Lawmakers have initiated an investigation into Milwaukee Tool in light of allegations that the power-tool company contracts with suppliers in China who use forced prison labor. According to the wife of a Chinese political prisoner, detainees at a facility in Hunan province are compelled to make gloves sold by the company — and if they refuse to participate in their production, they are subjected to beatings, including with electric batons.
Earlier today, Representative Chris Smith (R, N.J.) and Senator Jeff Merkley (D., Ore.) sent a letter to Milwaukee tool CEO Steve Richman requesting answers about his company’s supply chains and its handling of human rights and forced labor-related issues. They wrote that the allegations are centered on Hunan’s Chishan prison.
“Prisoners have included Chinese human rights advocate Cheng Yuan, who was arbitrarily detained by the PRC and is still incarcerated, and Taiwanese democracy activist Lee Ming-che, who was imprisoned in Chishan Prison for five years and released last year,” the lawmakers wrote in the letter, which National Review obtained. “Both men were detained for simply advocating for rights respected and protected in free societies around the world.”
Cheng’s activism has focused on opposing Beijing’s one-child policy and supporting lawyers swept up in the 709 mass arrests of lawyers and human rights advocates in 2015. He was arrested in 2019 and sentenced to a five-year prison term.
Smith and Merkley cite evidence compiled by Cheng’s wife, Shi Minglei, that prisoners at the facility are forced into the production of gloves by a Milwaukee Tool supplier called Shanghai Select Safety Products. Those gloves are sold at Home Depot and on Amazon.
Shi will testify today at a CECC hearing focused on corporate complicity in the Chinese government’s human rights abuses.
In written testimony submitted to the commission, Shi wrote that Cheng had been tortured and that she and their 3-year-old daughter were placed under house arrest for 20 hours. Chinese security agents have harassed members of their families, she also said.
Although Shi wrote that she has not spoken with Cheng since his arrest, she cited the experiences of former Chishan inmates who have been released, including Lee.
“One of Lee’s jobs was to cut materials into the shape of a glove. Lee said that there were three to four cutting machines devoted to cutting Milwaukee Tool gloves. Another of Lee’s jobs was sewing the cut materials into actual gloves,” Shi wrote.
“I am told my husband is currently forced to do a significant amount of sewing as well,” she added.
Shi also alleged that another former prisoner, who goes by the pseudonym Xu Lun, had a similar experience, revealing that prisoners worked eleven hours per day for at least six days a week at an hourly wage of one cent. Xu and Lee both reported that physical punishments, including beatings, were inflicted on prisoners who refused to work or failed to meet production goals.
In their letter, Merkley and Smith posed several questions about Milwaukee Tool’s handling of forced labor and due diligence across its supply chains. They wrote that they might ask Richman to testify at a future Congressional hearing. Milwaukee Tool did not immediately respond to a request for comment.