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So, spun off from the "GW moving to resin" thread:

http://www.dakkadakka.com/dakkaforum/posts/list/357545.page

This thread is intended to discuss what's meant by ethical purchasing/consuming, *as related to wargames, miniatures, etc.*, and (hopefully) talk about what companies and/or products are relatively safe to buy from, in ethical terms.

Inevitably this may end up slightly political, but let's *TRY* to keep it on-topic for dakka. I don't really want it to degenerate into a general discussion about whether unions and worker rights are inherently good/bad, as that is *NOT* related to wargaming or minis, other than tangentially; if you want to claim that the Invisible Hand of the Marketplace will make everything OK, and that we should be buying from sweatshops so as to be good capitalists and consumers, please take that discussion elsewhere, to the off-topic forum. This thread is for people who don't want to buy sweatshop-produced goods, to share info on how to continue our lovely hobby without compromising our even more lovely ethics.

For anyone who wants a good starting point as to why some of us dislike sweatshop labour, and want nothing to do with it economically, I recommend either Naomi Klein's overview of the anti-globalization movement, _No Logo_, or just Google "anti-sweatshop movement" and take a look at websites like this one: http://www.usleap.org/usleap-initiatives/sweatshop-initiative/current-anti-sweatshop-campaigns-and-initiatives

For anyone who does already want to avoid sweatshops -- what can we safely buy? I know that most of the little miniatures companies tend to be small, one- or two-person operations, with design and manufacturing and everything else taking place in countries where we can reasonably assume that minimal ethical standards and employment conditions are being maintained. So, I am assuming that the likes of Heresy, Chapterhouse, Maxmini, Kromlech, Hasslefree, etc., are all fine to buy from.

What about GW? Anyone know much about their ethics, if any? Anyone up for writing to them and asking them? I don't really have time right now, but will give it a shot in a week or two if no-one else does.

Privateer Press? FFG? I do know that a lot of the tabletop RPG industry has tended to switch to Chinese printing over the last decade or so, but that might mean asking individual companies what their policies are...

Personally I don't see what all the fuss is about resin dust. Are people snorting lines of the stuff off their cutting mats or something? It's really quite easy to deal with, no more difficult than sawdust and quite less in amount.

Is the idea that people are sanding it down while a fan is running and they are breathing it in? There are more than 1 way to get rid of mold lines, not all of which involve sanding or a file. Often times a clean cut with a razor knife works just fine and will be much easier on resin than on metal.

As for GW business practice, I think their policy on labor is of little concern to the average gamer. It'd be different if they charged so little that one could imagine sweatshop labor being needed to justify low prices. However GW charge a premium, and I'm sure their chinese laborers make out just fine.

There's another thread for resin dust.

You're probably right that labour issues aren't a concern for the average gamer. This thread is mostly for gamers who do concern ourselves with such things.

Unfortunately it's a fallacy to assume that just because a product is sold at a high price, the workers who make it must be paid well. Those $100 Nike sneakers are made by workers who only earn 40 cents an hour:

http://www.businessweek.com/magazine/content/06_48/b4011001.htm

GW aren't exactly renowned for treating their redshirts well, and their redshirts have direct contact with GW customers, as well as access to Western media and lawyers if things go badly wrong. It'd be lovely if whichever factories GW work with in Shanghai treated their workers well -- but it's certainly not a given, or even particularly likely. I'll wait for an official statement from GW on the matter before judging.

Couldn't care less about sweatshops etc.

Call me heartless, but there is just no way to represent how little of a damn I give.

It's the same with battery farming; do I care if chickens are kept that way? No. Would I like it if I was kept that way? Irrelevant since I am not.

There's just a lot more important stuff on my mind at the moment, and concerns such as these don't make the shortlist.

Nike's arent the only major shoe company around, and thus they have to work harder for our money.

GW does little to nothing and are still the biggest game company around.

I do agree that profit =/= high wages for labor.

I would also put it out there that injection molding requires little manpower as it's mostly automated. Spin casting however requires a bit more attention, but I'm not sure if they are currently or planning to do that end of labor in china.

