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he was a member of a Fascist Group in the 1940s

In Reply to: IKEA = NAZI ??? posted by Henning on July 06, 1998 at 09:51:40:

: I've heard, that the boss of Swedens IKEA furniture store is organised in a swedish Nazi Party. Is that right, can anybody help?

Hi it has been published in recent biographies of Ingvar Kamprad that he was a member of a Fascist Group in the 1940s (Ingvar Kamprad set up IKEA in 1943). This information also appeared in the Guardian Newspaper (UK) last year (August 19th 1998). The UK paper, The Sunday Times, issued a report of IKEA sourcing goods from Rumanian Sweat-shops where people worked for 17 - 20p an hour. In October 1997 (we think it was at this time) the Dutch current affairs programme 'NOVA' reported that two companies - Prem Textiles (details of this Company are on the internet) and R.K. Exports which supplied goods to IKEA employed children under the age of 14 years of age.
On January 29th, 1999, the french newspaper, 'Le Monde' published an article, "IKEA suspected of racial discrimination in recruitement. This story said that the firm which distributes it catalogue in France (or parts of France) sent out a memo saying that black people were not to be employed delivering IKEA catalogues because people were less willing to open doors to black people. The memo said 'that for this kind of work do not recruit black people'.
In an interview published in the weekly 'L'Evenement' in 1997 a director from IKEA announced the wish of the Sweedish Group to "return to its Nordic image".
What BREATHE (Bristol Residents Against IKEA at Bristol) want is further information on issues of Sweat-shop labour, discrimination, and the owners Fascist past.

Thanks

Jim McNeill

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