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Mickey Goes to Haiti and Leaves: Disney's Transnational Quest for Cheap Labor in the post-Cold War Era

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  25 October 2022

Lisa A. W. Phillips
Lisa A. W. Phillips*
Affiliation:
Associate Professor Department of History Indiana State University Terre Haute, Indiana
*
E-mail: Lisa.Phillips@indstate.edu
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After the collapse of the Soviet Union, Disney and other United States-based companies found themselves in the position to create a “new world order.” The National Labor Committee (NLC), Haitian grassroots labor organizers, a multimillion member international labor community, concerned shareholders, members of the U.S. Congress, and activists around the world pressured Disney to lead the way to a new global standard by paying a living wage and investing in local infrastructure wherever it did business. Whatever standards Disney enacted, they argued, the rest would follow. Rather than assume the “corporate mantle of responsibility,” Disney ran from the United States to Haiti, then to China, in search of cheap labor, a bigger profit margin, and the ability to do business without scrutiny. Seeing itself as just one entity in a global garment supply chain, Disney claimed responsibility only for licensing its brand to the contractors (U.S.-based) and subcontractors (in Haiti and later China) who handled the actual production of Disney merchandise.

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Freestanding Articles
Information
International Labor and Working-Class History , Volume 101: Invisible Labor in Carceral Spaces , Spring 2022 , pp. 144 - 163
Copyright
Copyright © International Labor and Working-Class History, Inc., 2022

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References

Notes

1. “Racial capitalism” was first articulated by Cedric Robinson in Black Marxism: The Making of the Black Radical Tradition (Chapel Hill, NC, 1983) and has been used extensively since; Robin D.G. Kelley puts racial capitalism into historical perspective in “What did Cedric Robinson Mean by Racial Capitalism?” Boston Review, January 12, 2017; accessed September 12, 2021, https://bostonreview.net/race/robin-d-g-kelley-what-did-cedric-robinson-mean-racial-capitalism.

2. The idea of development capital, development economies, and development organizations originated in the post- World War II era as a stabilization strategy designed by the World Bank; see Alacevich, Michele, “Not a Knowledge Bank: The Divided History of Development Economies and Development Organizations,” Social Science History 40 (Winter 2016): 627–56CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

3. Clyde Farnsworth, “Haiti's Allure for US Businesses,” The New York Times, June 17, 1984, F4; Abigail Bakan, ed. Imperial Power and Regional Trade: The Caribbean Basin Initiative (Waterloo, Ontario, 1993); much has been written about the Dominican Republic's success relative to Haiti's with many scholars arguing the Duvaliers were largely responsible for Haiti's failures; see Khan, Wasiq N., “Economic Growth and Decline in Comparative Perspective: Haiti and the Dominican Republic, 1930-1986,” Journal of Haitian Studies 16 (2010): 112–25Google Scholar.

4. Fatton, Robert, “Haiti and the Limits of Sovereignty: Trapped in the Outer Periphery,” in MacGuire, Robert and Freeman, Scott, eds. Who Owns Haiti? People, Power, and Sovereignty (Gainesville, FL, 2017), 29–30CrossRefGoogle Scholar; Sprague, Jeb, Paramilitarism and the Assault on Democracy in Haiti (New York, 2012), 12Google Scholar.

5. Scholars see the United States’ “use” of Haiti as a product of its complete disregard for the population in its quest for profit (i.e., racial capitalism); see Paul Farmer, The Uses of Haiti (Monroe, ME, 1994), and Noam Chomsky's introduction therein; Swedish economist Mats Lundahl emphasizes political corruption, the subsequent failure to develop an infrastructure, and a depressed agricultural sector in his explanation for Haiti's continued impoverishment; see “The Haitian Dilemma Reexamined: Lessons From the Past in Light of New Economic Theory,” in Robert I. Rotberg, ed. Haiti Renewed: Political and Economic Prospects (Washington, D.C., 1997), 60–92; Ermitte St. Jacques on the impact of United States’ agribusiness in “Women on the Move: Reinterpreting Haitian Migration to Cuba Through an Analysis of the Bahamas,” Journal of Haitian Studies 21, 2 (Fall 2015): 207–26; and the essays in Millery Polyne, ed., The Idea of Haiti: Rethinking Crisis and Development (Minneapolis, MN, 2013).

