Foxconn may not be a household name, but the odds are pretty good that you’re reading this post on a device that the company made or assembled under contract for companies like Acer, Dell, and Apple. The Taiwanese company does most of its manufacturing in mainland China, but is considering building a $7 billion factory somewhere in the United States. [More]
factories
Your Great Finds From TJMaxx May Come From Underpaid Workers Right Here In The U.S.
By 6.15.17 — Updated: 6.18.17
While shoppers may believe that the merchandise on the shelves of their local TJMaxx, Marshalls, or other off-price store consists of castoffs from department stores, there simply isn’t enough of that kind of merchandise to keep every store filled. Instead, off-price retailers fill their racks with items that come directly from factories, and some of those factories have been linked to terrible labor practices. [More]
Cookie Dough Company Behind Multiple Ice Cream Recalls Shuts Down
By 2.6.17
Where does the cookie dough in your favorite brand of ice cream come from? For numerous brands, the answer is Aspen Hills, a company in Iowa that sells frozen cookie dough for fundraisers and bulk frozen dough to ice cream makers. To be accurate, the answer was Aspen Hills. [More]
Possible Buyer Lined Up For One American Apparel Factory, Saving Up To 330 Jobs
By 1.12.17 — Updated: 1.17.17
Among the many unusual aspects of American Apparel’s business was that the company manufactured its clothing in the U.S. — and in Southern California, rather than a part of the country where labor and real estate is less costly. But now that the American Apparel brand has been bought by Canada’s Gildan, what’s to become of the company’s factories, which employ thousands of workers? [More]
Chinese Factory Accused Of Labor Violations Loses Disney Contract
By 11.30.16
“Dongguan Qing Xi Juantiway Plastic Factory” isn’t a household name, but you’d probably recognize the products it made for the world’s largest entertainment company: the factory was one of thousands making official products featuring Disney characters. [More]
Report: Only Some Progress In Making Sure Clothing Factory Workers Are Treated Like Humans
By 6.1.16
Three years ago, after a building collapse in Bangladesh killed 1,100 of the people who were making our clothes, major global retailers pledged to make sure that the people who work for their suppliers are paid a living wage and have safe workplaces. A new report shows that while some things have improved at factories that supply retailers like Walmart and H&M, there are still serious labor and safety issues in these companies’ supply chains. [More]
Kellogg: Investigators Looking Into Video Of Factory Worker Urinating On Assembly Line
By 3.14.16
Don’t like your cereal excessively soggy? Kellogg doesn’t either: the company says there’s a criminal investigation underway after a video surfaced that appears to show a factory worker urinating on a Rice Krispies assembly line. [More]
L.L. Bean’s Duck Boots Already On Backorder Despite 100 Additional Workers Hired To Make Them
By 9.29.15
If you’re looking forward to splashing around this winter in L.L. Bean’s aggressively unglamorous, USA-made duck boots, you’ll need to plan ahead: some styles and sizes are backordered by a month before there’s even a single snowflake in the sky. The duck boot factories are cranking them out as fast as they can, and simply can’t keep up with demand. [More]
Homer Laughlin Still Makes Your Grandmother’s Fiestaware In West Virginia
By 10.16.14
Homer Laughlin was a real person who started a pottery company in Ohio in 1873. The factory moved to West Virginia about twenty years later, but has stayed in the same town since, now employing about 1,000 people to make a line of dishware that you may recognize: Fiesta. [More]
Hummus Maker Knew About Safety Problem That Killed Worker, Ignored It
By 5.22.14
Back in 2011, a tragedy happened at a Tribe hummus factory near Boston. A man who was part of the factory’s evening cleaning crew was working on a bean-mashing machine with nine-inch rotating screws when the machine’s screws started to turn, mashing the 28-year-old’s head and arms. He died of his injuries in an ambulance on the way to the hospital. [More]
Visit The Magical Factory Where Frozen Pizzas Come From
By 12.2.13
Americans eat a lot of packaged foods, but do you ever wonder what kind of magical land these boxes of convenient tastiness come from? There’s no army of dough-tossing elves trapped inside a pizza factory: the reality is much cooler. [More]
The Workers In Bangladesh Who Make Your Clothes Are Rioting
By 9.27.13
If you’re going to perform hard work for long hours, at least you should receive a reasonable wage during a time of high inflation in your country. Right? That’s not generally the case in Bangladesh, where as many as 100,000 workers have taken to the streets to demand a minimum wage of $104 per month, up from the current minimum of $39. [More]
Here’s The Factory Where Marshmallow Peeps Hatch
March 27, 2013
Always wondered how marshmallow Peeps are made? Wonder no more. Two billion of the marshmallow critters come out of the production lines in Bethlehem, Pennsylvania every year, most of them for the Easter rush. From start to finish, it takes six minutes for the machinery to make a Peep. [NY Daily News] [More]
Walmart Warns Suppliers They Better Abide By Stricter Rules Or Get Dropped
By 1.22.13
After a fire at a Bangladesh factory that supplied clothing to Walmart and other stores killed 112 workers in November, Walmart has announced that it is taking its suppliers around the globe to task when it comes to subcontracting their work. In other words, if Walmart doesn’t approve of the factories suppliers use, it’ll drop those companies lickety-split. [More]
Expect More Foxconn Riots In The Future Due To ‘Spiritual Emptiness’
By 9.26.12
Earlier this week, a Foxconn factory in Taiyuan, northern China, shut down production when a brawl broke out in the dormitories that involved as many as 2,000 workers. The real question is this: how long until it happens again? [More]
Report: Hundreds Of Xbox Makers At Foxconn Plant Threatened Suicide
By 1.12.12
Taiwanese electronics manufacturer Foxconn has factories just about everywhere in the world, and they make stuff for just about every gadget company that you can think of. This makes any news coming out of the company, from 2010’s suicide cluster to last year’s explosion, fascinating to us. But it’s hard to look at your Xbox quite the same way after learning that hundreds of Foxconn workers reportedly took to the roof and threatened suicide over severance payments. [More]
Sony Closes CD Factory In NJ, 300 Lose Jobs
By 1.14.11
Three hundred people in New Jersey are losing their jobs, and it’s all our fault. Enough consumers prefer to buy digital downloads (when we buy music at all) that Sony is closing down their Pitman, NJ CD factory at the end of March. [More]
Video: Chinese Factory Workers Stuffing Playing Cards At Turbo Speed
By 9.7.10
Every wonder why so much stuff is made in China? This is why. Look at these guys, stuffing playing cards in boxes at a superhuman rate. This video has not been sped up. No wonder China is going to kick our ass. [More]