Avatar, I totally understand -- I have First World Problems too:

http://www.reddit.com/r/firstworldproblems/

Thing is, though, despite all my best efforts to be a good little psychopath, and have no empathy at all for foreigners, or indeed humans in general, I end up being some kind of bleeding heart anyway.

Anyway -- back on topic -- Aerethan, you may be right. I just don't know. I do know that my spidey-senses tingle when I hear that GW produces stuff in Shanghai, because that has an "export processing zone" -- those are where foreign businesses tend to operate. If you look at how horrible conditions are for Chinese workers in general, and then bear in mind that export processing zones tend to be about relaxing the (few) pesky labour laws so as to make the place more economically attractive to foreign investors, it doesn't sound good:

http://www.transnationale.org/countries/chn.php

I don't get it, was that serious or was that supposed to be read in a mocking tone, because sarcasm doesn't work well on the internet.

I assume by the rather tasteless link (tasteless in that you believe that my concerns are trivial because they don't include one of your concerns) that you were attempting to mock me, but i'm not completely sure.

Avatar 720, that's a very sad comment to make. I'm not going to say any more about it since you've obviously got some big problems, and probably don't need any more wood being thrown on the fire.

A friend of mine owns an engineering company and has made several trips to China over the past decade or so to organise getting bits made. He says that while the working conditions in their industry are still poor compared to our own standards (most of the time! ), they are getting better - dirt floors being replaced by concrete, improved facilities (ventilation, safety etc.) in the factories and the like. The Chinese have got a penchant for organisation and efficiency, and basically the country is following the path set previously in asia by the likes of Japan and Korea, of a massive industrial revolution within the country which will ultimately lead to a higher standard of living and then the things we take for granted, worker rights, safety and accountability within the workplace.

Avatar, if you have net access, the NHS, UK citizenship, and a bit of spare cash for toy soldiers, you are by definition several zillion times better off than a sweatshop worker (not atypical living conditions for the latter: company bunk room, shared with 3-5 other people, with only 2 beds; 60-80 hour work week minimum, more on busy weeks; one week's unpaid holiday a year if you're lucky; routine sexual harassment/abuse if you're female; sacking if you ever complain; pay rate of 30p/hour). (I'm not saying you don't have worries; I'm sure we all do; yours may be worse than most; but it's still incredibly callous to just not care at all about your fellow people.)

Pacific, yeah, I do hear good things about some factories in China improving, and even that there is so much demand for Chinese goods in the West that in some areas of China at least, people just leave jobs in the particularly bad factories, and go work in the slightly better ones... but again, I'd want to know for sure that GW are working with the slightly better ones, if they're doing business there at all (stupid me, I didn't look closely at the labels last time I bought from them). I don't actually buy GW paint (prefer Vallejo), and I already buy a lot of my miniis second-hand, but I do want to know if I should be moving to buying all of my minis second-hand, or moving away from GW minis entirely (it's not like the few tourneys I go to require GW minis anyway).

Avatar, if you have net access, the NHS, UK citizenship, and a bit of spare cash for toy soldiers, you are by definition several zillion times better off than a sweatshop worker

I never said I wasn't.

Do we know what conditions are like in the factories making GW products?

I don't. Absent anyone else knowing, and saying so, I'm gonna drop them a line, but I'd like to gather more info first -- people on the other thread said GW paints and codexes are both manufactured in China, which I wasn't aware of. Anything else?

I shop ethically.

I give GW (well, my FLGS actually, but indirectly it finds its way into GW's hands) money. In exchange, they give me a product that I feel is worth more than the money I have exchanged for the product.

This is a very ethical relationship and I'm happy to participate.

biccat wrote:I shop ethically.

I give GW (well, my FLGS actually, but indirectly it finds its way into GW's hands) money. In exchange, they give me a product that I feel is worth more than the money I have exchanged for the product.

This is a very ethical relationship and I'm happy to participate.