6. Gibbons, Elizabeth and Garfield, Richard, “The Impact of Economic Sanctions on Health and Human Rights in Haiti, 1991-1994,” American Journal of Public Health 89, no. 10 (October 1999): 1499–504CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed.

7. William Booth, “Embargo Leaves Haiti's Economy Down but Not Out,” Washington Post, August 10, 1994, https://www.washingtonpost.com/archive/politics/1994/08/10/embargo-leaves-haitis-economy-down-but-not-out/89876c64-0bec-4474-ab32-80779bfd723e/?utm_term=.1dc4c16d96b4.

8. Booth, “Embargo Leaves Haiti's Economy Down but Not Out,” Washington Post; Elizabeth Gibbons, Sanctions in Haiti: Human Rights and Democracy Under Assault (Westport, CT, 1999).

9. Chip Carey, Henry F., “US Policy in Haiti: The Failure to Help Despite the Rhetoric to Please,” Journal of Haitian Studies 8 (Fall 2002): 86–111Google Scholar; Ralph Pezzullo, Plunging into Haiti: Clinton, Aristide, and the Defeat of Diplomacy (Jackson, MS, 2006) offers a fascinating look at the Clinton Administration's negotiation of the situation.

10. Trouillot, Michel-Rolph, Haiti: State Against Nation: The Origins and Legacies of the Duvalierism (New York, 1990), 16Google Scholar.

11. For more on the impact of privatization in Haiti, see Wah, Tatiana, “Rethinking Privatization in Haiti: Implications from the Initial Experience,” Journal of Haitian Studies 3/4 (1996/1997): 15–29Google Scholar.

12. Mark Anner details the challenges labor faces in Solidarity Transformed: Labor Responses to Globalization and Crisis in Latin America (Ithaca, NY, 2011).

13. Sabo, “A High Cost of Living Makes Saving More of a Dream than a Reality for Many of Haiti's Workers Who are Used to . . . Existing Day to Day,” Grand Rapids Press, December 15, 1996, A1, UNITE International Relations Department Records #6000/27, Kheel Center for Labor Management Documentation and Archives, Cornell University Library [hereafter “UNITE Records #6000/27, Kheel Center”], Box 13, Folder 17 “The Walt Disney Company” [hereafter Box 13, Folder 17].

14. Krupat, Kitty, “From War Zone to Free Trade Zone: A History of the National Labor Committee,” in Ross, Andrew, ed., No Sweat: Fashion, Free Trade, and the Rights of Garment Workers (New York, 1997), 64–65Google Scholar.

15. Roberts, Susan, “Development Capital: USAID and the Rise of Development Contractors,” Annals of the Association of American Geographers 104 (September 2014): 1030–51CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

16. Krupat, From War Zone to Trade Zone, 72–73.

17. National Labor Committee [hereafter NLC], “Are Human Rights Campaigns Necessary?,” July 28, 1997, 1, UNITE Records #6000/27, Kheel Center, Box 13, Folder 17.

18. NLC, “Are Human Rights Campaigns Necessary?” July 28, 1997, 2, UNITE Records #6000/27, Kheel Center, Box 13, Folder 17.

19. NLC, “Are Human Rights Campaigns Necessary?,” July 28, 1997, 3, UNITE Records #6000/27, Kheel Center, Box 13, Folder 17.

20. Disney profit-related statistics are widely reprinted, see https://www.investors.com/news/walt-disney-animation-stock-revived-in-1980s-1990s-under-eisner (accessed March 15, 2020) for the 1990s.

21. NLC, “Are Human Rights Campaigns Necessary?” July 28, 1997, 5; UNITE Records #6000/27, Kheel Center, Box 13, Folder 17.

