By Mike Blain
Free Press Special Arctic Correspondent
NORTH POLE (AP) - Twenty-one elves dissolved entirely and 48 were horribly disfigured today after a massive spill of nitric-hydrofluoric acid in the toy train assembly hangar of North Pole Productions Inc. Another 150 elves were airlifted to Aurora Borealis Medical Center with complaints ranging from trouble breathing and burning eyes and throats, to nausea and headaches.
The spill occurred when two replacement elves, working in place of striking members of Toymakers and Woodcarvers Local 101, opened the wrong valve on a vat of acid used to clean toy train parts.
"It was horrible," said one shaken elf, who was able to climb to safety just as a 2-foot wave of acid washed across the factory floor. "The little guys were all sizzling and melting like the Wicked Witch of the West. I saw a lot of good friends just disappear in a cloud of orange vapor."
North Pole Productions C.E.O. Nicholas Claus refused to comment on the accident. A company spokesman did say, however, that families of the dissolved elves, as well as disfigured elves who might live, were not eligible for compensation or medical benefits because the replacement workers' health plan did not specifically cover acid spills.
The accident couldn't come at a worse time for the company. The multinational toy manufacturer was already embroiled in a bitter labor dispute with striking elves and was lagging far behind production goals for the 1995 holiday season. The company is looking at posting a fourth-quarter loss for the first time since the Great Depression.
Representatives of the Toymakers' union, which represents over 4,500 striking elves, were quick to blast the company for using untrained replacement toymakers and forcing them to work long hours without overtime pay. Union officials pointed out that the company stopped having weekly safety meetings when the strike started 84 days ago, and that most of the replacement elves had been working 20-hour shifts every day for nearly three months.
"Something like this was bound to happen - they've just been working these scabs to the bone trying to get ready for the big night," said Toymakers' spokesperson Ben Small. "Guys were falling asleep while arc-welding bicycles. They were dozing off while pushing pieces of wood into table saws. There's been more lost fingers in the last two months than we had in the last 10 years here with the union."
Illustration by Jim Gibbs
The contentious labor dispute revolves around wages, job security and health benefits. The company is demanding that the elves pay a higher portion of their health plan costs and refuses to stop moving toy manufacturing operations to China, where North Pole Productions employs thousands of prison laborers. The company says that the global market has forced it to cut labor costs, and it had to move some of its operations to lower-wage markets in order to stay competitive. Over 1,500 North Pole elves have been laid off since 1993.
Lucrative stock options for C.E.O. Claus also irk many striking elves. In 1992, North Pole Production's board of directors offered Claus stock options worth over $6 million as an incentive to boost the toy company's then-lagging stock. After several rounds of layoffs and the transfer of all doll and stuffed animal operations to China, Wall Street reacted favorably. The toy company's stock, which had been hovering in the mid-50s, climbed to over $73 a share in October of this year. Last week, Claus cashed in his stock options for $6.7 million.
"We feel betrayed by Santa," said one striking elf. "That jolly crap is all a facade. We were all told three years ago that if we increased our efficiency and boosted production, then nobody would be laid off. He lied to us.
"We work hard and we build the best toys in the world and this is what we get? The fat guy gets million dollar bonuses while we get tossed aside like old rag dolls."
Some stock market analysts argue that it is increasingly clear that the North Pole no longer makes economic sense for the toy company. "Let's be honest, Santa Claus originally located his operations up there so he could avoid any sort of environmental regulation," said Ebeneezer Smith, a spokesman for Piper Jaffrey.
After Greenpeace documented in 1990 that the company was pumping solvents laced with carcinogenic heavy metals into huge air pockets in the polar ice cap, the United Nations declared the North Pole to be an International Superfund cleanup site. The U.N. told Santa that North Pole Productions had to fund 50 percent of the clean-up, or U.N. jets would enforce a no-sleigh-flying zone around the globe on Christmas Eve.
"Now that he can't pollute at will and he is being forced by the United Nations to pay some cleanup mitigation costs, he has lost that competitive advantage," added Smith. "He now must cut shipping and labor costs; being based at the North Pole is more expensive in both categories. I wouldn't be surprised if Santa shuts down all North Pole operations within five years."
Union spokesman Small was more optimistic: "Santa has billions of dollars of infrastructure here. You can't just pick that up and move it. And really, China is no closer to the opposite side of the globe than the North Pole. Come on, he flies around the world in one night. The whole argument about shipping costs is just not supported by the facts."
As for the striking elves, Small says they're in it for the long haul. "Santa Claus is nothing without us. North Pole Productions is losing money and public support every day this strike continues. If Santa doesn't settle soon he's gonna face the wrath of millions of children."
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Contents on this page were published in the December/January, 1996 edition of the Washington Free Press.
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