Introduction

Disney is a well-known transnational corporation (TNC). Its business is not only limited in to theme parks and showbiz but also its to consumer products. Their These three areas relationships are interdependent. Theme parks and showbiz promote the sale of consumer products and vice versa. As expected, Disney is the big winner and gains huge moneymakes enormous profits. In the year 2000, Disney's total revenue is was as high as US$25 billion where itswith a net income is of about US$4 billion.[1]

Attributed by the effect of globalization, Mickey Mouse, one of the main characters for Disney cantonscartoon characters, is all well known all over the world. To kids in the advanced countries or those in the third world, Mickey is not a stranger to them. Disney is a genuine TNC which whose business is not limited in by any country’s boundaries. In order to reduce the production cost and maximize the profit margin, the manufacture of almost all of Disney products have has been moved to produce in the developing countries during the last decade. Consumers can no longer easily find a Disney product made in the US or other developed countries. It This is because the production lines have been shifted to China, Indonesia, Thailand, Sri Lanka, and El Salvador in where a huge number ofabundant cheap labor is offered. In a nutshell, Mickey's track can be traced in the world-wide consumer market and the "race to the bottom" sweatshops.

It is no longer new to expose the unacceptable working conditions of Disney sweatshops to the worldpublic. Although Disney’s code was established few several years ago and the company has repeatedly declared its unshakable commitment to respect workers rights, the stories of exploitation of workers from Haiti, Burma, and Vietnam to the Mainland China, producing and supplying to Disney, keeps recurring. Long working hours, poverty inadequate wages, workplace hazards, awful food and overcrowdeding dorms are still iron facts revealed in Disney sweatshop research. The "so-called" ‘independent monitoring system’ does not help much in improving working conditions. Much worse, it subjects workers to new threats. It is very common for the management to coerce workers to sign the falsified records or answer the monitors’ questions “properly” according to management-prepared scripts. Workers are bullied and penalized if they fail to do so.

In the face of Globalization's whirl and Disney's "race to the bottom" management practices, workers in China, like the othersas in other locations, are pushed in to an inferior position under the current rules of the game. From time to time, tTheir voices of discontent are not heard. Their stories are not known. Their rights are not respected. And their plights are suppressed. Working for Disney is not a fairy tale.

Based on our previous Disney report in April 1999 "MULAN's sisters: Working for Disney is no Fairy Tale", HKCIC conducted a follow up research to trace the working and living conductions of Disney suppliers in South China this year. Firstly, we we would like to followed up the factories investigated in the previous research. It is important for us to keep a watchful eye on the factories and reveal whether the situation improved or deteriorated. Secondly, we would like to studiedy the Disney’s production in South China in more details. Hence, we try to trace the factories producing for Disney in different industries. Other than the garment industry, this research covers the factories in the watch, accessory, and toys industries. It isWe expected by doing so to have a boarder understanding of Disney’s operation and practices in South China.

This report aims to disclose all iron evidences we found in the fieldwork. It consists of a large pile number of workers' testimony with their sweat and tears.

Mickey goes everywhere.

"BOM! Beware of Mickey!"

Methodology

This project consists of following In this research, we first followed up all four factories cited in the previous research.[2] Moreover, we investigated the working and living conditions of Disney workers from 12 factories in Guangdong province. They are 6 toy factories, 3 accessory factories, 2 garment factories and a watch factory. They are located in Dongguan, Shenzhen, and Guangzhou respectively.

This research was conducted from March to November 2000. All twelve factories were found to produce for Disney within this period. Some of them produced for had Disney 's orders continuously, while others received only and some had seasonally contracts. Our researchers interviewed five to fifteen workers from each factory.

A group of researchers adapted the method of street interviews to talk to workers at their break time. We mostly met the workers in areas nearby their factories. We randomly approached workers and interviewed those who were willing to talk, individually or in small groups. In order to prevent victimization of the workers, we try to keep a low profile during our interviews in low profile on the spot, and keep to maintain their complete anonymityem anonymous in this report.

Except for handful information is given from the factoriesscant information received from the factories, almost all findings in this research are from workers’ interviews. In some cases, we can have established a mutually trusting relationship, and they workers keep us well informed about what had happensed in the factories. As they are the ones who work daily for long hours in the factory and know everything happened everyday at the workplace, the information directly from themthey provide to us is very important and reliable.

Follow up the previous research

We tried to trace and follow up the factories investigated factories in the previous report, and attempted to understand whether the working and living conditions of Disney workers get have improved after the reportsince then. However, it was found that all four of them did not produce for Disney anymore. One of them closed down and the others were no longer authorized to produce for Disney. According to the workers, the situation in those factories did not improve but got worse. As Disney was one of the biggest customers in their factories, the factories encountered serious financial difficulties with the withdrawal of Disney contracts, and workers became the first victims, had with insufficient work to do and got inadequate wages for living. (For more details, please refer to the part of Workers' stories below)

We are very disappointed with the result. It is not our aim to expose the poor working conditions of Disney suppliers in the report and call Disney to cut the orders and run from their responsibilities. As a responsible TNC and the one which always claims to respect workers’ rights, Disney should actively work with the suppliers to fix the problems. In order to prevent Disney from reacting irresponsibly again and doublying victimizing the workers, we will not disclose the factoryies names in the this report. In fact, there are thousands of suppliers producing for Disney all over the world. We do expect Disney to improve the conditions in all its suppliers’ facilities, but not limited just in those investigated in thise report.

Findings and Analysis

Disney and Chinesea Labor

Cheap labor and government suppression are two favorable factors for attracting Disney to move their production to China. Compared to HK, Taiwan, and Korea, which were the production bases for Disney in two decades ago, China undoubtedly has undoubtedly couple several advantages, especially in terms of labor cost. In the Asian region, wages in China is unnecessary to beare not necessarily the lowest. But the investors still prefer to run their business in China because of the government suppression. For example, although the general labor cost in Indonesia is much lower than that in China, not many TNCs or factories are willing to run their business in Indonesia because the political status is relatively unstable and the government fails to control the riots. The problem was intensified shortly after the step-down of Suharto. Comparatively, the Chinese government is more authoritarian and capable of suppressing the social unrest. More importantly, workers in China are not allowed to organize themselves and have no collective bargaining power. It is a very desirable factor to either the factories or TNCs.

In From the viewpoint of Disney, China is definitely a good place for its production. It offers cheap and easy compliant labor.

Products

Unlike the other brand names, Disney has a wide variety of products. Contributed to by the licensing system, everything can be linked with the Mouse’s logo. In this report, the twelve investigated factories respectively produce garments, stuffed toys, plastic toys, and a lot ofmany other accessories for Disney. Disney’s accessories include traveling kits, hair accessories, belts, bags, caps, and watches. Moreover, there is a factory producing plastic Disney logos for its footwear and bags products.

No. of workers

The size of the labor force in the factory depends on the industry and the size of capital investments.

For example, there are only 50 workers in Factory A and Factory B respectively while Factory C employs 15,000 workers in Factory C.

Factory C is a relatively large toy factory. It supplies for several brands at the same time, which . It is not unusual in the toy industry. Besides, toy factories tend not to be n small size large because the production process involves a number of departments and a lot of machines. In the garment industry, however, factories like Factory A and Factory B tend to be in smaller in size. It This is because they do not use many big machines but only rather the smaller electronic sewing machines.

Exports

All products are for both Export and Domestic markets. A large proportion of these Disney products are exported to the North America and Europe. They are sold everywhere- in the Disney stores, the department stores, and even the small shops. Disney production in China not only fulfills the needs in the world market but also the domestic market. The growing domestic market is indeed a gold mine. Disney will surely consolidate and further its production in China.

Capital

Nine out of twelve factories are comprise capital invested from HK capital. This is the result of geographical convenience. Many factories, which used to have their production in HK in the 70s and early 80s, have had already moved in to China in the mid 80s. For the Pearl River Delta area, where with closely links to HK, thousands of HK invested factories in different sizes are were established and with workers are laboring around the clock for their HK comrades who are were their bosses as well.

Workers’ profile

Almost all frontline workers in these factories are young, single migrant women workers.

Female Vs Male

In the manufacturing industry, the ratio of female to male is overwhelming. Firstly, women workers are perceived as easier to control. They tend not to rebel. Hence, the management is more willing to employ women workers rather than males. In addition, a common Chinese cultural pattern of “Boys are more important than girls” is another factor. In the rural areas, families prefer sending girls to work in the South rather than boys because they want boys to stay with the family and pursue higher education. In fact, many girls reluctantly stop their studies and move to the South to work for the sake of supporting their brother to study, or lessening their family’s burden.

Gender stereotyping at is common in the workplace do commonly happened in the industry. Most female workers labor in sewing, packaging, assembly, and QC departments; while males mostly work as technicians and security guards and in the warehouse and, cutting departments.

Migrant workers (Mingong)

Most workers come from rural areas in inland provinces i.e. Sichuan, Hunan, Hubei, Henan, Jiangxi, Shaanxi, Anhui and Guangxi. Their families’ livings always depend on their farms. They are poor and their annual household income is about ¥200-400 [US$24-49]. Hence, more and more young people in these villages are rushing to the South to explore more job opportunities and gain more money.

Single Vs Married

As the labor market in China is huge, employers never worry that they cannot recruit enough number of workers. They have greater power to choose their employees. It is very common for the married women workers being to suffer discriminationed. On some occasions employers request that applicants to show the certificates which prove they are unmarried, when they apply for jobs.

In fact, it is not easy for these women migrant workers to get married. It This can be explained in three -foldways.

1. Household registration in China has made it difficult for women migrant workers difficult to get married in the cities. There are only two classes in China: Urban and Rural. People with the rural households are always considered the second class. Worse still, the household registration is inherited from generation to generation. Most women migrant workers still hold the rural household registration and hence are discriminated against in the cities. As the social status of these women is inferior, most men in the cities are reluctant to get married withmarry them.

