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.