Di$$$ney - Mickey Mouse Crime Record

After a tiring football match I went to catch Looney Tunes: Back in Action a few days ago. The whole movie was, as sort of expected, quite crappy, except for one little part of the plot. Here is the part of the storyline I mean taken from the official homepage of the movie:

[...] Consequently, Daffy is on the scene when DJ discovers that his famous movie star father Damian Drake (TIMOTHY DALTON), known for playing suave international spies onscreen, is actually a suave international spy in real life - and has been kidnapped by the nefarious Mr. Chairman (STEVE MARTIN) of the equally nefarious Acme Corporation. It seems that Damian knows the whereabouts of the mysterious and powerful Blue Monkey Diamond, and the Chairman will do anything to get his hands on it.

With Daffy in tow, DJ hits the road in a desperate attempt to outrace the evil Acme stooges to the diamond and save the world from their evil clutches. [...]

Interestingly they never mentioned in the summary that the chairman (played by Steve Martin) of the MNC Acme only wants the diamond to turn humans into monkeys so he can exploit these and turn them into slaves (i.e. cheap labour) for his corporate empirer.

To be honest I was quite surprised that they would include such an obviously negative side effect of capitalism, in a Hollywood cartoon, usually only releasing brainless flicks where one rubber characters is chasing the other, without much plot. Anyway, after watching that movie I just had to do some research if the Warner Brothers Corp. doesn't entertain some sweatshops itself. Warner Brothers indeed are hardly involved in the Sweatshop business (except for one in Burma, as far as I know), BUT did you know that Walt Disney is??

Yes, Walt Disney, that company that earns billions of $$$ selling little cute characters, which as good as every child, at least in the industrialized world, comes in contact with at some point. And guess what, Walt Disney is the biggest rival of Warner Brothers! To be honest I was not really shocked to find out that Walt Disney depends heavily on factories producing under horrible circumstances, but I was hoping to find out otherwise.

Anyway, I would like to tell you a bit more about the truth of Walt Disney here.

To get a better understanding of what the conditions are like in those sweatshops, I want to publish a testemonie of a 19 year old worker from the Shah Makhdum factory (Bangladesh) here. Of course we shoudn't forget that most people in Bangladesh are very poor and that there are hundreds of thousands of such cases, if not millions (& not only there).

My name is Lisa Rahman. I'm 19 years old and I live in Dhaka. My family is very poor. I had to start working in the garment factories when I was 10 years old. I never had the chance to go to school.

Even we 10 year old children were forced to work from 8:00 in the morning until 10 p.m. every night, seven days a week. If I ever dozed off, the supervisor would slap me and yell at me, "Why are you dozing, why aren't you working!"

For the last three years I have worked at the Shah Makhdum factory, where we sewed mostly Disney garments. I am a senior sewing operator. I worked on all these garments. My job was to close these seams. My salary is 1,750 taka a month (which is less than US$30, 14 cents an hour). I haven't had a raise in three years, I'm still making 1,750 taka.

Disney was always the majority of the production in the factory.

We were required to work from 8:00 a.m. to 10:00 p.m. every day. Often we were kept later, to 11:00 p.m. or midnight. This would happen ten to thirteen days a month. We work seven days a week, with no regular holiday. At most we get one day off a month.

Conditions at the factory are very harsh. There is constant pressure for us to work faster. I must do 200 pieces an hour. That is the target the company sets. If I failed to meet that target, the supervisor would call me names. The supervisors yell and curse at us. They curse our parents and call them filthy. Sometimes they slap us-slap us in the back of the head, or push or shove us. We are not allowed to talk. If we are caught they hit us.

The factory is very hot. There is little air. While we are working our clothes are wet with sweat.

They only allow us to use the bathroom once or twice a day, and the bathrooms are very filthy. The drinking water is also dirty and many of the girls suffer from diarrhea, me too.

The company does not allow maternity leave or benefits. If a woman becomes pregnant, they force her out of the factory.

They do not allow sick days. We have no health insurance. If I get sick, it would cost me 300 taka to see a doctor or get medicines. I can't afford that-it is nearly a week's wage.

The company does not let us off for the national holidays and we never receive a vacation.

We get just two breaks in the entire day, an hour for lunch from 1:00 p.m. to 2:00 p.m, and a 10- minute break at 8:00 p.m. when the company gives us a banana and a piece of bread.

We are forced to work to 11:00 or 12:00 midnight almost every day, but the company always cheats us on our overtime pay. They keep two sets of time cards-one to show Disney, and the other real one. The one for Disney shows that we work from 8:00 a.m. to just 6:00 p.m. and that we receive every Friday off. The real time card shows us working seven days a week until 10 p.m. or later. But we are not paid for these hours. So we are being cheated out of three to four hours of overtime a day.

Also, if they say we made a mistake, they deduct more money from our wages.

The factory does not allow women who reach 30 or 35 years of age to keep working. The bosses say they are too old and not fit to do the work, that their eyesight is no good, so they force them to quit. They leave with nothing-penniless-even if they plead.

I walk to and from work each day to save money. It takes an hour each way. I leave at 6:50 to get to work by 8:00 a.m. I get home at 11:00 or 12 midnight.

I live in one room with my old parents and two nieces. We share one wooden platform. It's very crowded. When it rains our roof leaks, so we have to roll up our bedding and sit in a dry corner.

I get up at 5:00 a.m. I have to cook and wash. Ninety to 100 people in my neighborhood all use one water pump, one outhouse and one stove with four burners. So we often have to wait in line for our turn.

I have never heard anything about the Disney Code of Conduct (certain workers rights). I have no idea what it is-none of the workers do.

When I was asked what I thought the Disney shirt would cost, I imagined maybe 50 or 100 taka. (85 cents to US$1.50). I was shocked to hear that it cost US$17.99-that's more than I earn in two weeks working.

I've never had the chance to see a movie, to ride a bicycle or to go on a vacation. We can't afford juice. Maybe we can afford to eat chicken once every two or three months.

We want Disney to return its work to our factory. But, We are asking that our rights be respected and that we are treated as human beings. I hope for a better life for myself and all the workers. If we could only earn 4,500 taka a month (37 cents an hour) we could live with a little dignity.

I am so very glad to have the chance to speak for the women and workers of Bangladesh in the hope that we can win our rights.

Walt Disney pulled out of the factory after it got under too much criticism from various labour organizations. But what about these women who used to work there? Of course the aim is to help these workers. Being unemployed won't really help them much. So these various labour organizations and the workers themself pressured the factory managment to improve working conditions and treat their employees with some dignity. After a long fight they eventually gave in. NOW it's Walt Disney's turn to act and resume their work at this much improved factory!

Check out a preview of the upcoming NLC film, "The Hidden Face of Globalization" (Quicktime), and a copy of the student anti-sweatshop news story by WNBC New York! 

Of course Walt Disney is not the only corp. heavily involved in the usage of sweatshops. Companies like NIKE, GAP, REEBOOK and many others don't really give a damn about humans and nature either, unless consumers pressure them to.

Here are some things you can do to help:

(suggested by the National Labor Committee)

* STOP THIS MADNE$$ *

~peace~

tags: disney  sweatshops  corporate criminals  

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