2. Almost all women migrant workers work all the time. They always work overtime, and in the peak season receive and even have no break in the peak seasonat all. Many of them shared told us that they had no social and recreation time in the South, not to mention any time to develop romantic relationship with the others. Limited social networking is one of the factors contributing to many adult women workers remaining unmarried in the South. Besides, female workers are outnumbered in these industrial areas. They It is hard to find boy friends or even husbands within their working lives in the South.

3. It is nearly impossible for women migrant workers to have a baby while they are in the South and away from home. Although they are entitled to enjoy pregnancy benefits in the Labor Law, their rights are always deprived. As a result, they will probably not receive any benefits at the end. In some worse cases, women workers are fired and kicked out of the factories once they are found pregnant. Hence, most of them would prefer to quit the jobs themselves if they plan to get married or pregnant. They are discriminated against and marginalized. It is almost no wayimpossible to find a pregnant women migrant worker in the South.

Special protection for female laborers

(Chapter 7 of Chinese Labor Law)

Protection during menstrual, pregnancy,

maternity, and breast-feeding periods.

Workers’ age

Most workers are aged in between 18-30. Basically, many factories refuse to recruit any workers aged over 25. It is unusual to see the mid-aged workers in the South. Although using child labor in China is not as popular as that in India and Pakistan, there are some under-aged workers laboring in the South China. In order to get recruited in the factories, it is common for those workers aged under 16 to borrow the others’ ID cards to apply for jobs. It is very common. In fact, many employers never check the ID cards very carefully. They seldom match and see whether the person standing in front of him/ her is identical to the cardholder. It is not their top concern whether they employ the eligible workers; their main priority is to but they employ enough workers to work in the production lines as soon as possible.

(Article 15 of Chinese Labor law)

Chinese labor law prohibits work units from

employing workers less than 16 years old.

In Factory K, some under-aged workers were working in the factory because they borrowed other’s ID cards. Most of them are 15- 16. At the same time, unlike other factories employees as old as 40 work here. Because of an extremely high turnover rate, the management tends not to set any age limit for applicants, and they. They will recruit anybody who is available.

We were told in Factory C that of a number of Henan workers aged between 15-17 laboring there. However, all workers aged under 18 were sacked last September and October. Management paid their wages and sent them back home. Workers do not know the full details. [Author’s note: HKCIC reported the case of using Child labor in a McDonald’s toy factory in Shenzhen last August. It aroused the public attention. After the McDonald case, many factories were very scared and jittery. Most of them immediately checked all their workers’ ID cards and sacked all those who even looked under-aged, borrowed the others’ ID cards, or fail to show their own ID cards. Factory C is one of the those factories. It is believed that the major action workers mentioned was relevant to this incident.]

Wages

According to Chinese Labor Law, workers should be guaranteed to get the minimum wage which varies in different cities and provinces. However, this is rarely implemented. To many employers, however, the minimum wage is the maximum wage. It is difficult for workers to get a wage higher than the minimumhigher wage. At first glance it seems that workers should be able to earn more than the minimum wage, given that the minimum wage is based on a 40-hour working week and most workers labour for 13-16 hours per day (double the normal working week). However, despite the long hours, most workers still earn the bare minimum wage of ¥500-700 [USD 61-85] per month. Obviously this means they are underpaid by a significant amount. Seemingly those workers can get more than the minimum wage, they are still under-paid indeed because the amount of minimum wage is based on a 40-hour working week. But workers need to work 13-16 hours a day, seven days a week and then get ¥500-700 [USD 61-85] a month. It is unlawful.

The situation in the toy industry is worse than other sectors. Most receive only ¥300-500 [USD 37-61] a month.

This means that the wWages of Disney workers in China is as low as ¥1.3 [USD 0.16] an hour. Whilst In comparison,

Michael Eisner, Disney’s CEO, earns more than USD 194,000 a day; which equals to the total income of a Disney worker in China for 260 years.

	A Chinese worker producing for Disney	Michael Eisner CEO of Walt Disney
Monthly income	¥500 (US$62.5)	US$4,221,666
Yearly income	US$750	US$50,660,000[3]

In some investigated of the factories we investigated, the management tries to control the workers’ wage. When it increases, they will find every excuse and measure to lower their wages. It This is to prevent workers from getting too high wages.

(Article 2 of "Temporary regulations on method of wage management in foreign invested enterprises" issued by the Chinese Labor Bureau in 1997)

Wage is the total remuneration acquired from work units through labor which includes basic wage, bonus, allowance, subsidy, overtime and wages paid in special circumstances. Social insurance and welfare and other incomes enjoyed by workers shall not be included.

(Article 6 of "Temporary regulations on paying wages" issued by the Labor Bureau in 1994)

Work units shall record the amount, date, name and signature of the wage recipient and keep a record for at least two years. Work units shall supply laborers with a personal pay-slip at the same time as payment.

Ø Minimum wage (within the research period)

Minimum wage set by the local governments. eg. Shenzhen city (¥540), Shenzhen rural area (¥419); Dongguan (¥400) and, Guangzhou (¥450).

(Article 17 of "Regulation of Enterprises' minimum wages" issued by Chinese Labor Bureau in 1993)

Minimum wage does not include overtime compensation.

Some workers in Factory C told us that workers in assembly sections had worked extremely long OT hours in June. As a result each of them received about ¥600-700 [USD 73-85], which was ¥100-200 [USD12-24] more than usual. However, management claimed that their wages were too high and automatically deducted ¥100 [USD 12] from their wages.

Being paid by piece-rates, workers in Factory D only earn ¥200-300 [USD 24-37] a month in the low season; less than the minimum wage stipulated in Labor Laws.

Even in the peak season when they work more than 170 hours OT a month, they are only paid ¥500-700 [USD 61-85]. Again, it is higher than the minimum wage but workers are under-paid.

There is a particular section in Factory K dedicated to producing for Disney. Although other sections also produce for Disney at certain times, the dedicated section is known officially as the ‘Disney Section’. This section is different because all workers are paid by the hour. They can earn ¥16 [USD 2] a day and ¥3 [USD 0.4] per hour for OT, which is obviously much higher than other workers. However, Disney workers are charged an unreasonably high living (dorm and food) fee (¥7/ day) [USD 0.9], whereas others pay ¥60 [USD 7] per month. On the surface it appears that Disney workers are offered better pay, but it is not the case.

No minimum wage is guaranteed. In the low season of April and June, workers were not offered any job at all. Some of them had been laid off for more than 20 days. As a result, their wages were as low as ¥200-250 [USD 24-30]. In some cases, they even did not have enough money to pay living (dorm and food) fees.

- piece rate

Many workers are paid by piece-rates. Most of their overtime work is not fully compensated because management cheats them by insisting that piece-rate workers cannot enjoy overtime payment. For those are Eexperienced workers, they prefer to pay inbe paid by piece-rates because they work very effectively and efficiently.

A qQuota system is adopted in many factories, for example in Factory E. Supervisors give each worker a quota. The quota is usually set much higher than what workers can achieve within the normal working hours (8 hours/ day). Workers complained that the standards requested by supervisors were always unreasonable and unrealistically strict. If they fail to complete it within the period, they have to work over time until they reach the quota. No overtime compensation is given.

- hourly paidrate

A portion of workers are paid by the hour, especially for those in coloring, packaging and assembly sections. Like the piece-rate workers, many of them are not paid for overtime. Even if they are paid, they are not compensated fully as the law stipulates.

In Factory I, workers pay ¥13-20 [USD 1.6-2.4] a day (8hr/ day). In On average, their hourly wage is about ¥ 1.6-2.5 [USD 0.2-0.3]. It is indeed a poverty wage. Worse still, their OT compensation is only ¥1.5-3/hour [USD 0.2- 0.4] which is less than 150% of normal payment stipulated in the Chinese Labor Law.

- group wage

Other than piece-rates and hour-rates, it is also common for workers to be paid in groups. Some workers think that it is a unfair measurement because some of them are assigned to work in more difficult positions but get the same wage as the others. Moreover, this mechanism presses workers not to refuse working overtime. As they are paid as a group, the management uses the group pressure to repress the individual workers. They would not accept that any individual worker not to work overtime in for whatever reason. In to a certain extent, it is another means of worker exploitation.

Workers in Factory H and Factory J are paid in groups. As a consequence of working on production lines (water-flow lines), workers are paid the average wage of the entire line.

Individual wage=piece rate*quantity/ no. of workers on the entire line

- overtime pay

(Article 44 of Chinese Labor Law)

Work units shall pay laborers wages or remuneration at higher rates than the usual wage rate when laborers are required to work overtime or on statutory holidays as follows:

1. to pay at least 150 percent of the usual wage when laborers’ working hours are prolonged;

2. to pay at least 200 percent of the usual wage rate when work is arranged for laborers on legal rest days when time off in lieu cannot be arranged;

3. to pay laborers at least 300 percent of the usual wage rate when work is arranged for laborers on statutory holidays.

For example, most workers in Factory A are paid by piece rates. The workers, whose wage can reach the minimum wage (¥450) [USD 55] or above, will not get any overtime payment. Only those who cannot meet the standard are paid overtime, but only to guarantee them a minimum wage. However, the management has announced that workers who cannot meet the standard for 2 consecutive months will be fired. In the other words, no workers enjoy overtime payment.

In Factory B, Management practices the policy of “OT first and holiday- compensation later”. Workers are requested to work OT in peak season but receive no overtime payment. Instead, workers are asked to leave during the low season in lieu of wages owed, which is unlawful. This technique allows management to not only save money but to sidestep Disney’s code of conduct.

Some workers in Factory I mentioned that they were forced to punch out their time card at 16:45, regardless of the number of overtime hours they worked. No overtime bonus was paid.

- payslips

Many factories do not provide payslips to workers. Even though some of them do so, what they provide are the very unclear and confused ones. These payslips fail to show how wages are calculated. Workers find no way to check whether their working hour, overtime payment and bonus are properly paid; the fees for dorm and food are excessively deducted. Workers thus know little or nothing about how their wages are calculated, or even if they are underpaid

Although workers in Factory A and Factory D are given a payslip, they do not know how their wage is calculated. When the workers in Factory A checkeding with the supervisor, they were insulted with responses such as, “You are so stupid. How come you don’t know how to calculate this simple math?” They received no proper answers from the management. Workers mentioned that they could accept the amount the management paid or quit.

