Foul Play
Date of publication: January 24, 2010
Source: News of the World
Author: Simon Parry
Attached Files
SHIVERING with cold, eyes straining in the gloom, young workers in a squalid Shanghai factory slave late into the night making light-up models of the World Cup mascot.
Soon you will be able to buy the official trinket - depicting the dreadlocked leopard Zakumi - for £30.
But spare a thought for the poor souls in China who must work TWO WEEKS to earn enough to buy one.
The workers, many of them just teenagers, toil for a pitiful £1.90 a day making the Zakumi figures.
Posing as potential buyers from the UK, our investigators discovered the awful conditions at the Shanghai Fashion Plastic Products factory, 30 miles from the city centre.
The firm's Chief Executive Officer David Lau told us how South African tournament organisers and FIFA, football's governing body, gave them permission to make 2.3 million of the trinkets after visiting the miserable factory four times.
"There were about a dozen of them who came each time and they spent a long time inspecting our factory and our production lines," he said.
They awarded his company the contract even though, like our team, they must have seen workers moulding and painting the figures, shivering in coats and scarves at their dimly-lit workstations till up to 11pm.
They could also have seen the factory waste draining into a canal at the back, turning the water a putrid black.The squalid scene is a far cry from the computerised images of a clean, modern factory set in landscaped gardens on the company's website, which carries FIFA's logo.
Employees at the securely- guarded complex receive a basic monthly wage of just 800 yuan (£72).
They have 160 yuan (£14.50) deducted for bed and board in grim four-bed dormitories, giving them a take-home wage of just £1.90 a day.
Former worker Yuli Qing, 22, said: "It is one of the worst factory around here in terms of pay and the bosses are horrible. They're very strict."
Current employees were reluctant to be named. A 23-year-old female worker said: "I work really hard and spend 13 hours a day in the factory, but I only make 1,000 yuan (£90) a month.
"One month I worked 30 days out of 31 and did overtime every day and I still only made 1,200 yuan (£108)."
A 25-year-old male machine operator said: "My minimum salary is 960 yuan (£87). Sometimes we work a full month, seven days a week, with no day off. Even then the most I can earn is 1,100 yuan (£100)."
Workers are often unable to cope with the tough conditions, including freezing winter temperatures and swelteringly hot summers, and quit, leaving a shortfall of labour.
In a boardroom overlooking the bleak factory complex, Lau showed off the completed Zakumis and boasted of the profit he could make.
He said: "I'm not interested in the World Cup. I'm not a big football fan, but I am a big fan of money."
He claimed FIFA insisted the firm pay it 17 per cent of the wholesale cost of the figures upfront.
He said: "We had to pay millions of US dollars but we are a big, powerful company and that is not a problem if it will make us a lot of money."
His workers had just finished an order of 30,000 for South Africa. "We've got an order for 300,000 to Switzerland and the South Africans want another 70,000," he said.
He added: "Everyone in England is crazy about football.
"I can sell them to you for 110 yuan each (£9.90) and the minimum order is 15,000. You can sell them for 300 yuan (£27). You'll have no problem selling 30,000 to 50,000."
Asked to comment on the workers' pay and conditions last night, Lau said: "It is not convenient for me to discuss our workers' pay. Goodbye." There is no national minimum wage in China. Those paid at the factory comply with guidelines for the region.
Last night FIFA said: "We will investigate the nature of the allegations and take the necesary measures if needed."
Additonal reporting: James Weatherup