The best extrapolation you can bring for how products are made for Western markets is by understanding that most Western or International companies enter a contract with the best bidders in making their product. Most executives or employees of that company (if any) actually step foot inside a factory of the company they hire to make their products.

Now sometimes it's a lot less competition for making a product, as the company seeking to make products will shop around for potential suitors. If more than one arise, they either pick who they think is the best/cheapest or try and haggle prices by seeing who will provide their services for cheap.

To understand what you find in other nations, simply Google using the right search terms to get hits on the conditions of factories everywhere.

For instance, typing in "conditions chinese factory" nets me this article:

http://boingboing.net/2009/02/09/ghastly-working-cond.html

"Mexican factory conditions" nets me this:

http://www.iww.org/en/node/4002

For special terms that are harder to spot, a bit of education into the matter works wonders.

For instance, I learned about Maquiladoras in Women's Studies and have found a wealth of information concerning the plight of women in factories outside the U.S.:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Maquiladora

Ian Sturrock wrote:Avatar, if you have net access, the NHS, UK citizenship, and a bit of spare cash for toy soldiers, you are by definition several zillion times better off than a sweatshop worker (not atypical living conditions for the latter: company bunk room, shared with 3-5 other people, with only 2 beds; 60-80 hour work week minimum, more on busy weeks; one week's unpaid holiday a year if you're lucky; routine sexual harassment/abuse if you're female; sacking if you ever complain; pay rate of 30p/hour). (I'm not saying you don't have worries; I'm sure we all do; yours may be worse than most; but it's still incredibly callous to just not care at all about your fellow people.)

If presented with the ability to feed a child in Darfur, or buy miniatures, which one would receive your funds?

You don't have to answer, I already know as you're posting on a forum for miniature war games.

Don't get on a high horse when you devote a portion of your income to luxury items, you're not Gandhi.

Well this here HP Made in China was possibly made in that or similar factory Warboss

Comments such as the conditions are getting better/ they are like those in the USA in the 1920's are not very reassuring

Warone, those were some interesting posts. The conditions of working now in China are pretty much exactly what the Japanese went through in the 60's, and the Koreans in the 70's. Those are both two of the richest countries in the world now, is this process necessary to bring the country up to a 'developed' status of economy, industry and society? I guess that's something for sociologists and economists to debate over, although when viewed historically hopefully this will just be a transitional stage for them. The current generation will suffer in order to allow their children to buy a new car every few years and live in modern and comfortable accomodation.

dogma wrote:

You don't have to answer, I already know as you're posting on a forum for miniature war games.

Don't get on a high horse when you devote a portion of your income to luxury items, you're not Gandhi.

No, but what is kind of sad is the number of people rushing to defend the guy who says "I don't give a fig about other people's wellbeing", it's a sad inditement of the modern world that we feel it is acceptable to just shrug our shoulders at the suffering of other human beings. People whose situation we might share were it not for an accident of birth.

I was born in a rich western country, I am fortunate in the same way that those born in poorer countries and now working in those sweatshops are relatively unfortunate. However, that doesn't mean I have to be blind to the realities of the international marketplace and wilfully ignore the ethics behind the purchases I make. I choose not to buy McDonalds, not on the basis of it's harm to my own health (although that is an issue), but after having read about the working practices in asia where people die from inhaling poisonous chemicals making toys for happy meals, because the factory will not pay for a ventilation system. I don't buy nike sports gear for the same reason. And if GW were to take a similar path to McDonalds, then I'm sad to say I would make no further purchases from the company.I give a small amount (for me) of money to UNICEF each month, and in short I know I'm not alone in taking this attitude, and I'm sure many more people on this board (and across the developed world generally) share similar sentiments.

Although sadly, it's not doing anything to change the conditions, or the system which leads to the like of sweatshops, or challenge the decidedly amoral actions of people who do not have the ability for compassion. 99% of will never be a Gandhi, and are sated by our modern lives, but I think there is always the element of grey in between the Gandhis, and those who just shrug their shoulders and turn the other way, and each one of us can make a small difference even if it only absolves their own actions and the accident of the conditions/fortune of their existence.