Withheld wages and delayed payments

In order to reduce the turnover of employees, it is very common for factories to pay workers at least a month in arrears. (i.e. workers are not paid the wage of July until the end of August). In many cases, workers are unable to collect all their withheld wages if workers quit themselves. Even worse, some factories pay two months in arrears. This places a heavy financial burden on workers and it is illegal.

Many employers rationalize this practice and defend that it is a way to protect their own benefits. However, workers’ interests are never considered.

Management in Factory D always delays releasing wages; e.g., they release June’s wages in late August. Workers are always paid two months in arrears. If workers quit their job, the withheld wages will not be paid. Even they apply to resign through the official procedure, no penny will be refunded.

Workers in Factory H and Factory K faced the same problem. In Factory H, wages for May were not released until 28 July. Some workers were so destitute that they needed to borrow money from their fellow workers to survive. Some of them need to borrow the new debt to pay the old one. In the other words, they are always in debt. A newly-arrived couple mentioned that they could not stand the worse working conditions and planned to leave. However, they were not paid for 2 months although they had been working for two months without a holiday. Once they get the first month’s wage which is enough for the transportation fee, they will get go back to the village immediately. It is not their consideration whether they lose money in this incident.

Working hours

Compared to the other Asian countries, the number of working hours in China seems to be the longest. Although the laws about working hours and overtime compensation in China are quite progressive, the management seldom follows it. Hence, it is very common for workers in China to labor 13-15 hours a day and 7 days a week for months at a stretch, let alone their overnight laboring in the peak season. In fact, almost all of them are not fully compensated and their wages keep are kept low. And it It also forces them to work non-stop to gain forearn a living. It is a vicious circle. It is impossible for them to refuse working OT.

Workers are requested to labor around the clock without a break. They are treated as less than human beings.

(Article 3 of Paper 146 "Working hour" issued by State Council in 1994) According to the rules of the State Council China implements a system where laborers shall work no more than eight hours a day and no more than 40 hours a week on average.

(Article 41 of Chinese Labor Law)

Work units shall not unilaterally prolong working hours. In general, the working day may be prolonged by one hour maximum per day after consultation with the trade union and laborers to meet the requirements of production and management. But overtime shall not exceed 36 hours per month.

- over time

All factories have the problems with theignore rules relating to working hours. It is very common to violate the law in this context. Here are some of cases illustrating how the employers break the law and force the workers to work in excessively long hours.

Workers in Factory A are prohibited from punching their time cards for overtime worked. Hence, the monitors fail to find the hours worked over and above that stipulated in Chinese Labour Law. In fact, workers claimed that they usually worked more than 100 hours OT a month, which is nearly 3 times more than the legal standard. .

In Factory C, workers are forced to work 16-18 hours a day during peak season. They are given 10-15 minutes to finish their meals upon which they return to work immediately. Assembly workers always work until 01:30. In the most extreme cases, they are called to work until 04:00 and are expected to return to work the same morning as usual.

According to Factory D workers’ records, they worked overtime every day last August. In this period, they worked OT from 19:00 to 23:00 for 2-3 days and until 02:00 for more than 10 days. They even worked through the night on one occasion. After an 8-hour rest, they were requested to work again.

Workers in the assembly section in Factory F always worked until 02:00-03:00 (16-17 hours a day) last July. While in Factory G, they are forced to work till 00:00-02:00, or a 14-16 hour day in the peak season (e.g. in July). When they return to their dorm after OT, they still have to queue up to use the bathroom. As a result, most of them only have 5 hours or less to sleep at night. Some workers complained that they were extremely exhausted and needed to put some Chinese medicines on their heads to keep them awake while they were working overtime at night.

It is in the same case in Factory H. Workers are forced to work continuously 13-15 hours a day in peak season. They are given 10-15 minutes to finish their meals and then go back to work immediately. Worse still, they are not allowed to refuse OT. If they refuse, they will be considered as absent without prior permission and fined.

Workers in Factory L generally worked OT 4 hours a day. In peak season, they worked 8 hours during the day and OT from 19:00-01:00/02:00. In the worst cases, they were forced to work overnight and then work as usual the next day without a break.

Working day

Having holidays as the legal standard states is nearly impossible for most workers in China. Some of them are forced to work for weeks at a stretch. Dates is are meaningless to them. No matter which days, they are requested to work for 13-16 hours. Some of them work continuously for months and those who have one or two days holiday a month are considered the lucky ones. On the contrary, they are easily sacked or laid off in the slack season. They are never guaranteed with any stable and long term working relationship in the factory. To most workers, they do not know when they will be laid off and hence they will do as much as they can do the rush season. As the Chinese proverb goes, “Store up grain against famine and get prepared for a rainy day”.

(Article 38 of Chinese Labor Law &

Article 7 of Paper 146 "Working hour" issued by State Council in 1994)

Work units shall ensure that laborers have at least one rest day every week. One day here refers to 24 hours uninterrupted rest. Usually Saturday and Sunday are rest days, but work units may alter the arrangement according to practical conditions.

(Article 40 of Chinese Labor Law)

According to law, work units shall arrange for laborers to rest on the following holidays:

1. New Year’s Day; one day’s holiday, 1^st January;

2. Spring Festival; three days’ holiday, the first three days of the Chinese lunar calendar;

3. International Labor Day: one day’s holiday, 1^st May;

4. National Day: two days’ holidays, 1^st and 2^nd October;

5. Other holidays stipulated by laws and regulations such as a half days’ holiday on 8^th March for Women’s Day.

Workers in Factory C work seven days a week. An assembly worker claimed to have had only 6 days off (5 days for Chinese New Year and 1 day for National day) in the 11 months since she started working in the factory.

Most workers in Factory D did not have a single holiday in July and August. In Factory E, everyone works seven days a week unless there are no orders. They had no holidays during July and August. Workers in Factory G generally have only one day-off a month.

Workers in Factory I said that they had only one holiday in 3 months and those in Factory L were relatively lucky that they had 1-2 days off a month. Nevertheless, orders are very unstable in Factory K. Workers are forced to take leave when there is no order.

Our researchers were told in Factory H, “Dates is are meaningless to us. We only know that we need to work everyday.” An assembly worker mentioned in August that he had received only 2 days off this year, other than a 4-day holiday over Chinese New Year. Some workers said that they were asked to sit at their work seats even though there was no work for them.

Food and accommodation

Most private-owned enterprises in the south provide their own dorms and canteens for workers. These facilities usually are built inside the campus factory or just nearby. On one hand, this is because almost all workers are from rural areas and their accommodation and food needs to be taken care of. On the other hand, this model allows the management easier control over workers. Workers could not use the excuse of living too far away to not work overtime. In the reality, they have very limited room to arrange their lives in the South. They can choose nothing but follow the provided and collective living model. Their individual wills are always suppressed. As a result, it is not surprising that most workers' complaints are about food and accommodation.

Workers in Factory D complained that the quality of food in the factory is very bad, but that they have no choice because no matter whether workers eat in canteen or not, management will deduct fees from their wages automatically. They cannot afford to pay extra money to eat outside. It is the same case in Factory E, workers complained about the poor quality of food and dorm. 30 workers live in each room. The living (dorm and food) expense of ¥75-90 [USD 9-11] per month is automatically deducted from their wage even if they choose to eat or live outside. In Factory F, workers mentioned that overcrowding was always a problem. There are 21-24 workers sharinged a room in which was placed 7-8 triple-bunk beds.

The situation is really worse in Factory K. Workers complained about the food provided in the canteen. Some of them described it as “pig feed”. Although food fees are deducted automatically from their wages, workers prefer to pay extra to eat outside. Even worse, the dormitory provided by the factory is very poor. In the three-story dormitory building, 12 workers share a room. According to workers the rooms are over-crowded. The corridor is not wide enough for two workers to pass each other and is thus a hazard in emergency situations. Furthermore, toilets are only available on the ground floor, which is very inconvenient for workers.

Another unacceptable case is found in Factory J. Some old workers live in 12-person rooms, but other workers share two big rooms which accommodate up to 400 persons. There are two exits and one emergency door in each room. All the windows are barred with wire nets. In the event of an emergency, workers may find themselves trapped in the closed room. People should take the lesson from the tragedy of the Zhili fire in 1993 which caused 87 died deaths and 47 injuriesed. Workers were told that these two big rooms were only for temporary use and they would soon be moved into the renovated dorms. However, some workers have been living in these “temporary” dorms for 3-4 years.

Fine/ Penalty and wage deduction

Workers not only suffer from low wages but are also fined for transgressing factory rules. They complain that most regulations and fines are unreasonable and ridiculous. Some told us that their wages were very little in the slack season. Workers got only ¥20-50 [USD 2.4-6] a month after the deduction of fines and fees. Some workers even signedsighed that the employer got rich by collecting fines.

(Article 50 of Chinese Labor Laws)

Wage shall be paid monthly to laborers themselves in form of currency. It shall not be deducted or delayed without justification.

In Factory C, fines depend on the season. Some complained that a “Worker found smoking would be fined only ¥50 [USD 6] in the peak season. However, he would be fined and fired in the low season. Don’t you know the factory is so determined to downsize the number of workers in the low season? They prefer to recruit workers again when they need. You can see it is so easy to recruit workers now. A crowd of people wait outside the factory everyday.”

Fines in Factory D vary from ¥5-300 [USD 0.6- 37]. For example: talking in the workplace (¥30) [USD 3.7]; bringing a pack of cigarettes into the factory (¥50) [USD 6]; wearing jeans (¥50) [USD 6]; absence of a half-day without prior permission (¥50) [USD 6]. Before going to the toilet or pantry to drink, workers have to get their supervisor’s permission and have a “seat-leaving card” in hand. Otherwise, they will be fined ¥5[USD 0.6]. Workers complained that fines are based in on no standard but depend on the supervisors. They sometimes did not know why they were fined.

