Happy meals, unhappy workers and kids toys.
Nearly 10,000 Vietnamese workers who make toys for McDonald’s Happy Meals returned to work Friday, following a two-day strike at a factory in central Vietnam. The strike was to protest alleged unfair and abusive labor practices, officials said.
It has been an interesting experience for me to enter the toy industry. I came into it thinking it was all about the magic and wonder of making toys to entertain educate and make children happy.
It’s really just a business like any other industry sector, just that the end product happens to be toys. You wonder if the workers in the factory making toys think of their job any differently from another factory worker ?
The idealism and magic and wonder are an illusion created to sell more products.
Once in a while we are pleasantly surprised. I grew up watching Walt Disney and hung onto every word Walt said. I think he did work and create from his heart. But he was a rarity.
This year at Toy Fair as I stood in my booth watching buyers walk briskly buy in their suits, with their brief case in hand , I wondered where the inner child in them had disappeared to?
They asked about pricing, advertising, what legs does it have- TV show? No buyer or industry person has ever asked me why I make my toys.
I think I need to grow up and face the harsh realities of the toy industry- but I won’t be going on strike today.
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