Pacific wrote:
No, but what is kind of sad is the number of people rushing to defend the guy who says "I don't give a fig about other people's wellbeing", it's a sad inditement of the modern world that we feel it is acceptable to just shrug our shoulders at the suffering of other human beings. People whose situation we might share were it not for an accident of birth.

Two things:

1) That's far from a modern phenomenon. In fact, I'd argue that extensive good will is closer to being an idiosyncrasy of modernity than antisocial tendencies are.

2) Who you are has as much to do with where you are born as it does your genetic code. You could not have been born anywhere else, if "you" were "you" would be a different person making the idea of "you" meaningless from a comparative standpoint.

Pacific wrote:
I was born in a rich western country, I am fortunate in the same way that those born in poorer countries and now working in those sweatshops are relatively unfortunate. However, that doesn't mean I have to be blind to the realities of the international marketplace and wilfully ignore the ethics behind the purchases I make.

What ethics would those be? Your ethics? Anselm's ethics? Socrates'? Mill's? Kant's?

Pacific wrote:
Although sadly, it's not doing anything to change the conditions, or the system which leads to the like of sweatshops, or challenge the decidedly amoral actions of people who do not have the ability for compassion.

You're overreaching. Not having compassion for random person X does not indicate that there is an absence of the capacity to feel compassion.

Pacific wrote:
99% of will never be a Gandhi, and are sated by our modern lives, but I think there is always the element of grey in between the Gandhis, and those who just shrug their shoulders and turn the other way, and each one of us can make a small difference even if it only absolves their own actions and the accident of the conditions/fortune of their existence.

The funny thing is that Gandhi was a prick who disowned his son because he wanted to get married, something which Gandhi did not believe in. No one is perfect, and we all have mud on our hands, hence my comment about high horses.

Ethical buying of wargames?

In isolation I really don't give a crap, Even taking a wider view, I want to breathe clean air but I do so need my car.

I want Pedro to go to school and not have to make my clothes, but I need to cover up and look good whilst doing it and at a price I can afford.

I want everyone to have food but, well, there not enough to go round, and I have kids, so, they get first dibs.

Tsobe doesn't have clean drinking water? well, if I don't pay my bills, neither will I.


I think army men made of childrens tears and dreams are the least of my worries.

Interesting to see a diverse set of opinions represented here. Frankly, I find some of the aforementioned opinions utterly disgusting. I would like to know what impact my plastic model dollars are having on real people, for good or ill. In the case of the latter, GW is hardly the only game in town. My thoughts on social responsibility in this case have less to do with feeding children in sub-Saharan Africa VS. buying a new land raider than with buying a new land raider VS. switching to a company that produces non-sweatshop models.

Yeah, there is a huge difference between the decision to give up all luxury and devote one's life to saving the planet -- which would be laudable, for sure, but which I doubt any of us here are ever going to do -- and making an ethical decision about which companies one is going to do business with, based on how they do business with others. Personally, I can't in all conscience give my money to a company that I *know* will use some of the profits to exploit others to a degree that would quite rightly be illegal in any civilized country.

I don't really buy the argument that China just has to go through the sweatshop stage and out the other end. You have two major factors working against that, that the other countries mentioned in this thread (including the West, back in the day) never had. The first is that the multinationals are *so* much more powerful than they used to be -- some researchers have argued that the multinationals are now significantly more powerful than governments, in some places (probably not China -- but we'll get to that), leading to the natural conclusion that since our only way to "vote" for or against a particular corporation is to buy from it or not, we do need to think about who we give our cash to. The second factor is the sheer size, power, and repressiveness of the Chinese government. Almost any expression of dissatisfaction with employers is seen as a threat to state security, and quashed with immediate, ruthless efficiency.

