JOB racketeers are netting as much as $120,000 a month from Thai workers producing the world's biggest-selling toy, the Mighty Morphin Power Rangers, in factories operated by a Hong Kong company, Bandai Ltd. The Sunday Morning Post discovered nearly half of the 3,000 workers have had to pay agents 'commissions' amounting to about 15 per cent of their salaries to get jobs there. One agent, employing 800 workers in the two factories on the outskirts of Bangkok, in Bang Phli and in Samut Prakan, earns as much as $120,000 a month just by collecting the money from Bandai's Thai subsidiary, Bandai & KC Company Ltd. The agents claim they are providing a service which, according to legal sources, is an illegal but widespread practice in Thailand. This service is understood to free the Bandai company of responsibility for the health and welfare of the agent-contracted workers, but that legal requirement is not undertaken by the agent. On the shop floor, employees hired by the agents wear dark blue and yellow uniforms, while the Bandai workers are dressed in light blue. 'I have to pay my agent 20 baht a day out of 135 baht a day [HK$6.40 out of HK$43.20] just to keep my job, and I must rent a room from them for 1,000 baht per month. If we complain, they deduct more money from us. By going through agents, the factory owners do not have to pay for other things such as health care,' one employee said. Bandai has 60,000 people working in its 30 factories in China, Thailand, Malaysia, and Mexico, producing around 10 million toys a month. But the two factories on outside Bangkok are where the highly profitable Power Rangers are assembled in an operation that runs 24 hours a day, seven days a week. The Power Rangers have been the top-selling toy in the United States for the past two years, having exceeded the US$4 billion (HK$31 billion) mark set by the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles. Power Rangers and their accessories now hold the first, second and ninth positions in the US chart for TV-promoted items and the second, third, fourth, seventh, eighth, ninth and tenth positions in the chart for 'non-TV promoted items'. US news reports tell of parents queuing overnight outside toy stores and bribing, even threatening, store assistants to satisfy their children's cravings for the Power Rangers. Their popularity has also led to counterfeits; 68,000 pieces of copy Power Ranger goods were seized in Los Angeles two weeks ago. Europe has entered its first year of Power mania and sales are topping out at 1.3 million pieces a month because they can't make them fast enough. Stores have resorted to rationing one toy to each customer until fresh shipments arrive. In Hong Kong, sales are beginning to take off after a slow start, with Toys 'R' Us estimating it will sell 500 toys this weekend alone. The Power Ranger characters - Jason, Zach, Trini, Billy and Kimberley - are just beginning to become popular with local children, having long been a hit with expatriate kids. 'We have had Power Rangers for more than one year. At first it was overseas customers buying,' said Raymond Yu, store director of the Toys 'R' Us outlet in Ocean Terminal. 'But since November, the toys have become really popular. We can sell 1,000 a week now.' The increase in popularity might be connected with the original Japanese cartoon series, which has been showing on Saturday mornings on TVB Jade since July 9. Chan Chi-wai, nine, said he liked the characters because they were 'brave and handsome'. He and his classmates are all big fans. His friend, Wong Shan-nai, nine, also watches the show but did not realise the toys were available in Hong Kong. For the workers in Bang Phli, however, the Power Ranger craze remains a mystery. While Bandai's fortunes are on turbo-boost to the power of a zillion, as a Power Ranger might say, these workers make a monthly wage of around 3,000 baht - barely three times the price of the most expensive Power Ranger available in Hong Kong, a snip at $349.90.