Over and above being fined, they are discontented that management will post warning letters with worker’ full names on the notice board.

If workers apply for resignation, all their wages (including withheld wages) will be not released until a month after their last day of work. Many workers prefer to sacrifice the money and leave immediately due to concern that they may have to pay extra after deduction of fees and fines.

According to the workers, management tore destroyed all fine notices stored in the office last May just before some visitors arrived at the factory.

Also, there are many fines in Factory E. Workers complained that the, “factory owner gets rich by fines.” A long list of who has been fined is posted on the notice board every day. Some told us that the management invented various names of items in order to fine them. For example: Littering in canteen (¥20) [USD 2.4]; forgetting to switch lights off in dorm s(¥20) [USD 2.4]; and late arrival (¥2/min) [USD 0.2/min].

Workers needed to pay ¥50 [USD 6] as a deposit when they start work in Factory F. It will not be refunded unless they work for at least half a year.

In Factory G, fines range from ¥10-100 [USD 1.2-12]. Workers will be fined for arriving late to work; not switching off lights and machines; and not using the subway to cross the road. Also, warning letters with names will be posted on the board.

Other than fines, management in Factory J will punish infringements by making workers write out factory/dorm rules.

Social security

Most factories do not follow Chinese Labor Law in that they do not promote and engage the social security scheme. Workers cannot enjoy the social security they deserve when they need it (e.g., in the event of retirement, occupational injury or death).

(Article 70 of Chinese Labor Law)

Government shall promote social insurance facilities, establish the social insurance system and establish social insurance funds so that laborers shall obtain assistance and compensation in old ageo, illness, industrial injury, unemployment and maternity.

(Article 73 of Chinese Labor Law)

Laborers are legally entitled to social insurance support in the following circumstances:

i. Retirement;

ii. illness or injury;

iii. industrial injury or occupational illness;

iv. unemployment;

v. maternity

According to workers, not many of the investigated factories participate in the social security system for them. In Factory H, the employer only helps office staff participate in the scheme while the ordinary workers cannot enjoy the benefits. Besides, most interviewed workers have no idea about the details of the scheme at all.

Termination

Workers find it very difficult to resign their jobs in the factories, unless they are willing to sacrifice their withheld wages and deserved compensation. In the other words, they have to quit the jobs themselves. Unfairly, the employers can sack workers whenever they think the workers are redundant. No compensation or severance will be paid.

Compensation for dismissal

(Article 28 of Chinese Labor Law &

Article 5 of Paper 481 "Compensation for contravening and terminating labor contract" issued by the Chinese Labor bureau in 1994)

Work units, which cancel labor contracts, shall pay laborers financial compensation according to state regulations except in cases of dismissal for negligence.

e.g. Where a work unit cancels a labor contract after consultation and agreement between the parties involved, the work unit shall pay a laborer financial compensation of one month’s wage for each year of service, not exceeding 12 months’ wage. Where the length of service is less than one year, a standard one-year’s financial compensation shall be paid

It is very difficult to apply for resignation in Factory C. Last October, the queue to resign stretched into early 2001. A worker, along with his 2 family members, is in dilemma. They have applied to resign for several months because they could no longer stand for the harsh working conditions. They will forfeit nearly 6 months’ wages (i.e., nearly 2 months’ wage will be withheld from each worker), however, if they are not permitted to resign. It is a large amount of money to forego. All the money is truly earned by their hard toil. They deserve to get it all, but risk it by leaving without permission.

Workers in Factory H have the same problem. If they want to leave, they have to give up their delayed payment which is about two-month’s wages. Even their personal belongings, which have been placed in the dorm, cannot be taken away without permission. A worker said that, “What we can bring when we leave is ourselves. Some workers bring their belongings out of the dorm bit by bit once they planned to leave. For example, they wear three trousers and put a small parcel under their coats at the break and store them temporarily at their friends' place outside the factory."

The general situation can be concluded by the sharing from a worker in Factory E:, “it It is easy to be recruited in this factory but difficult to quit.”

There was an unfair dismissal case happened in Factory A. (Please refer to the workers’ stories section).

Leisure

Leisure is a luxury to the workers. Not many factories have recreational facilities in the campuswithin their grounds. In some factories, they brag about their comprehensive facilities;, however, some exist in names only. In reality, workers work day and night. They do not have time to sleep, let alone to have leisure. Some workers teased that these facilities were not for them but for the buyers, visitors, and social auditors.

There are many so-called leisure facilities in Factory G. They include a TV room, Karaoke room, basketball court and ballroom. However, not all these facilities are open. Only the ballroom is open on Saturday afternoon. In fact, workers have no spare time to use these facilities. One of them said: “Once you work here, you will have no space, no time, and no entertainment.”

Although there are some recreation facilities in Factory H, workers have no time to play. A worker said, “I have worked for 3 months. I only know the way to the dorm, canteen and workplace. I have never been to any other place here.”

Monitoring and code of conduct

In recent years, it was found that more workers recognized Codes of Conduct. However, most workers only know its content but not its purposes. This is because they are pressured to memorize the Code in order to recite – or “entertain” – the monitors. The truth is that few realize it is one of the mechanisms by which their rights are meant to be protected.

Although there are many visitors moving in and out of the factories, workers have no idea of who they are. They may be the buyers, Disney’s business representatives, Disney monitors, factory owners, officials from the labor bureau, or social auditors. No interviewed workers have talked or seen their friends talk to these visitors. Besides, they emphasized that no one dared to tell the truth to the visitors because there was no guarantee that they would not be punished for doing so. Some mentioned that cheating in the monitoring was always happened and the monitors would not know the truth situation.

In Factory A, the Disney Code is posted on the notice board. Many workers do not know the content and purpose of the Code of Conduct. Workers mentioned that all Disney monitoring is conducted by announced visits. Disney monitoring teams will call up the factory and inform them when they will come. This is convenient for the management if they choose to cheat in the monitoring process (i.e. cleaning up the factory before the monitors come). Workers are also forced to sign a falsified payslip for monitors’ checking.

Workers in Factory C pointed out that the factory had two bookkeeping systems. In order to cheat monitors, management will mark workers’ wages as high as ¥700-800 [USD 85-98] in a false set of books, while in reality they only receive about ¥400-500 [USD 49-61]. Before the monitors come, moreover, workers will be given a set of model answers to respond to questions. If they fail to answer “properly”, they will be fired.

Management in Factory E instructed workers how to give model answers to the monitors. If they failed to do so, they would be sacked. In order to escape scrutiny, the factory provides two work cards (one is white and the other is green) for each worker. The white card is for normal working hours while the green card records the OT hour and working time on weekends. Only white cards will be shown to the monitors. Hence, the monitors will not realize the true long working hours.

In Factory F, some workers said that management made desperate arrangements so that “young” workers were not on site when Disney monitors visited in late 1999. They suspected that these young workers might be under age and the management tried to conceal this fact from Disney.

Workers in Factory H do not know much about Disney’s Code. They claimed that many visitors came to the factory and talked to workers. Workers dared not to tell the truth about conditions because supervisors had told them to answer any questions by stating Chinese Labor Law. That is, they were asked to “report less working hours and more wages” than was the case.

Although Disney’s Code is posted in Factory I, workers claimed that they only knew the contents in brief. When Disney monitors came last July, they did talk to a handful of workers. But no interviewed workers knew the details. Some told us that the management tried to lie to Disney. They were forced to punch their time card at 16:45, regardless the number of overtime hour they worked afterwards.

Workers in Factory K remembered that Disney monitors visited the factory in July 1999 but did not talk to them.

Many workers do not know Disney’s Code Factory J and Factory L. Workers in Factory J mentioned that management would call all workers to meetings before the monitors come. They were taught how to talk to the monitors. For example; On wages: say to the visitors that you get ¥700-800 [USD 85-98] instead of ¥400-600 [USD 49-73] a month; on working hours: say you work 8 hours a day but not 10 hours or above. Moreover, the monitors mostly visit the two best workplaces but not the others.

No Disney Code is posted in Factory D. Management only briefly mentioned its content when workers arrived for their first day of work. Workers know little about the Code. Similarly, not many workers in Factory G know Disney’s Code. Some said that management provided a falsified payslip and work cards to Disney monitors.

Strikes/ Right to organize

Strikes did undertakedo occur in China. Not They are not only limited in the laid offto state owned enterprises, but also to an increasing number of strikes was triggered in the foreign invested factories. Many broke out because workers could not stand for the harsh working conditions and cheap wages. However, the management tends to suppress the strikes and warn the others by sacking the workers involved ones.

In Factory C, some workers mentioned that there was a strike around last April or May because of wages in arrears. Then, management released wages but workers who joined the strike were all sacked.

Workers in Factory D have held strikes several times, although the number of involved workers is not large. In most cases, it was triggered by delayed payment. Some male workers struck in April and were then fired. Their wages of April were not even released by late June, and discontented workers went on strike for a day. However, it was at their own expense because they are piece-rate workers. No work, no wage.

In Factory K, some workers told that a security guard, who had worked in the factory for several years, called workers to sign to protest over the poor quality of food in the canteen. The manager knew the signature protest and immediately fired the guard. Since then, workers have not dared to express their discontent.

Occupational injury

Most workers in China are not aware of the occupational health and safety issues and regulations. Besides, not many employers are willing to invest money on the equipment for health and safety. Thise equipment involves not only the hardware (e.g. the infrastructure and the protective equipment) but also the software (e.g. working hours).

Many workers did not know whether there was any industrial accidents had occurred in the factory. It This is because some supervisors try to conceal the cases. Because many employers do not buy the social insurances for workers, the injured ones always find it difficult to chase receive the proper compensation.

(Article 52-53 of Chinese Labor Law)

Work units shall establish and improve systems of labor safety and health including the responsibility system of labor safety and health, the system of safety education, the system of safety inspection, and the investigation and settlement system of industrial accidents and occupational diseases.