You don't *have* to shop ethically (although again, unless we start talking about wargames-specific stuff soon, this thread is going to go wildly off-topic, so if you have some kind of weird political view that says you pretty much have to ignore unethical treatment of other people, especially foreigners, please do start a different thread about that, in the off-topic forum). If you do choose to shop ethically, though, and make your position known to any wargames and minis makers who are unethical, that *is* likely to make a difference, in the long term. Most other industries, though they might not yet have succeeded in cleaning up their acts in terms of sweatshop labour, are at least aware that customers don't want to buy sweatshop-made goods, and are communicating that to factory owners, auditing factories for ethical standards, etc. It's still only a start, but it is happening, thanks to consumers standing up for their principles. Personally, I'd like it to happen with wargames, too, but we're way too niche a business right now for the companies to ever make it onto ethicalconsumer.com's ranking system, so if we're interested, we need to ask our own questions of the companies, directly.

A lot of the smaller companies are run directly by the owners, too, and (in my experience of asking this kind of question in other niche industries) are often glad to have the questions raised, because it spurs them on to think about how they can do business more ethically, which is often an intent from the start with small businesses anyway.

Honestly, Mr. Ian Sturrock, you strike me as exactly what turns me off from caring about issues like these.

I don't know if you mean to or not, but you come across as smug, condescending, and just overall extremely haughty. The way you present yourself demonstrates a belief of superiority over those who do not demonstrate the same care towards the plight of others, and it is, quite frankly, disgusting.

I can honestly guarantee you that the average sweatshop worker in Indonesia or China isn't going to care twopence about your feelings towards sweatshop labor. In fact, he probably wishes you felt differently so that his shop would get more business. You say unfairly exploited, I say given a job and an opportunity to feed one's family in an increasingly modernizing world.

Your entire altruistic worldview is simply self-serving, in the end. It is a moral philosophy that I will never subscribe to, no matter how many disaster porn images you link to showing poor working conditions. In the end, I simply must leave you with a quote which I hope you will reflect on.

Good day to you, sir.

"Do not confuse altruism with kindness, good will or respect for the rights of others. These are not primaries, but consequences, which, in fact, altruism makes impossible. The irreducible primary of altruism, the basic absolute is self-sacrifice–which means self-immolation, self-abnegation, self-denial, self-destruction–which means the self as a standard of evil, the selfless as a standard of the good...

Do not hide behind such superficialities as whether you should or should not give a dime to a beggar. This is not the issue. The issue is whether you do or do not have the right to exist without giving him that dime. The issue is whether you must keep buying your life, dime by dime, from any beggar who might choose to approach you. The issue is whether the need of others is the first mortgage on your life and the moral purpose of your existence. The issue is whether man is to be regarded as a sacrificial animal. Any man of self-esteem will answer: No. Altruism says: Yes."

shealyr wrote:I can honestly guarantee you that the average sweatshop worker in Indonesia or China isn't going to care twopence about your feelings towards sweatshop labor. In fact, he probably wishes you felt differently so that his shop would get more business. You say unfairly exploited, I say given a job and an opportunity to feed one's family in an increasingly modernizing world.

You don't appear to have a clue about this. :(

Your noble image of this stoic worker feeding his family and wanting more work is pure fantasy.

The reality of the sweatshop worker is more likely to be a 14-year-old girl, working 70+ hours a week, not earning enough to feed herself, sleeping on the floor in an overcrowded dormitory room, having to beg her family for money or get into debt, not able to go back to her family because they have no room or work for her either, sexually harassed by foremen and management, with no prospects other than suicide, an early death from overwork, or getting sacked because she gets pregnant or complains about her conditions.

I hate to be condescending about this. But if you're just going to have these bizarre, willfull fantasies about how capitalism will make everything OK -- keep them to yourself, eh? You don't have to care about the ethics of the people you do business with. That is your prerogative. I am not going to judge your morals if you choose to still buy from dodgy companies. I am not going to listen to your idyllic fantasies about the inherent nobility of hard work, though, when they are so utterly removed from the real world.

This is GW's fault for not constantly posting updates and pictures of their factories. They must be hiding something.

@ Shealyr--Interesting thoughts, dude. I'd like to comment on your post because I think we could have a good discussion/argument but alas, that would drag this thread even further from what the OP created it to discuss.

