You walk into a Disney store and find all the colorful, cheerful clothes on display. But have you ever wondered about the factories where these clothes are made and the condition of workers there? If you were Lisa Rahman, such concerns would be a central part of your life.
Rahman, a 19-year-old Bangladeshi girl who produced Disney merchandise in factories, has been touring the United States to promote the anti-sweatshop campaign.
"We girls are made to work 14 hours a day, seven days a week in unhealthy conditions, earning about 14 cents an hour to make the official Disney Winnie the Pooh shirts that sell for $17.99 a piece in the U.S.," Rahman said at a Los Angeles news conference earlier this month.
As consumers increasingly become vocal about sweatshop labor conditions, many companies have been forced to re-evaluate their overseas manufacturing policies.
Shirley Slesinger Lasswell, who inherited the rights to Winnie the Pooh from her late husband's estate, is among those currently campaigning to end sweatshop labor practices, particularly in The Walt Disney Company that produces Winnie the Pooh merchandise in its overseas factories.
"I was shocked to hear accusations of beatings, 14-hour days and low wages at the Shah Makhdum factory in Dhaka, Bangladesh," Slesinger Lasswell said at a Los Angeles news conference earlier this month. "It was a real shock for me. I didn't know anything about it."
Rahman expressed surprise at the outpouring of support Slesinger and other U.S. activists have offered sweatshop workers in foreign countries.
"We never imagined that people in the U.S. would care about us," Rahman said. "I'm proud to stand here with the woman who owns Winnie the Pooh and wants to help us. I never would have dreamed this was possible."
In highly undeveloped countries, such as Bangladesh, people often desperately need jobs to survive, and are thus willing to work under exacting conditions for long hours every day. But many U.S. corporations have responded to increasing customer concerns of such poor labor practices and have begun revising their outsourcing policies.
Workers "only want to be treated as human beings and not animals," The Body Shop founder Anita Roddick told a Guardian reporter this summer. "It is, therefore, necessary to ensure that there is no overlooking
a corporation's behavior with respect to human and worker rights."
However, U.S. manufacturers and retailers who contract out production to plants in other countries, which often are struggling economically, may argue that the practices are outside of their control, Politics Dept. Chairman Robert Fatton said.
"If owners of these companies get bad publicity they claim they are not aware of the conditions," Fatton said.
However, "these practices are wrong and cannot be excused by claiming things are outside of our control," Commerce Prof. William Kehoe said. "Practices which involve demeaning working conditions for products which are being manufactured for sale in the United States are wrong -- wrong from a business, management and moral perspective."
In Disney's defense, the company has adopted international labor standards for its worldwide operations, according to the corporate Web site.
"We have implemented a wide-ranging International Labor Standards program that includes policies, practices and protocols designed to protect the interests of workers engaged in the manufacture of Disney merchandise, whether for licenses or for direct sale at Disney properties," the site said.
To safeguard
workers from unhealthy working conditions, "manufacturers who are engaged in the business of out production are
informed of the specific working condition in the plants in other countries," Kehoe said. "Corporations must ensure that living wages are paid, conditions in the plants are clean and safe, and that children are not being employed."
Stringent regulations are required to ensure that workers are not exploited, including requirements in contracts for humane working conditions, unannounced plant inspections, employee councils and ways for employees to communicate, Kehoe added.
"Such an imperative may mean that a U.S. manufacturer or retailer actually has a presence in the host country," he said. "That is, have someone there on the ground in the host country on a daily basis to monitor plant conditions."
In such underdeveloped nations, officials typically admit women and children must work outside the home to survive, but they maintain the importance of healthy, safe and clean conditions in which to work -- this includes working for only a few hours at a time and receiving guarantees from the government that proper health and education facilities are provided to them, Fatton said.
Either through persuasion or pressure by the importing agencies, the garment manufacturing industry faces strong opposition to current working standards and wages. Anti-sweatshops campaigning claims that workers, particularly the females who constitute the majority of the garment industry's workforce, need access be extended health care facilities. As in the case with Dhaka, the factories are found in clusters and therefore, they should pool funds to create health centers, claims a report of the Nari Uddog Kendra (Centre for Women's Initiatives), an organization operating in Bangladesh for the upliftment of women workers.
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