Moreover, work units shall strictly implement the state procedure and standards for labor safety and health and offer education to laborers on labor safety and health so as to avoid accidents in the course of production and to decrease occupational damage.

Odor of paints in spraying section in Factory C is very odd. Workers should be given appropriate masks. However, some complained that management would distribute masks only when guests visit the factory. When the masks distributed for the visit went wore out, workers have were required to buy their own new ones for their own. Those who work in environments heavy with chemicals generally display poorer physical condition. Some workers complained of frequent sore throats.

Because of prolonged working hours, workers in Factory G are always very tired and sleepy. Some of them actually leaned into the needles of sewing machines and got hurt due to tiredness.

Trade Union

According to the law, all trade unions have to affiliate with the party-controlled union, the All China Federation of Trade Union (ACFTU). Workers are not allowed to organize any independent Trade Union. Most workers in China have no idea about it.

To cite an example,

When researchers asked whether there was a trade union in Factory D, workers misunderstood trade union as morning assembly and said that they always had morning assembliestrade union meetings. They mixed up the ideas of trade union and morning assembly.

Moreover, some of them thought that trade unions could only existed in the state-owned enterprises but not in the private-run factories.

Laid off

In Factory J, more than half the number of workers was were asked last October to take long unpaid leave. All Management said all wages would be released. According to workers, this is as the same as being sacked. When new orders are placed, management writes to workers and asks them to come back. If they are willing to join, they are exempt from “entrance fees” (¥70) [USD 9], which includes the fees for factory ID, dorm ID, and temporary residential pass. However, they will be classified as newcomers and their previous experience will not be counted. This unstable and temporary working relationship is very unfair to workers.

Recruitment

Several recruitment notices were posted outside Factory G last mid-October. One of them was about recruiting people to work in Bangladesh. According to the office, half-processed products will be produced in the Chinese factory and then shipped to Bangladesh for completion. They promised that wages in Bangladesh are double those in China. This shows that some of the production lines in China have already been shifted to other Asian countries.

Disney workers’ stories

Stories produced by Disney are always often the best sellers in the market and the bestare well known to people all over the world Disney gains the triumph on all fronts. However, workers whose products help provide such enrich the wonder fulness and happiness ,and make a lot of money for Disney, are unknown. Their own stories their stories have never been shown to the public. Below we include the stories of workers as told to us. These are very different to the best selling stories Disney sells around the world, but we believe that they too are Disney stories worthy of publication!

Xiao Dong Factory A

Xiao Dong, from Jiangxi, started to work in a garment factory in Guangzhou in 1995. Until In mid 2000, he was invited to move to work in Factory A because the business in the original factory was going getting worse.

Since then, he has worked as a staff in the office and was has been responsible for handling the orders. In order to look after his “ready to deliver” pregnancypregnant wife, he requested to have a month’s holiday in August and which the factory endorsed. However, when he returned from his leave, he found his post was had been collected by another worker. picked up by when he returned from home. The employer told him to work in the sewing section. Xiao Dong was very angry and asked for a the reason to for this change. The employer replied, “This is an order. If you don’t like, you can go” and gave him a big and a small demerits[4] in “disobedience to the job arrangement”. Immediately laterafter, he was fired because of his “inappropriateness to work in the factory”.

He revealed that the factory always violated the Chinese labor law and the Disney’s Code. For example, the management made the falsified records for the monitors to check and forced workers not to punch the work card within the OT period. Moreover, the management often taught workers how to answer the monitors’ interviews. Besides, workers whose piece-rate wages were higher than ¥450[5] (US$55) are not paid the any overtime compensation. As he used to handle the orders in the office, he assured us that the factory subcontracted some orders to several unauthorized suppliers, which was a breach of the Disney’s Code. More important, he complained that the factory fired him without providing him with any reasonable reason and did not pay the compensation as the law stipulated.

Xiao Shen Factory A

Xiao Shen joined to work in Factory A in May 2000. As an experienced sewing worker, he worked very productively and efficiently. However, he found the factory failed to pay workers the overtime compensation accordingly. Therefore, he held his payslip and checked with the management. Unfortunately, the management claimed he was an inappropriate to work in theworker for the factory and fired him.., like what they did in Xiao Dong’s case

He added that the management never explained how the wages were calculated. Their wages were always underpaid. Workers who tried to voice their discontent will are be victimized. As a result, no worker dared to complain or tell the truth when the monitors came.

Xiao Zhang Factory C

Xiao Zhang, 19, has just worked in this factory for one year. He is from a peasant family with his grandmother, parents and elder sister in Hunan. All of them worked on the farm. But the output from the farm was too little to support their livingsthem all. Fortunately, they not only planted crops but also reared a few pigs and lived very frugally. Xiao Zhang and his sister could finally finish their studies in high school.

Although the children have been growngrew up and relieved the family of some financial burdens, Xiao Zhang's parents were still upset with the their old house because of its poor condition.it is too old. They planned to rebuild a new oldone. However, it this would costs RMB ten thousands which is an enormous number amount to for this poverty-stricken family. How they can collect money to do so? After discussion in the family, they decided to leave Xiao Zhang's father to stay in the village and look after the farm and grandmother. Xiao Zhang headed to the south to seek job opportunities with his mother and sister.

Introduced by village mates, they started to work in Factory C. In the very beginning, Xiao Zhang was so excited with the new life in Guangdong. He thought he could get rid of the hard work on the farm since he was turning a new leaf in this gold fieldmine. Nevertheless, his dream was not fulfilled in and bore no resemblance to the stark reality. Less After less than one month, he complained of the irritating work in the factory. He worked around the clock with repeated mechanical motions and earned poverty wages. Worse still, he needed to serve the management appropriately. In fact, what they the three could save is very little; between them it was . It is about less than ¥1000 a month. They wonder when they could collect enough money to rebuild the house at home.

Xiao Zhang missed his father and grandmother very much and has thought to quit for several times. However, his mother and sister continuously convinced him to stay. Although he is a young adult, sometimes he cries secretly under the his blanket at the bednight. He described his working life as "Days wearing on like years".

His mother estimated that they could get enough money for the new house in the coming March and they would quit and back home together. Xiao Zhang is looking forward to the day of return. However, it is very difficult to quit in this factory. Workers need to apply for resignation. They even do not even know whether they can leave with all their wages released. If they quit themselves, each two-month wages withheld will be confiscated. In the case of Xiao Zhang and his family, they need to sacrifice the 6-month wages all together if they do so.

Therefore, they worry whether they will all get all compensated since this amount of money is very important to them and it is not an easy money.

Xiao Chong Factory C

Xiao Chong said, “I have worked in this factory for more than one year. To my best knowledge, it is a Hong Kong invested factory. All the management and marketing strategies are adopted from Hong Kong. But 95% of workers are from the mainland…… The biggest costumer of this factory is McDonald’s and Disney is the second one. For Wwe are in the coloring section, what we all labor now is only forfor only these two brands. However, our wage is very low. We get a few cents [RMB] for a piece ofthe toys we mademake; some time the prices are even less than one cent [RMB]. I have never seen the prices are higher than 10 cents…... I thought that’s why our boss runs a plant here. You know. Labor force in China is cheap. It is good for our boss and Disney to make big money. Otherwise, why do they ran come here to run a factory here? Why do Disney move their production lines here?……Is the wage proportionate to our work force? Surely not. It is impossible. I can say that this factory is running in a typical western capitalist system. It exploits our residual value. Our boss shares a very little of his profits for our wages. No one queriesy why we get such littlea small amount. That’s why our boss gets richer and richer!”

Xiao Ping Factory G

Xiao Ping, 30, has worked in the sewing section in Factory G for more than two years. She generally works 80-120 OT hours a month and receives ¥800-900 (US$98-110).

She and her husband were farmers in Hubei. However, what they earned from the farm were was far from supporting their basic living. Hence, bBoth of them rushed to the South and started to work here. Her husband is not working in the same factory but an electronics factory nearby. He earns ¥700-900 (US$85-110) a month which is nearly as the same as Xiao Ping gets. Their only son, aged 8, is living with Xiao Ping’s parents-in-law in Hubei. They send money home and save every penny left. Subtracted those money they sent home, they save every coins left. Although their factories are not far awayapart, they do not rent a room to live together but live in the collective dorms respectively. Again, it is because they don’t want to spend extra money. As the lunch hour and working time are different, it is uneasy for them to meet. Xiao Ping’s husband sometimes waits for her at the gates at the lunch break and to meet for a while.

In fact, they think that it is impossible to continue in this manner. They do not want to work like this for the rest of their lives. It is their dream to save some money and run a small business in their home village some day. They do not know when this dream can be accomplished. Surely, it is a far-reaching dream because the amount they can save is very tiny.

Xiao Liu Factory H

Xiao Liu, 27, comes from Hunan. He has been worked in Factory H for 3 years.

He is not the an ordinary worker, but a member of the office staff in the office. Although his benefits are much better than the workers’, he is very angry at the harsh practices in the factory.

According to him, worker exploitation is always happenedis common. The most disgraceful thing is about the payment of wages wage in arrears. It is very common for the factory to withhoeld wages for two months. In fact, many workers need to send money home to support their families in home villages. It will make big troubles to workers and their families when wages are delayed to for release. It is very common for workers to borrow money for emergenciesy from their friends. Many are in debt. In On some occasions, they find no way to borrow money because everyone suffers from wages being withheld for months. Nobody escapes.

In face of these harsh conditions, many workers want to leave but it is very difficult to resign. If workers cannot get the permission to resign, no withheld wages will be refunded. In the other words, they have to sacrifice the withheld wages if they quit. However, some workers preferred to give up the money in order to get free from this “hell-like” factory. Workers are never insufficient in the factory. Many leave and many come. Hundreds of people will surround the factory and wait for interviews when a recruitment notice is posted.

A strike was broke out in July 2000. It was again because of wage in arrears. As a result, the management released May’s wages in late July. In fact, two months wages were always kept in the employers’ pocket.

