Ikea apologizes for using forced labor

BERLIN - Swedish furniture giant Ikea, whose U.S. headquarters is in Conshohocken, expressed regret Friday that it benefited from the use of forced prison labor by some of its suppliers in communist East Germany more than two decades ago.

The company released an independent report showing that East German prisoners, among them many political dissidents, were involved in the manufacture of goods supplied to Ikea 25 to 30 years ago. The report concluded that Ikea managers were aware of the possibility prisoners would be used and that they took some measures to prevent it but that their actions insufficient.

"We deeply regret that this could happen," Jeanette Skjelmose, an Ikea manager, said. "The use of political prisoners for manufacturing was at no point accepted by Ikea."

But she added that "at the time, we didn't have the well-developed control system that we have today and we clearly did too little to prevent such production methods."

Ikea commissioned auditors Ernst & Young to look into allegations aired in a Swedish TV documentary in June that were first raised by a human rights group in 1982.

Rainer Wagner, chairman of the victims' group UOKG, the Union of Associations of Victims of Communist Tyranny, said Ikea was just one of many companies that benefited from the use of forced prison labor in East Germany from the 1960s to 1980s.

"Ikea is only the tip of the iceberg," he told the Associated Press in an interview earlier this week.

Wagner said he hoped Ikea and others would consider compensating former prisoners, many of whom bear psychological and physical scars the from arduous labor they were forced to do.

"Ikea has taken the lead on this, for which we are very grateful," Wagner said at a news conference in Berlin where the findings of the report were presented.