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Based on a more than a year's investigative research this report examines working conditions and the alleged abuse of labour rights in the Xin Yi Plastics Company. The company is made up of two factories, Xin Yi and Jia Li Bao, based in the Yu Lu Industrial Zone II. All Xin Yi’s production is for export and its major clients appear to be Mattel, Wal-Mart, and McDonald’s.

Findings of the study include:

• ninety-five percent of the workers are illegally held as permanent temps, required to sign “new” employment contracts every two to three months, effectively stripping workers of their legal rights
  
• on the very first day, after workers sign a largely blank contract, they attend a training session in which they are instructed on how to lie to corporate auditors from the U.S. Those who are questioned and answer “correctly” (lie) will receive a bonus equivalent to one and a half weeks wages. Those who tell the truth are immediately fired
  
• workers are paid just 53 cents an hour and $21.34 a week
  
• the standard shift is 14.5 hours per day, from 7:30 a.m. to 10:00 p.m., six days a week. Mandatory overtime at the Xin Yi Factory exceeds China’s legal limit by 260 percent
  
• workers are routinely cheated on nearly 20 percent of the wages legally due them – resulting in the loss of two days wages each week
  
• workers in the spray paint department who cannot tolerate the strong acrid stench of the oil paint are immediately fired
  
• as late as 2005, Mattel sought and won special “waivers” from the government of China to pay below the legal minimum wage in its factories. Mattel also received waivers to unilaterally extend allowable working hours to seventy-two hours per week, which exceeds China’s legal limit on overtime by 295 percent.
  
  
  
  

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