Apart from wages, workers complained that they always worked 7 days a week, and were that there was never compensation according to the law. Owing to the bad food in the factory and the dorm regulations being is very strict, Xiao Liu rented a room and lived with his village mates. Although the place is not nice and spacious, they treasured the freedom they have. Talking about the days of working in the South, all of them sighned, “If I had a decent life and earned enough for basic living at home, I would definitely not go come here to work. No place is better than my home.”

Xiao Meng Factory I

Xiao Meng, 22, has worked in the assembly section in Factory I for a year. She is from a poor peasant family in Sichuan. Like other girls, she came and worked in the South after she completed her junior class. The working life, to the young girls like Xiao Meng, is very boring. She sits and repeats the simple motions more than 10 hours every day. Her sWage is very tiny, and which is only about ¥400-500 (US$49-61) a month.

In order to save ¥200-300 (US$24-37) a month and send back home, she seldom spends a penny for herself. Although the amount of what she sent is not a big money in the city, it helps a lot in the rural areas where may have no income for several months. It is all for her siblings’ school fees, family expenditure, some seeds and fertilizers for the farm and etcso on.

In order to support the family, she insisted to stay and work in the South at the moment. However, she always dreams, “There is a day coming that I don’t need to work. I can go back home and reunion be reunited with my family”. According to her plan, she will go back home in two years and then get married when she will no longer need to cross the mountains to work for prolonged hours. .

Xiao Chen Factory J

Xiao Chen, 19, is from Hunan. She was living with her parents and a younger brother until her father was fell very sick and then died in 1995. As the family had borrowed a large sum of money from their relatives and friends for her father’s medical expenditure, they were in a very difficult financial situation. Since then, Xiao Chen quit in primary school and worked on thein farm with her mother to pay the debt. However, output in their farmland can only pay for their basic livings. Half a year later, her mother suddenly left the village without notice. Xiao Chen could not find where her mother was.

It was difficult for Xiao Chen in at age 14 was very tough to face this situation. She asked one of her aunts to take care of her younger brother and went to the South with her village-mates to look for find a job. At the very beginning, she was not familiar with the lives life in Guangdong[6]. In addition to her low education level, it iswas very hard for her to find a job in factories, but she did some minor jobs (like washing dishes) at the small food stalls run by her village-mates.

Later, she was introduced to work in Factory J which is a toy factory. In order to work in this factory, she reported older than her real age when she made an ID card. Although workinged 10-13 hours a day, often 6 days a week and only earned ¥500-800 (US$61-98) a month, she felt good because she could at least have a stable income.

Owing to her need to send more money to support her brother’s living and schooling, she lives frugally and prefers not to go home even in holidays. Recently, her brother, who just graduated from high school, has informed her that he could not get any offer from the university. Xiao Chen knows the importance of pursuing higher education in society. Therefore, she told her brother to repeat and apply to the university again next year. As the same time, she heard the news of her disappeared that her mother getting had contracted cancer and was in the terminal phrase in Hunan from the village-mates. Luckily, the peak production season in the factory has just gonefinished. She easily got the permit to take leaves and return home with all her savings. However when she arrived home she learnt that her mother was certified to have only one-month life leftmother had been told she had only one month left to live. Spending all money her savings to pay for the pain-relieving injections for her mother, she had no more money for her brother to study as she promised. As holidays were over, she rushed to the factory again. Soon laterafter returning, she applied for holidays again. But However, this time, she knew that she would not be recruited again and lose the her job eventually. More importantly, she was jobless, penniless and had no alternativesas well.

Xiao Huang Factory K

Xiao Hunag, 37, comes from Hunan. She is married and has two daughters, aged 13 and 17, studying in secondary school. The household expenditure is about ¥600-1000 (US$73-122) a month. Before going to the South, she and her husband worked on a farm and a construction site in their home village respectively. However, the income was too little to sustain their living.

She heard that it was easier to earn money in the South and then headed to Guangdong to pursue her “Golden dream” in 1996. Because she is older, married, and uneducated, she could not find a job easily until someone introduced her to work in Factory K.

However, either working or and living conditions in this factory are very harsh. At the very beginning, she received ¥8 (US$1) a day (from which the factory had not yet deducted the fees for food and dorm) which was only enough for her own expenses (but no savings). She sadly said, “No alternative. Like me, old, married and uneducated. It is not bad…. at least I got a job.”.

It is a dilemma. She is unable to find a better factory and does not want to go back home with nothing, so she has insisted on working in this factory for 4 years. Within 4 years, she got ¥500 (US$61) a month at the maximum, and as a minimum ¥150 (US$18). In order to save money, she has not bought a single item of clothinges for herself in during these years. Even so, she felt regretful that she has only sent ¥3000 (US$366) back home. Surely, she aimed to work harder and earn more money. However, she failed because the orders for the factory is are very unstable. Occasionally, there was no order to do for 10-20 days. Even worse, the factory never guaranteed to pay the minimum wage. Many workers complained that their income was not enough for their living. Xiao Huang mentioned, “Workers who are capable have all left. Only those dummies, like me, remained in this factory.”

Due to the food and accommodation offered by the factory are being so poor, Xiao Huang preferred to rent a wooden shed outside the factory with 4-5 village mates. One of our researchers accompanied her to a the market. She bargained with a vendor for a slice of pork costing ¥3.5 (US$0.4) and then explained embarrassingly, “I spend each penny very carefully. In fact, I seldom buy meat”. Recently, the factory has had no order again. She planned to leave and decided to apply to a toy factory in Hunan. She claimed, “Everything is very uncertain. I even don’t know whether I will come back again.”

Xiao Lin Factory K

Xiao Lin is 36 years -old. Like Xiao Huang, she comes from Hunan, and has been working as a sewing worker in Factory K since late 1999. She borrowed her younger sister’s ID card to apply to work in the factory because she thought she was too old and the factory would reject her.

Her husband has been working in a watch factory in Shenzhen for 3-4 years. His wage (overtime payment included) is around ¥1400-1500 (US$171-183). They have a son and a daughter, 16 and 17, studying in hHigh school. The financial burden is very heavy. As a result, she quit to working on the farm and moved to the South. Because of her limited conditions, she could not find a job in any factories but Factory K. Workers claimed it as a “nobody wanted” factory.

According to Xiao Lin, her wage is not enough for her own living. In order to pay for their kids’ school fees, she and her husband need to send home at least ¥1000 (US$122) a month. However, the couple then found that it was very difficult for them to live in the area. To save money, they shared to rent a room with three couples. She said, “It is very embarrassing. The so-called privacy is just covered under the curtain hanged on the edge of beds.”

She complained, as Xiao Huang had, that the factory’s orders is are very unstable. For example, she only worked two days in June 2000. After deducted thedeductions for fees for food and dorm, she only got ¥157 (US$19) which could not sustain a decent living.

In order to fill Disney’s need. Xiao Lin mentioned,contracts, the management has established a particular section to dosolely for Disney’s order since June 1999. The fringe benefits offered in this section are more attractive than the others, e.g. alternative Sunday off, off on Sundays and a daily wage of ¥16 (US$2). However, it is not the case in reality. Compared to the other sections, ¥7 (US$0.9) out of the daily wage is deducted for the food and dorm which is unreasonablye high [while those in the other section charge ¥60 (US$7.4) per month]. Workers are very disappointed with the factory but have no alternative instead but to stay there of staying here.

Xiao Wang

Xiao Wang was a senior section leader in a garment factory which used to produce for Disney till the company claimed that this the factory failed to comply with the company's Code of Conduct and hence it terminated the order in April 1999. Meanwhile, the factory moved to a new site in an industrial zone nearby. Since then, workers were no longer offered free food and dorm. With the a tiny living allowance of ¥210-240 a month provided by the factory, workers need to rent their rooms outside and pay for their food. Xiao Wang shared a room of 60 sq. m. with his five village-mates near the factory.

Before Disney cut the order, Xiao Wang could get ¥1000-2000 (US$122-244) a month. However, his wage was reduced rapidly to ¥300-400 (US$37-49) in which the living allowance was included. Some workers even gotreceived as little as only ¥200 (US$24) a month. It is surely not enough for their basic living, let aloneg to support the a decent living. Many workers complained that the factory had very insufficient orders since Disney gone left, and they were pushed into a very difficult situation. As the factory did not provide dorm and food, workers had to pay themselves for the rent, water, electricity, basic household materials (i.e. coals, rice, oil, and salt), gasoline, temporary residence permit, and rental certificate out of their own pay. Their dropped reduced wage could not support them to liveall this.

A worker mentioned, "The management is only concerned with how to maximize their own profit. Workers Problems and conditions encountered problems and conditionsby workers are never in the management's agenda. Although the factory had very few orders to do, workers were still paid in at piece-rates. The management ignored that the workers were paid less than the minimum wage. Even worse, the factory tried to force the experienced workers to quit themselves in order to save paying them compensation." Many workers quoted what the management stated to them, "Now we are in hardship. We have difficulty in to paying you [the minimum wage]. This is the situation. If you like it, you can stay. Otherwise, fuck off." Workers were very angry about it. Owing to low wages, no guarantee from retaliation and the management's indifferent attitudes, however, many of them chose to quit the job themselves and find another one.

Xiao Wang worked in the factory for five years. As an experienced worker, he was at firstly hesitated to tell the truth which he thought was like bad mouthing the factory. However, , but the disgusting conditions urged him to express discontent. He complained that the management turned a blind eye to workers' difficult situations. "In the peak season, workers labored around the clock in order to meet the deadline. When the factory encountered difficulty, they sacrificed us as the first victims. All the adversities were paid at our expense. They failed to provide the minimum wage but abused our workers' rights at their will." Xiao Wang was also disappointed with Disney's approach. He thought that Disney should have an obligation to take care of workers who produce for the company. In fact, Disney failed to do so. He commented, "Disney has is only concerned with its good reputation. When its suppliers are revealed not to comply with the local standards and its Code, they will mostly cut their order and move the production to another facility. What Disney did is to walk away from the scandal and draw a line between this problematic facility and Disney. They wash their hands as if it is none of their business." He added, "The Code of Conduct is not made for workers. It is only a tactic of window dressing and PR for Disney." Xiao Wang found no alternative to press the management to improve the situations and finally quit his job without any compensation.

