MICKEY MOUSE GOES TO HAITI
THE DISNEY COMPANY MAKES A LOT OF CHILDREN'S CLOTHES IN THE DESPERATELY POOR COUNTRY OF HAITI! IF WE HAD THE RIGHT TO UNIONIZE AND BARGAIN WE COULD IMPROVE CONDITIONS! YOU MUST BE LIVING IN FANTASY LAND! by Steve Bloom* A "DISNEY/HATTI JUSTICE CAMPAIGN" WAS launched in New York City this fall to protest the miserable conditions faced by workers in Haiti, Thailand and other countries, who sew Pocahantas pyjamas, Mickey Mouse t-shirts, and other garments which end up in Disney stores throughout the world.
The campaign attempts to make clear the links which connect the plight of workers in all of these places. These links exist not only on the corporate level, but also through such institutions as the World Bank and the IMF.
Production for Disney in Haiti is organized by sub-contractors who pay as little as 28 cents an hour. The merchandise is then sold at an enormous profit. For example, a pair of Pocahantas pyjamas cost $12 in New York City. The Haitian workers who actually made them earn 5-7 cents. At one company, Classic Apparel, 40 workers can produce 2,400 Lion King children's outfits in a single day with a total retail value of $29,000. The workers' share is about $110.
From a daily wage of $2.25-$2.40 per day, an employee at one of these companies pays $1.60 for transport to and from work and a simple lunch. Rent costs around $7 per week. It is no wonder that these workers are chronically in debt, and it isn't unusual for them to have to borrow money at interest rates as high as 25-40 percent.
Recent increases in the Haitian minimum wage were countered by the contractors, who merely upped the piece-work quotas that their employees had to produced to impos36 International Viewpoint
THESE EXPLOITED WORKERS
MAKE ONLY 284 TO 354 AN HOUR,
OR ABOUT 54 FOR EVERY DISNEY
GARMENT THEY MAKE! ISN'T THAT AMAZING? THE
HARDER THEY WORK, THE POORER
THEY GET, AND THE RICHER GET!! OINK, OINK! sible levels. One worker told the campaign: "I cannot feed my six-year-old son or send him to school with the little money I make."
Working conditions are miserable. Often there is a lack of clean drinking water, adequate ventilation, or sanitary facilities. Female workers are routinely subject to sexual harassment and abuse by male supervisors. Workers who speak to government officials or the press about the conditions they face, or try to organize a union, or even complain to management, are simply fired.
Haitian workers report that they are sometimes given labels to sew into the clothing that say "Made in USA."
Disney spokespeople claim that everything that is done by companies they contract work to is legal in Haiti. Meanwhile, Michael Eisner, CEO of the Walt Disney Company, paid himself $97,600 per hour in 1993. He is among the top-paid corporate executives in the U.S.
Some workers in Haiti are making an effort to organize at Disney subcontractors. There have been three wildcat strikes at Classic Apparel this year. The Disney/Haiti Justice Campaign is calling on the Disney corporation to monitor the situation and refuse to do business with subcontractors who fail to meet their workers' demands: •A wage of at least $5 per day (double current rates, and adequate to meet the minimum needs of a Haitian family of five). • A guaranteed right to collective bargaining. •Improved working conditions such as cafeterias and clean drinking water. •An end to indiscriminate layoffs, repressive
THE WORKERS MUST BORROW MONEY TO FEED THEIR FAMILIES, WHICH MAKES THEM NO MORE THAN INDENTURED SERVANTS! THAT'S WHY GREEDY COMPANIES
LIKE DISNEY CALL HAITI THE
MAGIC KINGDOM!!
HUCK/XONOPACKI LABOR CARTOONS SEPT •PAcKI ©1996 practices and firings for union organizing.
On September 21, 1996 an initial picket took place at the flagship Disney store on Fifth Avenue in New York. Dozens of activists from the Disney/Haiti Justice Campaign held up banners and signs, and gave out thousands of leaflets explaining the plight of Haitian workers. Unlike most protests in New York which are generally ignored by passers-by, scores responded to the request that they sign a petition, or mail in a postcard, or make a contribution to the organizing efforts. Media coverage was also better than activists expected.
Subsequent actions have generating a similar response from shoppers who find out for the first time about the sweatshop conditions faced by workers in Haiti. * * Steve Bloom is a member of the U.S. socialist organization, Solidarity Get involved! • An International Week of Action will be organized from December 7-14 1996 • The Campaign has petitions and postcards to be sent to Disney, and tact sheets and other materials which you can adapt for local organizing efforts • Other materials, including a "Mickey Mouse Goes to Haiti" video, is available from the National Labor Committee, 275 7th Ave., New York, NY, 10001; telephone (212) 242-3002, fax (212) 242-3820. Contact the Disney/Haiti Justice Campaign, PO. Box 755, Fort Washington Station, New York, NY 10001; (212) 242-0986. E-mail inquiries to <bloom@soho.ios.com>.