany decades ago. Ikea harvested Sweden's vast forests, sent the wood down to East Germany, and then
sent the "Fertigteile," the pieces ready for assembly, all over the world, including right across the border to
what was still West Germany then. ANYTHING that brought in western currency was "legitimate" in the DDR, and having
"volunteers" from the prison population of the "realexistierenden Sozialismus" do the work for Ikea certainly fit.

I visited East Germany several times before it disappeared. Seeing the grey uniforms everywhere, doing the goose-stepping
unchanged since the 1940s was a little unnerving. I was always happpy to get the hell out of there.

[bigworld]

29. North Carolina and many states do the same thing

http://correctionenterprises.com/

Making furniture is a pretty common occurrence around the world.

If this is a problem for you, you don't have to reach back to the 70s or to the GDR to see it.