We are not talking about the philosophy of altruism, but rather the practices of miniatures manufacturing companies and their policies as related to ethical production of goods. He has made a repeated effort (in both his first post and his last) to clarify that he wants to talk about the wargaming industry specifically. Please show him the courtesy of discussing the topic within the parameters he has pointed out.

Ian Sturrock wrote:Yeah, there is a huge difference between the decision to give up all luxury and devote one's life to saving the planet -- which would be laudable, for sure, but which I doubt any of us here are ever going to do -- and making an ethical decision about which companies one is going to do business with, based on how they do business with others. Personally, I can't in all conscience give my money to a company that I *know* will use some of the profits to exploit others to a degree that would quite rightly be illegal in any civilized country.

The argument is that you aren't really trying to serve people living in other nations, but merely your own ego, which might be considered morally equivalent to simply not caring at all. I mean, you basically say as much above when you refer only to your conscience.

Ian Sturrock wrote:
I don't really buy the argument that China just has to go through the sweatshop stage and out the other end. You have two major factors working against that, that the other countries mentioned in this thread (including the West, back in the day) never had. The first is that the multinationals are *so* much more powerful than they used to be -- some researchers have argued that the multinationals are now significantly more powerful than governments, in some places (probably not China -- but we'll get to that), leading to the natural conclusion that since our only way to "vote" for or against a particular corporation is to buy from it or not, we do need to think about who we give our cash to.

No, that conclusion isn't natural. You're moving from "corporations are powerful" to "we need to think about their power" without explaining why the two are connected in any way.

Ian Sturrock wrote:
The second factor is the sheer size, power, and repressiveness of the Chinese government. Almost any expression of dissatisfaction with employers is seen as a threat to state security, and quashed with immediate, ruthless efficiency.

With legitimate reason, though not necessarily reasons we like.

Ian Sturrock wrote:
You don't *have* to shop ethically (although again, unless we start talking about wargames-specific stuff soon, this thread is going to go wildly off-topic, so if you have some kind of weird political view that says you pretty much have to ignore unethical treatment of other people, especially foreigners, please do start a different thread about that, in the off-topic forum). If you do choose to shop ethically, though, and make your position known to any wargames and minis makers who are unethical, that *is* likely to make a difference, in the long term.

Why? What makes that likely? If it were likely wouldn't one expect Nike to make its shoes in fully bonded and certified factories? Or Coca-Cola to buy its sugar from growers that don't practice near slave labor?

Ian Sturrock wrote:
Most other industries, though they might not yet have succeeded in cleaning up their acts in terms of sweatshop labour, are at least aware that customers don't want to buy sweatshop-made goods, and are communicating that to factory owners, auditing factories for ethical standards, etc.

I think you're lending your position a false degree of legitimacy here.

aerethan wrote:Nike's arent the only major shoe company around, and thus they have to work harder for our money.

GW does little to nothing and are still the biggest game company around.

I do agree that profit =/= high wages for labor.

Pfff, I can attest to that. I used to work for a jeweler and what we got paid (which was only a few dollars above minimum wage) compared to what the items were sold for was quite a leap, and then an even bigger leap to what the shops sold the stuff for, such as 300% mark-up.

Ian Sturrock wrote:
I hate to be condescending about this. But if you're just going to have these bizarre, willfull fantasies about how capitalism will make everything OK -- keep them to yourself, eh? You don't have to care about the ethics of the people you do business with. That is your prerogative. I am not going to judge your morals if you choose to still buy from dodgy companies. I am not going to listen to your idyllic fantasies about the inherent nobility of hard work, though, when they are so utterly removed from the real world.

Then why are you doing exactly that?

dogma, I suspect you just enjoy a good argument. Please start a thread in the off-topic forum entitled "Casuistry, Sophistry, Ethics, Rhetoric, And Other Fun Party Games, By dogma". Go play there.

Hmm, Interesting point, would be a good thing to shoot GW a letter about...

they could do a what's new today segment about it with some pictures of chinese people riding unipandas to work, because they're so well off