22. “Disney Names Boyd Chairman of Consumer Products Worldwide,” newspaper clipping, n.d. or identifying information, UNITE Records #6000/27, Kheel Center, Box 13, Folder 17.

23. NLC, “Are Human Rights Campaigns Necessary?” July 28, 1997, 5, UNITE Records #6000/27, Kheel Center, Box 13, Folder 17.

24. NLC, “Are Human Rights Campaigns Necessary?” July 28, 1997, 6, UNITE Records #6000/27, Kheel Center, Box 13, Folder 17.

25. NLC, “Disney Alert,” July 25, 1996, UNITE Records #6000/27, Kheel Center, Box 13, Folder 17.

26. NLC, “Draft Model Letter,” n.d., UNITE Records #6000/27, Kheel Center, Box 13, Folder 17.

27. Charles Kernaghan, Barbara Briggs, and the National Labor Committee, “The Outsourcing Report: Exporting America's Future, Sweatshop Warrior,” accessed May 26, 2020, https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZPmXiQKjRpw; Barry Bearak, “Kathie Lee and the Sweatshop Crusade,” Los Angeles Times, June 14, 1996; Jonathan D. Rosenblum, “A Farewell to Kathie Lee, Sweatshop Queen,” Chicago Tribune, July 30, 2000.

28. Steven Greenhouse, “Voluntary Rules on Apparel Prove Hard to Set,” NYTimes, February 1, 1997, 1.

29. NLC, “Setting the Record Straight,” January 17, 1997, 10, UNITE Records #6000/27, Kheel Center, Box 13, Folder 17.

30. “Progressive Asset Management,” October 3, 1996, UNITE Records #6000/27, Kheel Center, Box 13, Folder 17; Simpson to Briones, October 3, 1996, UNITE Records #6000/27, Kheel Center, Box 13, Folder 17 “The Walt Disney Company.”

31. “Disney Withdraws Effort to Block Shareholder Sweatshop Measure,” The Wall Street Journal, November 6, 1998, B4.

32. Charles Kernaghan to Disney Campaign Supporters, “Disney Begins to Budge,” January 17, 1997, UNITE Records #6000/27, Kheel Center, Box 13, Folder 17.

33. Linda Diesel, The Toronto Star, September 15, 1996, F6; Disney's employment or “use” of Haitian women as laborers gained a lot of traction in early 1996. Barry Bearak of the LA Times, Ray Sanchez of Long Island Newsday, the BBC, and Mary Ann Sabo of the Grand Rapids Press all went to Haiti, all interviewed the women who sewed Disney merchandise, and all found the same thing: wages so low that the women wanted “to die,” who couldn't make it “without juggling debts,” who were paid starvation wages; see NLC, press release, “Setting the Record Straight, The Real Disney,” January 17, 1997, UNITE Records #6000/27, Kheel Center, Box 13, Folder 17.

34. Steven Greenhouse, New York Times, February 1, 1997, “Voluntary Rules on Apparel Labor Prove Hard to Set,” 1 and 7; Conyers to Eisner, October 15, 1997, UNITE Records #6000/27, Kheel Center, Box 13, Folder 17.

35. Charles Kernaghan to Michele Briones, May 15, 1997, UNITE Records #6000/27, Kheel Center, Box 13, Folder 17.

36. Children's Summit, 1996 Fact Sheet, UNITE Records #6000/27, Kheel Center, Box 13, Folder 17.

37. The 1996 Children's Summit, The Disney Publication Network; copies obtained by the NLC and faxed, May, 21, 1997, UNITE Records #6000/27, Kheel Center, Box 13, Folder 17.

38. The 1996 Children's Summit, Kheel Center, Box 13, Folder 17.

39. Briones to Kernaghan, May 19, 1997, UNITE Records #6000/27, Kheel Center, Box 13, Folder 17; Briones to NYC7.SMTP, “Dear Mike” (Mike in Geneva), no date, UNITE Records #6000/27, Kheel Center, Box 13, Folder 17.

