on the cheap, by filling its prisons to the limit and having
companies rope the inmates into work for very low wages.
That was borrowed from Ikea and it's East German contractors.
Those contractors got prisoners to make Ikea furniture. Now
Ikea says it had no Idea about that.
Anyway, they've offered restitution to the German prisoners.
A full set of family room furniture, which the prisoners will
have to assemble themselves.
checkitout: The Guardian
Ikea
says sorry to East German political prisoners forced to make its furniture
Peter
Betzel, head of Ikea Germany, apologises for the flat-pack furniture company's
use of prison labour in the 70s and 80s
Kate Connolly in BerlinFriday 16 November 2012 18.49 GMT
It
has become a retail byword for affordable, functional furniture: plain,
cheerful items with a certain Nordic wholesomeness about them that millions of
consumers the world over can't seem to resist.
But
on Friday Ikea became associated with something darker when it admitted that at
least some of its cupboards, chairs and other household products were produced
by East German prisoners incarcerated for their political beliefs.
A
roomful of angry former GDR prisoners first watched – and then started to vent
decades worth of anger – as a squirming Peter Betzel formally apologised for
using prison labour in the 1970s and 1980s.
"We
regret wholeheartedly that this happened," said Betzel, head of Ikea Germany,
after an independent report by auditors
Ernst and Young confirmed that Ikea managers knew of the practice.
"It
is not and never was acceptable to Ikea that it should be selling products made
by political prisoners and I would like to express my deepest regret for this
to the victims and their families".
The
company insists that nothing comparable goes on today. But already questions of
compensation are being raised that could cost the company dear, not to mention
the reputational damage of being seen to profit from people who were fighting
for freedom.
Alexander
Arnold was one such. He was sent to prison at 22 for "distributing
anti-communist propaganda" – handing out flyers containing poems by
Bertolt Brecht and Hermann Hesse. He says he still has nightmares about the
isolation cell where he was sent if he failed to keep up with the heavy work
load. Arnold made parts for office chairs.
"By
the end of my 11-month sentence, I knew every part of the process," he
said. "From the rollers on the feet to the spine of the chair". He
was also well aware that he and his fellow prisoners were working for a major
western European company, none other than the Swedish flat-pack furniture
giant, Ikea. "It was no secret," he said. "Their name was on the
boxes which the products were packed into and the prison guards didn't keep it
a secret from us. Everyone knew. I am relieved that this is finally coming to
light," said Arnold, 51. "I'm glad that Ikea is taking responsibility
but I'm sorry it took someone other than Ikea to bring this to light".
Arnold
recalled how he and fellow workers had been set productivity targets.
"Each day we worked what amounted to two and a half working days of that
of a normal worker on the outside," he said. "If we slipped to below
80% of the target set, that's when they'd throw you in the isolation cell, for
10 days at a time".
The
Ernst and Young report said that while Ikea had had a policy of visiting
production facilities to control working processes, access to East German
suppliers had been restricted. Dieter Ott, 49, a former prisoner from Naunburg
who worked on a punch press making parts for Ikea cupboards and doors, asked
why Ikea had not questioned why it was not allowed to visit workers.
"Did
you not suspect something? And after all, you were working with a country that
was separated from Sweden by a hulking great wall. Surely that should have
given you reason enough to ask if you should have been working with East German
suppliers?"
