Walt Disney and Child Slave Labor
by Meghan Madura
November 2005
Who would have known that what is most commonly known as "the happiest place on earth" is supporting child slave labor overseas. The Walt Disney T-Shirt you bought your little sister for her birthday was probably stitched by a twelve year old girl in Haiti. These often 'bonded' children are being sold by their parents to work off near impossible debts with their meager wages. They are forced to work in vile conditions, diminishing their basic rights and exploiting their innocence. While providing cheaper labor, the children are defenseless against bulling, beatings, and sexual abuse. They are also easier to control and threaten into obedience. This ruthless cycle continues because these children grow into unskilled adults who become unemployed as the next generations of children take their jobs. The pay for children is one third of the wages of adults', and on top of that, the factory conditions are hazardous to their health. There is no ventilation and the use of the unsanitary bathrooms is only allowed twice a day. Children are forced to work thirteen to fifteen hour days that can last up to twenty-two hours with only three days off in nine months.
The Walt Disney Company is one of the biggest companies that have contractors in other countries making their toys and clothes. In Haiti, girls stitch Aladdin T-shirts for twenty-eight cents an hour, in Burma-six cents an hour. In Vietnam, seventeen-year-old girls who work seven days a week for seventeen cents an hour make toys. 101 Dalmatians and Lion King shirts were made in a factory in Bangkok while working seventy-two hours per week. All this is happening while CEO of the Disney Corporation, Michael Eisner, made about $102,000 per hour.
In China, young women and men are forced to work ten to thirteen hours a day producing Disney's children's books six and seven days a week, working a grueling sixty to ninety hours a week. The workers are paid just thirty-three to forty-one cents an hour, trapping them in misery. It is common for the workers to be cheated of their overtime pay. In some factories, women are denied their legal maternity rights. Eight to 12 workers are housed in primitive dorm rooms sleeping on double level bunk beds and fed horrible food at the factory canteen. Workers often faint from exhaustion and the unbearably stifling heat in the factories. Workers have no health insurance, no pension, and no rights. They have no right to freedom of association or to organize.
The Hung Hing Printing Limited Corporation is one of Disney's major suppliers. The rates for injuries and accidents at these plants are exceptionally high. Some workers report that almost every day someone is injured. This factory was ranked one of the top thirty factories in the Shenzhen Industrial Area with the highest number of work-related injuries in 2004. A young girl of only sixteen experienced many work-related injuries in her eight years of working at the Hung Hing factories first hand. One of her fellow workers was crushed to death in a hole-punching machine, while the entire lower half of her body was crushed. The following year another worker was killed while manually cleaning a cutting machine. He accidentally stepped on an exposed on-off mechanism and was electrocuted. She also experienced a woman working the machines at the press unit had the thumb of her right hand crushed. It had to be amputated. She knew of three other instances where the fingers of her co-workers were crushed from the heavy machinery. She also knew of a worker who had his back crushed by falling machinery. This incident was not even reported to the state Social Security Bureau. They chose to negotiate it privately where they gave him little money and sent him home. This is happening way too often. These companies are getting away with this because they are not reporting these accidents. For all we know, these could be the least serious cases, and much worse things could be happening in these factories.
Disney leads us to believe that they are making an effort to improve the working conditions of their factories, although this is not the case. Their website says that they are working together with McDonald's Corporation to carry out a project that promotes sustained compliance with labor standards mandated by their codes of conduct for manufacturers. They say, "For many years, both companies have maintained strict codes of conduct for their licensees and manufacturers. These codes address a range of key labor rights issues including the prohibition of forced and child labor and the setting of requirements in such areas as health and safety, working hours, compensation and compliance with applicable laws. In addition, both companies have been active in undertaking educational, monitoring and remediation efforts to promote compliance with these codes at the factories where their products are sourced throughout the world." The code of conduct says that the Walt Disney Company is committed to: "a standard of excellence in every aspect of our business and in every corner of the world, ethical and responsible conduct in all of our operations, respect for the rights of all individuals, and respect for the environment". It also says that their manufacturers will not use child labor, involuntary labor, or coercion and harassment.
The Hong Kong Christian Industrial Committee (CIC) investigated working conditions in twelve Disney contract factories in Guangdong province in southern China and found many violations to this code. It investigated many factories, six of which were toy factories, two garment, three accessory, and one watch factory. Some are regular suppliers to Disney, and some are seasonal suppliers. The CIC interviewed five to fifteen workers from each factory. The vast majority of workers in the twelve factories are young, single, female, migrant workers from rural areas in inland provinces. Most are between the ages of sixteen and twenty-four, though some are as young as eight.
Although Disney claims that its code of conduct and so-called "independent" monitoring system are ensuring respect for workers' right in its supply factories in China and other countries, the CIC study found that violations of the Disney code of conduct and Chinese labor law were commonplace. Those violations include: excessively long hours of work, poverty wages, unreasonable fines, workplace hazards, poor food, and dangerously overcrowded dormitories. The study also found that few workers interviewed were familiar with the Disney code of conduct and monitoring system, and that workers who had been exposed to the code and interviewed by monitors were often subjected to threats and intimidation to falsify work records or answer monitors' questions "properly" according to management-prepared scripts.
The study concludes that Disney's code of conduct and monitoring system are ineffective and of little use to workers. The report recommends that Disney do the following: promote workers' rights training at the workplace, actively involve workers in the on-going workplace monitoring process, provide accessible and trustworthy channels for workers to lodge complaints to the company and other interested third parties, guarantee that there will be no retaliation against workers who make complaints, and strictly monitor compliance with, and assist their suppliers to comply with, national labor laws and the Disney Code. Instead of simply running whenever violations are uncovered, Disney should work with non-compliant factories to improve working conditions and labor practices and disclose all information on its suppliers for public scrutiny.
It is hard to believe that the company that makes so many children happy every single day could exploit so many others in secret. It is unfair that people could treat children like this, simply to make extra money unjustly. With the help of some of the websites I visited, and other organizations, we can put an end to this madness. Every time you walk past a Disney store, or see a Disney movie, just think, Disney may be a happy place for you, but what about for those who slave for it?
Sources Used:
http://www.cleanclothes.org/companies/disney.htm
http://www.authorsden.com/visit/viewarticle.asp?id=1478.
http://cbae.nmsu.edu/~dboje/papers/Disney_phenomenal_complexity.html
http://corporate.disney.go.com/corporate/conduct_manufacturers.html
http://www.sacom.org.hk/Disney.pdf
Mariko Curran