40. Briones to Kernaghan, June 11, 1997, UNITE Records #6000/27, Kheel Center, Box 13, Folder 17.

41. ICFTU Online press release, “Children's Summit: The ICTFU denounces the practices of Walt Disney's Subcontractors,” ICFTU to NYC7.STMP, June 10, 1997, 1, UNITE Records #6000/27, Kheel Center, Box 13, Folder 17.

42. Press release, Second Congress of the European Trade Union Federation of Textiles, Clothing, and Leather, Opporto, Portugal, May 21–23, 1997, UNITE Records #6000/27, Kheel Center, Box 13, Folder 17.

43. Jay Mazur (UNITE!) to Des Farrell (national secretary, clothing and garment section), April 16, 1997, UNITE Records #6000/27, Kheel Center, Box 13, Folder 17.

44. Fred von Leetuwen to Federico Mayer, June 11, 1997, UNITE Records #6000/27, Kheel Center, Box 13, Folder 17. 45 UNESCO, “Final Report, Declaration, and Action Plan: Protecting Children On Line,” 1999, accessed February 1, 20210 https://unesdoc.unesco.org/ark:/48223/pf0000119432?posInSet=2&queryId=N-EXPLORE-d1348c1b-6039-4102-bc4c-15a8d2a6ffdf.

45. UNESCO, “Final Report, Declaration, and Action Plan: Protecting Children On Line,” 1999, accessed February 1, 20210 https://unesdoc.unesco.org/ark:/48223/pf0000119432?posInSet=2&queryId=N-EXPLORE-d1348c1b-6039-4102-bc4c-15a8d2a6ffdf.

46. United Nations Human Rights Office of the High Commission, “Convention of the Rights of the Child,” accessed Feb 1, 2021 https://www.unicef.org.au/upload/unicef/media/unicef-simplified-convention-child-rights.pdf.

47. Lescault to NYC7.SMTP, June 23, 1997, UNITE Records #6000/27, UNITE Records #6000/27, Kheel Center, Box 13, Folder 17.

48. John Conyers Jr. to “Colleague,” September 25, 1997; “End Sweatshops and Child Labor in Haiti and Around the World, Briefing for the National Day of Conscience on Friday, October 3 with Haitian Labor Activist Yannick Etienne,” UNITE Records #6000/27, Kheel Center, Box 13, Folder 17.

49. Mike Rhodes to Campaign for Labor Rights [hereafter CLR], “Disney Union in Haiti Asks for Support,” September 18, 1997, UNITE Records #6000/27, Kheel Center, Box 13, Folder 17.

50. Charles Kernaghan, “Disney Begins to Budge,” January 17, 1997, UNITE Records #6000/27, Kheel Center, Box 13, Folder 17.

51. Mike Rhodes to CLR Campaign, “LV Myles/Disney Update,” November 20, 1997, UNITE Records #6000/27, Kheel Center, Box 13, Folder 17.

52. The Waterbury Manufacturing Company is listed throughout the 1980s, 1990s, and 2000s as a leading manufacturer of ladies and children's garments, in the $10 million dollar in sales or more categories; see Ward's Business Directory of US Private and Public Companies (updated every three months and accessible online).

53. NLC, “Are Human Rights Campaigns Necessary?,” July 28, 1997, 9, UNITE Records #6000/27, Kheel Center, Box 13, Folder 17.

54. Mike Rhodes to Campaign for Labor Rights all campaigns list; “Disney Workers Fired in Haiti,” November 6, 1997, UNITE Records #6000/27, Kheel Center, Box 13, Folder 17.

55. Obituary, Sidney M. Miller, accessed May 10, 2020, https://wwd.com/fashion-news/fashion-features/article-1091820.

56. Mike Rhodes to Campaign for Labor Rights, All Campaigns List, “Disney Workers Fired in Haiti,” November 6, 1997, UNITE Records #6000/27, Kheel Center, Box 13, Folder 17.

