CCR: When did Kathie Lee realize what was going on?
KERNAGHAN: We took the Honduran child worker to meet with Kathie Lee at Cardinal O'Connor's residency in New York City on June 5. It was the first time I met her. She came with attorneys and public relations people.
Kathie Lee asked Wendy, the child from Honduras, what it was like to work in the factory. Wendy, a 15-year old, was making Kathie Lee pants. She said - "We get there at 8:00 in the morning. We work until 9:00 at night. It is very dangerous when we come out. There is a poor neighborhood. We get in groups and we run home". She described what it was like to live with eleven people in one room and how she earned 31 cents an hour. She described being searched, about how she would have to raise her hand to use the bathroom how she was called a shithead and a whore for not working fast enough - the threats, the lack of water, working under armed guards, the place being as hot as an oven.
Kathie Lee Gifford's reaction was the reaction we have seen from people across the United States when they hear these stories. When you hear these stories, there is nothing you can do but be shocked and saddened. And that is exactly what happened to her. She looked at Wendy and she apologized. She said, "You have to believe me. I didn't know. I'm very sorry. I'm tragically sorry. I'm giving you my word, it will never happen again". She said she wanted to work with us and others to improve the situation.
Kathie Lee signed an agreement with us calling upon Wal-Mart to return to Honduras, not to cut and run, to use the work as a leverage to clean up the factory, to institute independent human rights monitoring, and to pay a living wage. I'm not sure she understood what the implications of a living wage are, but the agreement opened the discussion.
As a private label for Wal-Mart, she is hugely important to Wal-Mart. For Wal-Mart, Kathie Lee Gifford was a bonanza. Everytime she was on her talk show, everytime she sings the national anthem, everytime she is on a cruise line commercial, it benefits Wal-Mart. It's called cross-advertising.
After the agreement with Kathie Lee, the ball shifted into Wal-Mart's hands.
It's difficult to get your arms around a company like Wal-Mart - $97 billion a year in sales, the largest retailer in the world, the fourth largest company in the United States.
But we have started some discussions with Wal-Mart. They have been direct and frank. I project that before long, we will have independent monitoring of Wal-Mart.
Kathie Lee has agreed to independent monitoring.
Independent monitoring is done by someone not on the company payroll. It is conducted by real human rights groups and religious organizations on the ground. It does not mean that Kathie Lee Gifford goes out and hires Ernst & Young or Kroll Associates. That's crap.
CCR: But at Robert Reich's sweatshop summit last month in Virginia, the talk was about monitoring by Kroll and Ernst & Young and the like.
KERNAGHAN: It's a joke.
CCR: Was the sweatshop summit a fraud?
KERNAGHAN: No. To me, the conference showed that the issues of sweatshops was out of the bottle. The companies couldn't stuff it back in. And I just watched them squirm. They were squirming like mad.
I'm learning not to panic. Secretary Reich and the companies were talking about the privatization of monitoring. They were talking about a new industry. The corporations were pushing this.
I was thinking about the example of Nike. For the last two years, Nike has had Ernst & Young as their auditor in Indonesia. Did that help them at all? No. The activists are kicking their butts.
At the conference, the companies were in agreement - you had to be concerned with the mainline media, the government, and you have to be concerned about human rights organizations. If those three groups do not agree with what the corporations are doing, we get nowhere.
For the first time, corporations are now saying, we have to please the human rights organizations. Nike thought it was covering its ass by hiring Ernst & Young. But it didn't work because the conditions under which they produce their goods can't be defended. You can't defend paying people 22 cents an hour, the forced overtime, and the union busting.
CCR: Is Reich sincere on this issue?
KERNAGHAN: He's in a miserable and difficult position. He has only 800 labor inspectors to look at 6.5 million workplaces. There are also 700 state inspectors. Those 1,500 labor inspectors would have to visit more than 4,000 factories a day just to visit them - that's 8.3 factories a minute.
So, Reich has to do something, and he has decided to use his position as a bully pulpit.
CCR: Your next campaign is Walt Disney.
KERNAGHAN: It is a tough one. Disney is in Haiti. We think it is wonderful that Disney is in Haiti. Disney is using five factories in Haiti to produce children's clothing - Pocahontas, Lion King, Hunchback of Notre Dame, Mickey Mouse - the whole works. The workers are being paid approximately 28 cents an hour. The workers are earning seven cents for every garment they produce.
The workers in Haiti, producing Pocahontas garments, are getting one-half of one-percent of the sales price of the goods they make.
For example, for an $1 1.97 Pocahontas pajamas sold at Wal-Mart, the workers in Haiti are getting seven cents. It's a crime. These are starvation wages.
They can say that Haiti is a poor third world country. It is. It is on its knees. But Haiti is an expensive place to live. Seventy percent of what the people consume is imported. Food in Haiti can be as expensive as it is in the United States. And you can't come close to living on 28 cents an hour.
So, workers are living in debt as indentured servants. People go to bed hungry. People who are making Disney shirts are living in utter misery.
The workers tell us "Please bring Disney down here. All we want to do is talk to Disney. We want the jobs. We need the jobs. When they see how we live, we think Disney would like to discuss with us how to improve the circumstances."
Walt Disney is refusing everything. I'm getting sick of this. For all of its so-called family values. Disney has turned out to be a vicious bottom-line company.
We are just starting the campaign. We thought Disney would ask for a meeting. They won't respond to any of our letters. We have started a mailing. We wanted to bring a worker up from Haiti, but the workers in Haiti were too afraid to come to the United States. Not only will they be blacklisted, and never work again, they were afraid their kids would be "accidentally killed".
Instead of bringing someone, we made a small video, called "Mickey Mouse Goes to Haiti - The Science of Exploitation". We made the video in one week. It will give the U.S. people a taste of what it is like to work for Disney in Haiti.
The workers are asking for a living wage. They are asking for 58 cents an hour, if you can believe that. They say "we would still be poor, but we wouldn't be in total misery".
Doubling the wages would mean nothing to Disney - it would mean one percent of the sales price instead of one-half of one percent.
I believe that there are enough decent people in the United States to pressure Disney and get them to change.
Contact:
Charles Kernaghan
National Labor Comminee
275 Seventh Avenue
New York
New York 10001
USA
Tel. (212) 242-0986)
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