Toymakers: Up in Arms Over Product Tests

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The idea for "Toymakers: Up in Arms Over Product Tests" came from BusinessWeek reader Jennifer Taggart, an author, attorney, and consultant (thesmartmama.com) in Los Angeles.

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Medical experts say that exemptions from final product testing need to be grounded in evidence, because exposure to even small amounts of lead can cause delayed speech, delayed development, and a loss of IQ points in children. "Industry has an obligation to provide safe products. That's their responsibility, and they can't argue that, well, it's too expensive," says Dr. Jerry Paulson, a lead expert at Children's National Medical Center in Washington. He says he wouldn't oppose a component testing system if producers demonstrate that it will prevent exposure.

Social Networking

Marshall and others are rallying support for such a change. When he learned about the breadth of the law in November, he set up a Web site called the Handmade Toy Alliance, which now has 200 members. Others created the issue page on Change.org, a forum on the social network platform Ning, an online petition, among other efforts to get the attention of media and officials. Business owners blogged and Twittered furiously and e-mailed their customers to enlist them in the effort. "When we notified our customers of the Change.org page and the Facebook page, we would just hit the refresh button on our browsers and see the numbers go up by hundreds," says Michael Secore of Craftsbury Kids, a two-person, handmade gift shop in Montpelier, Vt.

The entrepreneurs who took up the cause were able to put social media tools to work so adeptly because they built their businesses on the same technology. Many are one-person, home-based enterprises that long ago figured out how to leverage the Web to connect with customers, suppliers, and like-minded business owners. It was an easy step to mobilize their existing community to take on the tasks, such as contacting officials and reporters, normally organized by top-down trade associations or lobbying groups. "We don't have any lawyers, we don't have any lobbyists, we don't have any PR people," says Jill Chuckas, who runs Crafty Baby, a 10-year-old, home-based baby products maker. "What's in our arsenals really is technology."

It's not clear yet how successful they'll be. "There are absolutely cases where citizen activism has said to the state, essentially, your plans for enforcing something that seems to be good for an industrial system cannot be applied to…a cottage industry," says Clay Shirky, professor at New York University and author of Here Comes Everybody: The Power of Organizing Without Organizations. But he notes that the ad hoc campaign, as an after-the-fact reaction to the law, hasn't served small producers the same way formal lobbyists represent big industries. "The crafters have no one inside the Beltway saying, 'Oh, the Federal government's about to draft legislation,'" Shirky says. The Consumer Product Safety Commission plans to propose rules for exemptions, but they won't be done before the deadline for initial testing, spokesman Scott Wolfson says. Omega Logan says she thinks the effort is working but fears it may fall short. "I think they're hearing us, and I think they're making exceptions," she says. "I just hope that when it comes down to it, the exceptions really do help."

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Tozzi covers small business for BusinessWeek.com.