57. NLC mass mailing, “Jobs Threatened Urgent Action Alert, In Solidarity with Haitian and US Workers,” July 28, 1997, UNITE Records #6000/27, Kheel Center, Box 13, Folder 17.

58. Sabo, “US Garment Manufacturers are a Bonanza for Cash Poor Haiti but for the Workers Who Toil for $2.40/day the Song Remains the Same: Here Life is Difficult,” Grand Rapids Press, December 15, 1996, A1, A17, A18, UNITE Records #6000/27, Kheel Center, Box 13, Folder 17.

59. Sabo, “US Garment Manufacturers are a Bonanza,” Grand Rapids Press, December 15, 1996, A18, UNITE Records #6000/27, Kheel Center, Box 13, Folder 17.

60. Sabo, “Cost Cutting Leads Cutler to Abandon Haiti, Move Work to Asia,” The Grand Rapids Press, July 9, 1997, A1 and A4, UNITE Records #6000/27, Kheel Center, Box 13, Folder 17.

61. Sabo, “Unhappy with Wages, Workers Fight to Organize,” Grand Rapids Press, December 15, 1996 (page number not visible), UNITE Records #6000/27, Kheel Center, Box 13, Folder 17.

62. Mike Lloyd, “Story on Haitian Workers Doesn't Fit Stereotypes,” Grand Rapids Press, December 15, 1996 (no page visible), UNITE Records #6000/27, Kheel Center, Box 13, Folder 17.

63. Neil Kearney to All Affiliates, “Urgent Action Alert: Solidarity with Haitian and US Workers,” August 14, 1997; the ITGLWF was engaged in a similar campaign pressuring Disney and McDonalds to pressure its subcontractors in Vietnam and China to abide by the “universal code of conduct” the International Council of the Toy Industry had adopted the previous year in 1996, see press release, ITGLWF “No Happy Meals for Asian Toy Workers,” July 4, 1997, UNITE Records #6000/27, Kheel Center, Box 13, Folder 17.

64. Kearney to Eisner, August 14, 1997, UNITE Records #6000/27, Kheel Center, Box 13, Folder 17.

65. Kearney to Tom Austin, August 14, 1997, UNITE Records #6000/27, Kheel Center, Box 13, Folder 17.

66. The garment production process had been broken up over a century earlier by New England garment manufacturers who moved parts of the production to the US South, then offshore, to cut costs, see Beth English, A Common Thread: Labor, Politics, and Capital Mobility in the Textile Industry (Athens, GA, 2006) and Angela Hale and Jane Willis, Threads of Labour: Garment Industry Supply Chains from the Workers’ Perspectives (New York, 2005).

67. NLC, “Are Human Rights Campaigns Necessary?,” July 28, 1997, p. 6, UNITE Records #6000/27, Kheel Center, Box 13, Folder 17.

68. Sabo, “Cost Cutting Leads Cutler to Abandon Haiti, Move Work to Asia,” The Grand Rapids Press, July 9, 1997, A1 and A4; NLC, “Setting the Record Straight,” Jan 17, 1997, 5, UNITE Records #6000/27, Kheel Center, Box 13, Folder 17.

69. Conyers to Michael Eisner, October 15, 1997; thirty-one senators signed on, including John Lewis, Maxine Waters, and Bernie Sanders; the letter, addressed to Eisner, was copied to Alain Villard (BVF), Jack Brownstein (Waterbury), Hal Smith (HH Cutler), and Lawrence Pugh (VF Manufacturing), UNITE Records #6000/27, Kheel Center, Box 13, Folder 17.

70. Briones to Kearny, ITGLWF, March 2, 1998, UNITE Records #6000/27, Kheel Center, Box 13, Folder 17.

71. Walt Disney, “Code of Conduct for Manufacturers,” fax from the Campaign for Labor Rights to the ITGWLF, March 2, 1998; NLC, “Are Human Rights Campaigns Necessary?” July 28, 1997, 9, UNITE Records #6000/27, Kheel Center, Box 13, Folder 17.

