JUNE 19, 2003

DISNEY ALERT / ROUND 4

IS THE $25.3 BILLION DISNEY COMPANY REALLY A PITIFUL HELPLESS TRANSNATIONAL GIANT WHICH HAS NO REAL POWER, AND THEREFORE CANNOT BE HELD ACOUNTABLE FOR IMPLEMENTING BASIC SOCIAL JUSTICE FOR ITS WORKERS?

*Hear what Michael Eisner said at Disney's shareholder meeting in Denver on March 19 http://www.nlcnet.org/campaigns/shahmakhdum/disneyresponse/

When asked by a representative of the Presbyterian Church: "When are you going to demand your contractor return to Bangladesh's Shah Makhdum factory?" Michael Eisner responded by praising the Bangladeshi workers. "But you are correct," Eisner said, "those women did a fantastic job in cleaning up the act and making themselves up to the standards that they have to be and we support that."

Mr. Eisner is referring to 370 young women in Bangladesh who sewed Disney garments for eight years, but who lost their jobs when they asked for one day a week off, and that they not be beaten. In response to the women's demands, Disney's licensee Jerry Leigh pulled Disney's work from the factory in March 2002.

Now Eisner himself is praising the Bangladeshi women for the "fantastic job" they did in "cleaning up" the factory and bringing "themselves up to the standards that" Disney demands, and that "they have to be" and we do "support" them. In other words, this clearly is a win-win situation for everyone involved.

However, Mr. Eisner also states that "we have no legal ability to make them (a licensee or vendor) go back there" to the Shah Makhdum factory.

In other words, the Disney Company wants to, and would like to, do the right thing, but sadly just doesn't have the power to get even a single one of its estimated 10,000 licensees and contractors to put Disney's work back into the now model Bangladesh factory.

Do you believe this? (If you do, please call us, we have a bridge we would like to sell you in Brooklyn.)

Back to reality, just look at what Michael Eisner can do when he sets his mind to it. When Eisner's close friend Michael Ovitz had to depart as Disney's president after just 14 very mediocre months, Eisner saw to it that Ovitz left with a severance package worth $138 million. That comes to $9.9 million dollars in severance pay for every month worked, $2.3 million per week, and about $45,000 an hour. Michael Eisner wrote to his friend Ovitz: I am committed to make this a win-win situation, to keep our friendship intact, to be positive, to say and write only glowing things."

Mr. Eisner said they should "deal with the public relations brilliantly...nobody ever needs to know anything other than positive things from either of us. This can all work out."

So Michael Eisner and Disney can deliver a win-win ending after all.

So why are young teenage workers in Bangladesh, who were paid just 12 cents an hour to sew Disney garments, still out of work 16 months after simply asking for one day a week off and that the beatings end? (link to NYT article)

Please contact Disney and tell them enough is enough—they should do the right thing now! You can send a fax straight to Disney corporate offices from http://www.nlcnet.org/campaigns/shahmakhdum/fax.shtml

Learn more at DisneySweatshops.org