IKEA benefitted from slave labor

Enjoy your cheap, oddly named furniture, bitches. BERLIN — Ikea has long been famous for its inexpensive, some-assembly-required furniture. On Friday the company admitted that political prisoners in the former East Germany provided some of the labor that helped it keep its prices so low. A report by auditors at Ernst & Young concluded that Ikea, a Swedish company, knowingly benefited from forced labor in the former East Germany to manufacture some of its products in the 1980s. Ikea had commissioned the report in May as a result of accusations that both political and criminal prisoners were involved in making components of Ikea furniture and that some Ikea employees knew about it.

http%3A//www.nytimes.com/2012/11/17/business/global/ikea-to-report-on-allegations-of-using-forced-labor-during-cold-war.html%3Fhp



• It's too bad the Iron Curtain fell. Ikea's stuff was much better in the 80s.

• [quote]Enjoy your cheap, oddly named furniture, bitches. You really think anyone here has IKEA furniture made before 1989, a full 23 years ago? Oh hon, hon, hon. Maybe that's all you can afford, and so you somehow think that's true of everyone.

• Since the Regressives started privatizing prisons in the early 80s, they've been using the prisoners for slave labor. Stephen Fry lays out some startling facts about US prisons at link.

  http://www.youtube.com/watch%3Fv%3DnPZed8af9RI

• At least it's German-made. Could have been North Korean. Imagine that quality level!