72. The Campaign for Labor Rights, headquartered in Washington, D.C., was, like the NLC, focused on ending sweatshops but more union-focused than the NLC; CLR to NYC7 GWIA, “Disney-Haiti Update, 9-15-98,” UNITE Records #6000/27, Kheel Center, Box 13, Folder 17.

73. CLR to NYC7.GWIA, “Disney/Haiti Update, 9-16-98,” UNITE Records #6000/27, Kheel Center, Box 13, Folder 17. 74 NLC, “Setting the Record Straight,” Jan 17, 1997, p. 7, UNITE Records #6000/27, Kheel Center, Box 13, Folder 17. 75 CLR to NYC7-GWIA, “Disney/Haiti Update, 9-16-98,” UNITE Records #6000/27, Kheel Center, Box 13, Folder 17.

74. NLC, “Setting the Record Straight,” January 17, 1997, p. 7, UNITE Records #6000/27, Kheel Center, Box 13, Folder 17.

75. CLR to NYC7-GWIA, “Disney/Haiti Update, 9-16-98,” UNITE Records #6000/27, Kheel Center, Box 13, Folder 17.

76. CLR, “Disney Shareholder Resolution,” Feb 4, 1999, UNITE Records #6000/27, Kheel Center, Box 13, Folder 17; Yahoo, Reuters News, January 6, 1999, UNITE Records #6000/27, Kheel Center, Box 13, Folder 17.

77. NLC, “Alert, National Public Radio Report Seriously Distorts the Struggle for Human and Worker Rights in Haiti,” July 28, 1997, UNITE Records #6000/27, Kheel Center, Box 13, Folder 17; Sabo, “Unhappy with Wages” (page number not visible).

78. Disney had subcontractors manufacturing garments in Burma from 1995–1996; after labor pressure and increased scrutiny it pulled out of Burma and wrote “as of Dec 1 [1996] there is no more merchandise being made in Burma,” which was after Disney had, earlier that year, denied any of its merchandise was made in Burma at all,” see Kernaghan to Disney campaign supporters, January 17, 1997, UNITE Records #6000/27, Kheel Center, Box 13, Folder 17.

79. Mark Schaller, “Invasion of Infusion? Understanding the Role of NGOs in Contemporary Haiti,” Journal of Haitian Studies 13 (Fall 2007): 102; see also Vijaya Ramachandran and Julie Walz, “Where Has All the Money Gone?” Journal of Haitian Studies 21 (Spring 2015): 26–65.

80. “Racial capitalism” best explains the relationship between the United States and Haiti. Historian Kris Manjapra argues that the relationship between the United States and Caribbean countries, in particular, was based on “a racialized system of dispossession and exploitation, dehumanizing some groups for the material benefit of others,” see Kris Manjapra, “Plantation Dispossessions: The Global Travel of Agricultural Racial Capitalism,” Sven Beckert and Christine Desan, eds., American Capitalism: New Histories (New York, 2014), 363 and 365. Versions of that relationship continued through the U.S. occupation of Haiti in 1915 into the present day. Historians, anthropologists, economists, and other scholars are now placing Haiti in a transnational framework. While analyses of the Haitian revolution still dominate, new chapters in Haiti's transnational history are being written; see the essays in Carla Calarge et al., eds., Haiti and the Americas (Jackson, MS, 2015) especially chapters by Jeff Karem on Haiti and transnational blackness and Myriam J. A. Chancy's on globalization and crisis. Recent anthropological work is helpful as well, see Jeb Sprague's work on transnational value chains in “The Caribbean and Global Capitalism: Five Strategic Traits,” in Ino Rossi, ed., Challenges of Globalization and Prospects for an Inter-civilizational World Order (New York, 2020), 809–32; Alan Rappeport, “Yellen Calls for a Global Minimum Corporate Tax Rate,” The New York Times, April 5, 2021.

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