Several workers could not tolerate the worsening situations and lodged their complaints to the local labor bureau. After the latter's intervention, the management agreed to pay the reasonable compensation to these workers. However, many workers, like Xiao Wang, left this factory without refunding receiving the withheld one-month wages and getting any compensation.

Discussion

1. Code of Conduct

In the face of increasing consumer campaigns and the anti-sweatshop movement, most many TNCs (particularly for those about producing the consumer goods) have respectively issued their own company’s Codes of Conduct with during the last decade. The emergence of Codes initially soothed consumer rage. However, people have not been convinced that Codes improve workers’ conditions and wages, particularly since much research has shown workers know little of the Codes. Hence, campaigns designed to exert pressure on TNCs have once again become popular. smoothed the rage from the campaigns and pleased the consumers shortly. Soon after, people found that the Code was not the panacea and most workers did not know the Code. Hence, the campaigns have arisen again.

Can a Code of Conduct help?

Few Several years ago, workers in China always mentioned that they have had never heard of Codes of Conduct. Some of them even confused the Code with the factory regulations. However, the situation has been changed slightly changed. Based on the interviews we made conducted with Disney workers in this report, more workers claimed that they heard and knew what the Code was. However, it does not mean that the Disney' Code works and helps improveing the workers’ working and living conditions. On the contrary, workers are still exploited, and as well as also pushed punished for the problems in the relations into the flaws between Disney and the factory. They are under bigger pressure in terms of the Code.

Although more workers know about Disney’s Code, they only recognize its content but never associate it as a tool to protect their rights and ensure that they have a decent living. Some told us that they learnt the Code because they were forced to recite the its content. They told us that iIt is to entertain the visits of the Disney monitors and other visitors. They Workers are commonly asked whether they know about the Code. And that is why they need to memorize the content of the Code. If they cannot answer the questions properly, and make the factory shamefulthus bring shame on the factory, the management will penalize them. To these workers, Disney’s Code is not the same as the factory regulations but still a piece of evil paper like a curse which will negatively affect their job and living.

In Disney’s Code, it states that the factory will authorize Disney and its designated agents (including the third parties) to engage in monitoring activities to confirm compliance with the company’s Code. However, many are announced visits. Factories will be informed in advance. Workers claimed that the monitors could have neverwill never be able to uncover uncovered the truth under this circumstanceof what happens in the factory if visits are always announced. As we noted in the previous section, cheating always happens in these monitoring activities. Double bookkeeping is always used to overstate the wages and underreport the working hours Under-aged workers are moved and or locked up when the monitors camevisit. Workers are brainwashed ordered not to disclose the truth to the monitors. In order to pass in the investigation, there are many methods for the management to fool the monitors.

We are not saying suggesting that we should to sympathize with the Disney monitors, who are themselves also the victims and being fooled by the trickyof dishonest management. . Yet, theyDisney monitors should definitely bear some of the responsibilities. It is their fault that they do not try their bestwork more effectively to dig out the real conditions in the factory. Moreover, they could cannot gain the workers’ trust to report the truth because there is no guarantee against retaliation in the Code. Disney is duty bound to rectify these problems.

Comply or not comply?

For the TNC, compliance is the soul in the Code of Conduct. Disney is deeply concerneds whether their suppliers comply with the Code more than everythingor not. Reviewing the past experiences, Disney tends to terminate the orders from to the non-complying factories. Instead of working with the suppliers to fix the problems, the cCompany prefers walking away from the particular factories involved in any the scandal. Workers are again to be the first victims; as no working condition is are not improved and some of them even lose their rice bowls. Disney’s commitment in respect to workers’ rights is not implemented.

Disney has repeatedly denied taking using the Code of Conduct as the a PR practiceexercise. Therefore, the Company should be concerned not only about suppliers’ compliance, but also workers’ interests. “Cut & Run” is a definitely irresponsibley practice. Workers are left in the a black hole. As the last case mentioned in the part of workers’ story aboveies, workers were truly suffered from the negative consequence of order cutting. Their wage got was rapidly decreased and was less than the minimum wage, It was totally far from sustaining a decent living. It seems that wWorkers’ interests are further sacrificed in the compliance examination.

Cutting the problematic factories’ order is the simplest way for Disney to keep their hands clean. By doing so, Disney can immediately walk away from the disgrace and targeting contract the new suppliers. It is always not a problem to for Disney to find the new suppliers to replace the problematic ones. In fact, there are thousands of factories waving their hands to Disney to show interest in getting the contracts. In order to complete with other factories, most are willing to offering cutthroat prices and attractive benefits to Disney. If Disney cuts orders, it does them no harm. In some cases, they even take advantage of doing so. As the with other TNCs, what they are looking for in China is mainly the cheap labor. Tracing In fact, chasing the cheaper production costs is a must.

Cost of implementing Code- Who pay?

Disney, like other TNCs, is enthusiastic to promote the Code of Conduct and demand their suppliers to comply with it. However, this raises a set of questions and issues. For instance, does Disney consider the cost of implementing the Code when it enters into contracts with Chinese suppliers? Who pays for it? What criteria does Disney use when choosing its hen Disney considers their business partners? no matter the license agents or the manufacturers, what are the criteria using? It is questionable whether they access the working capacity of the factories in advance. Can the code of conduct be implemented under the cutthroat offers provided by the factories willing to reduce costs so drasticallyy work in practice of the Code of Conduct? All these this information is very crucial. Disney should not turn a blind eye to select the partners purely on the basis of profit. When the Company requests their partners to comply with the Code of Conduct, they should definitely bear the cost of Codes of Conduct. Nevertheless, most of the non-compliances are directly or indirectly contributed by Disney’s “Race to the Bottom” mechanism. Therefore, it is totally irresponsible to push all the duties to the factories when non-compliance is found. As a Chinese old saying says, “How come tocan you expect a horse to run fast and yetif you won't feed it?”

In Disney’s Code , it requests their partners to comply with the standards in terms of working hours, wages, and social security. The questions Disney should ask are: Can the factory provided terms conditions the meet fit in the standard of the Code? Is their manpower enough manpower to meet the deadlines? Do Will the workers need to work overtime to meet deadlines, and thus exceeding breech the legal Chinese law or the standards of the Code’s standard? Are the prices offered for the contact sufficient to pay at least the minimum wage and the overtime payment as stipulated in law? Is the order too huge to finish on time, and or will the factory need to subcontract to the other factories s in order to meet the deadline? These questions are important, and show that iImplementing Codes of Conduct is not a simply lip service and free of charge. It costs money! And Disney should pay it!

Disclose the information!

Unlike other TNCs, Disnnsey has a large variety of products (i.e. Garment, footwear, accessories, toys, homeware, stationery, blankets and so on). Some products are can only be sold limited to sell in Disney’s Stores; some are can only be sold in the particular sector in the Department Stores, in Disney’s theme parks and in by street vendors. In addition to itsThis licensing system, it makes its business relationship more complicated. Many Much of Disney’s businesses in consumer goods are is through the trading agents and licensing houses. The Company mostly usually authorizes the middlemen to contact the manufacturers and ever thus Disney has have little knowledge about them manufacturers. No wonder they do not know how many suppliers they really have, how many big or small factories are making for them, and even how many workers help them makeing huge profit.

It is very common for the TNCs to view the suppliers’ information as their own property and refuse to disclose any of themit. Disney has never disclosed any list of suppliers to the public. If the Company is really commits committed to face the consumers and bear the its social responsibilities, they should disclose the suppliers’such a list to the information for the public for scrutiny.

Some TNCs have disclosed information of about suppliers who produce for their partner universities to the public in recent two years. In fact, the consumers are getting more aware of their rights, and now believe they should have channels to ensure their products are not from the sweatshops. Hence, there is really no way excuse for Disney to decline our demand that they release a list of their suppliers so that we can ensure that conditions do not breech Chinese labour law.s.

Based on the a game initiated by Disney (“cutting & running” is the main game rule), we are just like playing “Hide-and-seek” with Disney. When we disclose any factories with poor working conditions, Disney will cut the order and move to the other factories. Under this circumstance, it is more difficult and exhausting for the NGOs and the public to keep tracing and monitoring the production lines. It is a must to disclose all information of its suppliers for public scrutiny.

2. Workers’ participation

At the very beginning of the consumer campaign, people think that the emergence of a Code of Conduct can bring theenable workers into the platform where they canto communicate with the TNCs and the consumers. However, it we have found that this ideal model did does not work.

Who’s Code?

If workers are really one of the actors in the process, why are they absent in the virtual platform? Reviewing the Code of Conduct, almost all of them adopt the key conventions in the ILO and about the basic workers’ rights (i.e. Child labor, prison labor, wage, working hours, occupational safety & health and etc.). However, workers are not involved neither in Code’s drafting and or in its monitoring process. As workers is are the key actors in the platform, it is unacceptable that they are excluded in this issue. If Disney is really committed, as they say they are, to improving workers’ conditions, then why not include them in the whole process of the Code: formulation, implementation, and monitoring?

However, Disney appears to have little regard for workers. IInstead of allowing workers to monitor their own working conditionsusing the workers to be the real monitors, Disney prefers spending to spend lots of money to huge money to employ a group of outsiders (i.e. Disney’s compliance team and the professional social auditors). Rather than including workers in the processes designed to improve their conditions, Disney places all responsibility with to have the “so-called” independent monitoring and teams to check whether the factories comply with the Code or not. Workers are the ones who work in the factories day by in and day out. They know the machines, the odors, the dangers, the poorly lighted areas intimately. Surely these people are more eligible to monitor the factories on a daily basis than infrequent visitors. Monitors and auditors are obviously skilled in some tasks, but it is ironic that Disney refuses to include workers in processes designed to help them. Until workers have a say in every step of the monitoring process, claims by TNCs like Disney that they are concerned with working conditions in factories which supply for them are likely to fall on deaf ears..

