CNN: Disney sweatshops alleged

[DeepModem Mom]

Disney sweatshops alleged
Anti-sweatshop advocacy group charges that workers make books under oppressive conditions.
August 18, 2005


NEW YORK (CNN) - The National Labor Committee, an anti-sweatshop advocacy group that once exposed labor abuses in apparel produced for Kathie Lee Gifford's clothing line, made new charges Thursday against The Walt Disney Company, releasing a videotape alleging that two Chinese factories making books for Disney operate under unsafe conditions.

At a press conference, Charles Kernaghan, director of the NLC, released an 11-minute videotape in which workers -- their faces hidden -- in the Hung Hing and Nord Race factories say they have been injured by unsafe equipment and show their bandaged fingers and cut hands.

"There's blood on this book," Kernaghan said as he held up a copy of a child's book made in China and published by Disney.

On the video, some workers describe the oppressive conditions under which they are forced to work, including heat, long hours and unpaid, forced overtime. Still pictures show the machines, which workers describe as lacking basic safeguards.

One woman holds up a Mickey Mouse book, "Haunted Halloween," and describes the dangers of the machines that press and glue the binding together....


http://money.cnn.com/2005/08/18/news/international/disney_china/index.htm?cnn=yes

[Parche]

1. Disney

This is a real Goofy story

[MiniMandaRuth]

2. Good, coperate values.

Don'tcha love 'em?

[Megahurtz]

3. Why am I Not Surprized? n/t

[benburch]

4. Safety costs money.

Especially where workers can be injured with impunity.

This is WHY Corporate America loves outsourcing.

[cthrumatrix]

5. I suspect that many corporate "secrets" would surprise people

just boycott Disney

[meganmonkey]

6. Alleged?

The NLC and other orgs have known this for a long time.

I am glad they are getting some press, that's for sure

[wli]

7. very similar Bushler's plan for US workers

Except, of course, he wants us all to be locked up in Guantanamo -like affairs beside the slave labor sweatshops.

[Endangered Specie]

8. and they say Disney is supposed to be safe for kids

:sarcasm:

[pitohui]

9. is this the disney/abc that is cnn's competitor

hmmm

[nookiemonster]

10. I'm shocked!

:sarcasm:

eom

[Gemini Cat]

15. Yeah, same here.

Disney ties in with McDonalds and Walmart as being anti worker.

[Javaman]

11. A weird image just entered my head...

I see a hot sweaty humid room with bamboo windows, bugs flying all about. Some sort of speaker squawking some sort of instructions or propaganda in some sort of unidentifiable language. The room is filled with row upon row of plush donald duck dolls being hand sewn by hundreds of sweat soaked, chain smoking, blood shot eyed, dew rag wearing, filthy Mickey Mouses.

[niallmac]

13. I pictured

Hewey Dewey and Louie with big biceps, cigarettes and stained t shirts shoveling plastic
disneycrap onto a barge.

[Javaman]

16. Years ago a friend was an animator at Disney...

She and her co-workers affectionately called their bosses, Dis-nazi's.

[slackmaster]

18. Walt was called "The Fuhrer of Fun"

:D

[slackmaster]

19. That's what their working conditions were like in the USA

Disney didn't have to go all the way to China to oppress and abuse its workers.

[RUMMYisFROSTED]

12. WWWD?

What Would Walt Do?

:shrug:

[tedzbear]

14. Walt was a stingy anti-union, anti-worker-rights boss.

This is common knowledge in the industry. He is one of the main reasons the movie industry unionized in the thirties and forties.

[slackmaster]

17. Artists used to call the Disney Company "Mauschwitz"

I know several who worked as animators under sweat-shop conditions here in the USA.

One of them had a very funny (and sad) story:

The director of a project involving about 50 animators was a real asshole. Treated his employees like dirt. He was like the dude with the whip on an oar-powered warship. He had no patience, and took out his aggressions on everyone.

One day the project was being held up because some test prints were late in arriving from the lab. He stomped around the studio saying "I need those prints NOW! Where the hell are my prints?"

A sole tenor voice from the far corner of the room started singing "Some day my prints will come...".

That was the only time there was laughter in that studio.

[Prisoner_Number_Six]

20. Ol' Walt's spinning in his cryogenic vault

Stop the world. I want off. This is just too much.

[bleedingheart]

21. Great BIG DUH!

The more things change the more things stay the same....

As long as people put profits first, there will be sweatshops. As long as you have corporate execs making national and foreign policy for the betterment of their company....you will have this kind of shit happening.

When there is an excess of people...life is cheap...and they will work cheaply and be replaced cheaply if they are killed on the job....

What do we do to fix it? Organize and Unionize!