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Disney's best-selling toys are being made in factories across China, Bangladesh and Haiti that use child labour and force staff to do three times the amount of overtime allowed by law.

 

One worker reportedly killed herself after being repeatedly shouted at by bosses. Others cited worries over poisonous chemicals. Disney has since now launched its own investigation. It is claimed some of the employees have to work an extra 120 hours every month to meet demand from western shops for the latest toys.

  • Workers routinely slapped and punched for not working fast enough;

  • Forced to work 14 hours a day, seven days a week, with at most one day off a month;

  • Mandatory 19-hour all-night shifts once a week, from 8:00 a.m. to 3:00 a.m. the following morning, after which workers sleep on factory floor;

  • Forced to work 35 to 42 hours of overtime a week. Workers at the factory up to 100 hours a week. At most workers get four to five hours of sleep a night;

  • Sewers paid just 11 to 20 cents an hour, as little as $5.28 a week; Helpers earn just seven to eight cents an hour, and $3.16 a week;

  • Workers trapped in misery: four workers sharing one small hut exist on rice and must borrow money to survive;

  • Workers paid just five cents for each Disney garment they sew;

  • Workers routinely paid two weeks late and are cheated of one-half of legal overtime pay;

  • Women denied their legal maternity benefits;

  • Speaking prohibited— No health insurance, no doctor in the plant, no sick days;

  • No daycare center and no place to eat;

  • Drinking water is filthy; If late three times docked one day’s wages; Docked two days’ wages if they talk back to supervisors or managers. Any attempt to exercise their legal right to Freedom of Association would be met with beatings, mass firings and blacklisting;

  • No one has ever heard of Disney’s Code of Conduct, and have no idea what it might be;

  • Corporate monitoring is a joke: visits announced in advance, factory is cleaned, workers are threatened to lie about working conditions, “monitors” interview the workers inside the plant in front of supervisors and mangers. Every worker knows that she would be immediately fired if she ever spoke the truth;

  • Workers report that they have no hope, no life, and that they live only to work.

WORKING CONDITIONS

© 2015 by Barbara Nogo.

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