.jpeg)
Every week we put a new or special correspondent of Metropolis in the spotlights. This week's correspondent is Josh from the USA.
He made already a lot of good reports for our program. He followed gangster adolescents in America and found the ultimate imitation of Michael Jackson in Los Angeles. Here you can see a collage of all his reports, from which a lot were made for Metropolis.
Name: Kel O’Neill
Location: New York, United States of America
The reports from New York are co-produced by Eline Jongsma.
What is your favorite Metropolis item? Why so?
I really like Stef’s “Hunting for Corpses with Calulo” and Huang’s “The Hooters Girls of Beijing.” The Calulo film is a shot of adrenaline, while the Hooter’s piece succeeds both as a piece of reportage and as a laid-back satire of American culture.
What kind of image do you want to present of your country?
Every person in the world already believes that they are an expert on American culture, and there’s very little that I can do to change that. I understand why people abroad think they know so much about my country: the US has made a concerted effort to involve itself in the world at large for as long as I’ve been alive, and our chief exports (Coca-Cola, Hollywood blockbusters and illegal wars) are of increasingly dubious quality. If Eline and I have any goal with our Metropolis films, it is to remind people that there are actual PEOPLE living in this country.
Which of your fellow countrymen should the world really know about? Why?
You already know our celebrities and politicians, so I’d suggest meeting people outside of the spotlight.
What will you be doing in 10 years time?
Hopefully the same things I’m doing now, albeit on a larger scale.
What is your favorite television show in your country? What is it about and why is it so great?
I say “The Wire.” David Simon set out to make a televised novel about the decline of the American city and succeeded beyond anyone’s expectations.
Eline says “Generation Kill” (also by David Simon) because, in her words “it’s awesome.”
Also, we both like “First Person” by Errol Morris.
What characteristic of your country would you like to export to other countries?
Our brilliant healthcare system. Unlike Europe, we don’t have death panels. Choice and competition, baby!
What characteristic of your country would you like to get rid of?
The lobbying system is insane. If corporations didn’t have the ability to legally bribe politicians, we might see real changes here.
What’s it like to be a Metropolis correspondent? From Sana’a to New York and from Beijing to Ouagadougou: in this series of portraits our correspondents tell about the city they live in, they show us around in their home and their workplace. First up: Meet Kel in New York City.
Get the Flash Player to see this player.
But Ikea is more than just a furniture store: whoever buys an Ikea bookcase shows that they belong to the globally expanding middleclass. As long as there are people from Pittsburg, Moscow or Shanghai with just a little bit of money to spend and who want to belong to the middleclass, Ikea can exist. The furniture giant is able to sell products for extremely low prices because it uses cheap, new materials like woodcurls melted in plastic and putting products in compact packages. And the unaltered concept of Ikea is also part of its success. All its stores are big and the stock is always up to date because a third of it is replaced by something new every year. You can eat Swedish meatballs in the restaurant, which makes the long journey to the store bearable. It’s things like this that strengthen its squeaky clean Swedish image.
But such trivial mistakes are nothing compared to the way employees are treated at Ikea’s suppliers. In 1998 Ikea got in trouble after two documentaries revealed that small children were working in factories of Ikea suppliers. In Holland, the political faction SP organised demonstrations at Ikea for a few months, asking clients not to buy anything that was manifactured through child labor. About fifty thousand clients supported the initiative and eventually Ikea created The Ikea Way or IWAY, a code of conduct for Ikea suppliers. The code is relatively strict and the much praised IWAY is often taken as an example of social and economical enterprising.
But research in 2006 showed that Ikea often doesn’t obey its own rules. Although child labor seems to have disappeared, the social conditions as defined in IWAY often aren’t accomplished. In factories in India that produce furniture for Ikea, employees work up to 15 hours a day, 6 days a week for very low wages. In Bangladesh, wages are late most of the times and overtime is hardly ever compensated. Employers threaten their personnel with dismissal to prevent them from organising labor unions. 
The external oversight is even worse. In 2004 only 7 visits to Ikea suppliers were executed. These visits are made by controllers of companies like KPMG and PriceWaterhouseCoopers. Their names can be found in Ikea leaflets about responsible enterprising, but these companies are not allowed to publish the audits’ results. They only report to Ikea’s management. It seems that Ikea only uses those companies to look trustworthy and independent, when the audits are actually nothing more than internal controllers. 
