Taymour Bouran's Blog

IKEA’s Furniture Have a Past of Forced Labor

“Ikea Admits Use of Forced Labor in the 1980’s” discuses the recent confession from the widely known furniture retailer IKEA; whose low cost furniture originated from the use of forced labor of political prisoners. Political prisoners whom have suffered from Stalinism and Nazism. So what does this mean for IKEA ?

A major consequence is negative publicity; customers may be reluctant to buying and sleeping on the beds that were made at the hands of dying men, women, and children. This bad publicity might also scare away investors whom do not want to be seen doing business with former forced labourer enforcers.

On the other hand things may not change at all because of IKEA’s reasonably priced products in good quality; for those customers whose only concern and factor to consider is price and quality. IKEA may have in the past used forced labor, but not anymore. Many companies we use today also have such horrible pasts; like Nike, Hershey’s, Toys ‘R’ Us, and clothing stores like Forever 21. (Gerri)

IKEA is one of many companies that have done business with dirty hands at some point in time. This ‘confession’ is nothing but an IKEA exceutive trying to redeem himself of guilt.