Stepping up a campaign against Walt Disney Co, activists on Monday charged that workers — some as young as 10 years old — laboured for more than 13 hours a day stitching Winnie the Pooh shirts at a Bangladesh factory.The National Labour Committee for Human Rights during the last two weeks has picketed outside Disney Stores in Chicago, New York and Nashville, Tenn., to protest low pay and poor work conditions at factories turning out Disney-themed merchandise. They plan to demonstrate at the gates of Disneyland in Anaheim, California, on Tuesday.On Monday, Shirley Slesinger Lasswell, who owns the rights to Pooh merchandise and is locked in a bitter royalty lawsuit with Disney, sobbed at a news conference in Beverly Hills as Lisa Rahman, 19, described life inside the Dhaka factory. Rahman said she toiled at the factory for three years — earning as little as 8 cents an hour, or about 5 cents for every garment that she made that carried a Disney label.‘‘None of us wants to profit from human suffering,’’ said Lasswell, 81. Her attorney, Bertram Fields, said his team is researching whether to incorporate the sweatshop allegations into its lawsuit, which is scheduled for trial in March.Lasswell and her daughter, Patricia Slesinger, have received more than $66 million from Disney since 1961 from the sales of Pooh merchandise. Disney maintains that the company is being unfairly targeted. ‘‘We feel that we have one of the best international labour standards programs in the world,’’ spokesman Gary Foster said. ‘‘We take these issues very seriously.’’He said Disney spends millions each year investigating and enforcing its code of work standards, auditing some 25,000 factories in 50 countries. Disney-hired auditors visited the Dhaka factory 11 times and could not substantiate charges of worker abuse, Foster said.Since 1997, Disney has set up a computerised tracking system to monitor its merchandise contracts and conditions. The company also requires that Disney work be pulled from factories that fail three audits. But a monitor for Domini Social Investments said that Disney and other companies have not addressed issues of low pay at factories that produce licensed merchandise. (LATWP)