MoreoverOn top of this, it is worth questioning how independent and effective such monitoring as it stands is. Even if we ignore the lack of participation by workers, we still question the validity of the audit process. For instance, hHow frequent they are audits conducted?conduct the audit? As we revealed above, the real monitoring cannot function in the concurrent mechanism where cheating appears to be the norm.always happens. Furthermore, we doubt the credibility of some monitors; for their ability as professionals able to detect occupation and health problems, and as people committed to bettering the conditions for Chinese workers. We agree with the findings of Dara O’Rourke’s recent study that some professional auditors working for global accounting firms overlook serious breeches of codes and labour law.[7] Further, we argue that such audits have little or no credibility with the workers they claim to representthat where these outside monitors’ credibility come from and whether workers endorse them to doing so.[8] No real independent monitoring is existed exists at all until workers are involved in it at every step of the process.

In order to promote workers should be the real monitorsas monitors, it is important to urge Disney to provide workers’ rights education in the plants. The basic right of workers is indeed to learn their rights and how to exercise them. Apart from Disney’s Code, it is a must for the workers to know the Chinese Labor Laws. Truly, most statements in the Code refer to the national law legal standards. Also, the code is a voluntary document, but and the company is not legally bound by agreeing to it, or failing to comply to it.. National law is a more powerful and comprehensive reference, and should form the basis of the conditions in any factory in China.

For sure, workers should have the channels to express their ideas and comment; and to participate in the Code of Conduct and monitoring process. In this research, we found that workers were given no room to voice outhad no forum in which to voice their discontent or grievances. When they have are discontented in with the working conditions, there is no established channel for them to reach Disney to lodge their complaints. Workers mentioned that they were threatened not to disclose the negative conditions in the factories to the monitors on the spot. They would like to share their demands and reveal the truth to Disney with the guarantee of no retaliation. Workers should not be hidden in the tripartite relationship, as shown in the diagram on the right. At present, the lines of communication are between the TNC and consumers; no such channels exist between workers and consumers, or workers and the TNC. Promises are not built on the paper paper, but on the action. Disney should listen to the workers and take action on their grievances.

In the jumble of speed, money, human resources, and media collaboration, Disney and the TNCs can easily take form a manipulative relationship over with the consumers and the publicworkers. They can have the resources to handily spend millions of dollars to exaggerate their “good deeds” through different media. They can likewise and pay social auditing companies handsomely to conduct research inside known good (model) factories. Obviously, it is a relationship defined by one-way communication which favors the TNCs to convince the consumers that they are doing well.

We are looking forrequesting a the breakthrough and theso that we can have an ideal and fair tripartite platform in practice.

3. Wage: the most concerned

Workers from the rural areas rush to the South. It is a very tough life. Consumers from the North always wonder why these people can work in these adversely conditions. Without doubt, the main driving force is their tiny wage. Many workers who tear themselves away from their hometown earn money for their family in the rural area. Hence, they are willing to work around the clock, day by day in order to earn more money and help the family getting rid ofescape from poverty. The harder they work, the faster they can gain more money and return home. That is why they prefer to put up with conditions others may find too harsh.

Wages is are always the first demand of workers. Based on the findings mentioned in previous partsections, most of their wages are very low and always paid in arrears. More importantly, it is usually far from sustaining a decent living. Although there is a Minimum Wage law in China, it cannot help them escapeing from the financial difficultiesy. It is mainly contributed by the fact that many employers treat the Minimum wage as the Maximum one. They press workers to receive the lowest prices. In addition to no overtime compensation, what they get is very limited. Besides, the minimum wage in China is not high enough to compensate for a rapidly rising cost of living. Under these multifold pressures, more workers complained that they could not send money home and even have difficulty to support their own living in the South in the past few years.

According to Paper 133 (Labor Bureau, 1993), the minimum wage is composed of basic wage, bonus, allowance and subsidy while the overtime bonus and the allowance of special labor conditions are excluded. In reality, many employers make use of the legal loopholes. To cite an example, some workers get the wage as the minimum wage level. But their employers mark demand very high prices for the dorm fee, food fee, and fines. After these over-marked or unreasonable deductions, they get fewer less wages.

It is very important to demand that all the workers (no matter whether they are paid in piece-rate, hourly, or in by other mechanisms) should be fully compensated with for their overtime work. Also, the daily quota system should be strictly monitored. It This is because that many workers revealed that they were requested to work in at an unreasonable fast ratehigh quantity level. They cannot finish ithope to meet quotas within the normal working hours, and hence the management requests them to do overtime without paying them compensation. It is unfair to push the fault to workers when they are not able to meet the unrealistic daily quotas.

In order to let workers know how the wage is calculated, it is a must to give each worker their payrollessential that each worker receive a pay slip. Their payroll pay slip should clearly show the piece rate, the basic wage, overtime working hours (OT on weekdays, weekends, public holidays), overtime compensation; the deduction for social insurance, dorm, food, fines, and temporary residence permits; and the others. All these items should be clearly mentioned in the payroll.

Wages is are the most important thing to the workers. Hence, we demand Disney to improve the wage system in the first place and pay workers the a wage that compensates them for the rise in the cost of living.

Do it anyway! Social Responsibility

Social responsibility is a very serious topic. It is surely not an excuse for PR. More importantly, it is a every TNCs basic duty of everybody. Nowadays, more and more companies stand up and declare that they will strictly carry out their social responsibility and establish their Code of Conduct. However, many simply pay lip service to it.paid in the lip service. It isSuch a tactic is fully illustrated in this Disney report on Disney.

Disney always claims to bring the joy to the people;, however, please do not ignore the workers behind the label. To Disney we say, “Disney, Ccarry out the social responsibility you declared. Stop workers' exploitation, respect their rights, and pay them a living wage!”

Demands

1. Disney should promote worker rights education at the workplace.

2. Disney should actively involve workers in the monitoring process. They should be empowered to be the monitors at workplace in the long run.

3. Disney should provide accessible and trustworthy channels (e.g. letter box in factory and paid postal envelopes) for workers to lodge their complaints to Disney and other concerned parties; the company should guarantee that there will be no retaliation to theagainst workers.

4. Disney should strictly monitor and assist their suppliers to comply with the national labor laws and Disney's Code. Instead of simply cutting and running, the company should work with the non-complying factories to improve their situations.

5. Disney should disclose all information of its suppliers for public scrutiny.

Consumer Campaign in Hong Kong

It is announced that theThe fifth Disneyland will be opened in Hong Kong in 2005. Obviously, Disney is going to extend its aggressive plan expansion and control dominance in Asia. It is consistent to with Michael Eisner's, Disney CEO, management strategy. In recent years, his pressing task is to further expaend Disney's oversea market[9]. Besides, Robert Iger, President of Disney, claimed openly in HK that Disney planned to focus on building the Disney brand in Asia. Personally, he is very bullish for Disney’s prospects in Asia[10].

Disney is coming to Hong Kong more vigorously soonand will be more vigorous in its advertising. It is will be a golden opportunity to launch a local consumer campaign which to raise the Hong Kong public’s awareness about TNCs' social responsibilities and their consumer rights. More importantly, Disney is a very good example to illustrate the process and effect of Globalizationglobalisation and the impact on workers’ lives.

In the past few years, we found that consumer campaigns in the North have been well- developed. Moreover, some of our China labor researches were used as helpful information for the consumers in the North. Through different campaigns, they exercise their rights, press Disney and other TNCs to bear their social responsibilities and help improveing the working situations in China. However, local campaigns did not move much.

However, the consumption power in Hong Kong is very high. This is eEspecially true for the youthyoung consumers in Hong Kong, given that they consume the biggest amount of money in Asia. According to a research by a concerned group last year, this 900 thousand population of aged people aged between 7 to 18 youth in Hong Kong spent more than USD 1 billion a year.[11] As Disney is expaending its brand-building in Asia, we should not doubt to promptly launch a local consumer campaign.

It is a critical moment! We have been distributing the booklets of “BOM! Beware of Mickey!” to the citizens and particularly for students. Up to now, the feedback is very good! In the coming months, a BOM! Web page and an electronic link to circulate the information of local and global Disney campaigns will come out.

Our campaign is not calling for a boycott. We are mostly concerned with workers’ rights, because it is totally unacceptable to see workers are sacrificed as scapegoats as a resultin a strategy of “cut and run”. We call consumers to urge Disney to improve the working and living conditions and commit to respecting workers’ rights. Instead of calling for a boycott, it is our slogan is “Beware of Mickey!”.

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[1] Reading atSee, http://disney.go.com/investors/earnings/q400_b.html "Fourth Quarter Report 2000 of Walt Disney" Read onAccessed November 15 2000

[2] "MULAN's sisters: Working for Disney is no Fairy Tale". HKCIC. April 1999. In the report, 4 factories were investigated. One of them had already been closed .

[3] Reading atSee, www.forbes.com/ceos/ "Forbes Top CEO's: corporate America's Most Powerful People 2000"

[4] It is the These are scales in the penalty system in the factory. They are warning, small demerit, and big demerit which all will subject to fines.

[5] It is the minimum wage in the area.

[6] Guangdong is one of the provinces in South China. As it was the first part to be developed after the Open market policy in 1979, there is the biggest number of foreign invested factories established in the region. Because of huge job opportunities, many people in rural area considered it as “paradise of Workers” and “Root of Rich”.

[7] Dara O’Rourke, Monitoring the Monitors: A critique of PricewaterhouseCoopers (PwC) labour monitoring. (Available at: http://web.mit.edu/dorourke/www/index.html)

[8] For more information, please prefer to HKCIC. April 2000. “No more manipulative games by transnational corporations: Call for International solidarity of the working class” Alice Kwan. HKCIC.

[9] Reading at http://www.emba.com.tw/emba/158/158go12.html "Disney is facing crisis" in Chinese. Read on November 15 2000.

[10] “Walt Disney focuses on brand building” South China Morning Post on November 17 2000.

[11] Ming Pao. “HK Youth has the biggest pocket money in Asia”. March 25 2000.