In Heart of Darkness the “intended”, Kurtz’s fiancé,thinks Kurtz is a great man and his success only comes from him being better than the others. Of course this is not true. If we all knew the story behind the products we buy, we would see that we are not unlike the “intended”.

The workers of Saipan, an island that is part of the US commonwealth, face debt bondage, organized crime, corrupt officials, sexual slavery and a hour work days without overtime. They live in guarded dormitories surrounded by barbed wire. However, Saipan is part of the US commonwealth, so companies placing orders in the factories there can place a “Made in USA” labels on the products we buy from the Galleria. A bill, resulting from a lawsuit against the companies listed below, is currently working its way through congress to remedy this situation in the island chain of which Saipan is a part. The Gap, Dayton-Hudson, The May Dept. Stores, Wal-Mart Stores, Jones Apparel Group, The Gymboree, The Limited, J Crew Group, Nordstrom, The Dress Barn, Warnaco Group, OshKosh B’Gosh, Tommy Hilfiger USA, Sears Roebuck

Kurtz’s Perspective Sweatshops are not slave labor and, therefore, benefit the worker as well as the employer. If that worker considered the conditions worse than other options, he would choose another job. Forcing companies to fire child laborers puts them on the streets.

- 200 women sewing 16 hours a day, seven days a week, from 8:00 a.m. to 2:00 a.m. - Wages for the average worker range from 12 ½ cents an hour to 28 cents an hour. “At the Guo Nian Garment Factory, women are paid $13.90 for a 112 hour work week.” -In the Midway Daily Products, Ltd., women are housed eight seamstresses to a - 5-by-10-foot room. - Although according to Chinese law overtime pay is a 50% premium, garment factories require as much as 30 hours of overtime, paying only a 10% premium. Charles Kernaghan, the Executive Director of the National Labor Committee wrote to the CEO of Disney citing several worker rights violations:

Since that letter, no changes have been made. A press release by the Christian Industrial Committee on December 4, 2000 shows evidence of labor exploitation: - Workers still forced to work 16 hour work days, “crowding people into single dorm rooms” - Workers are ignorant of the Disney Code of Conduct, which allegedly protects worker rights As a business firm, Disney is out to make a profit not to be a leader in international labor reform. As the Labor Commissioner of California, Jose Millan concluded, “What Disney…and these other companies are really interested in is the quality of the product—not the quality of the work lives of the workers…”

Sources Conrad, Joseph. Heart of Darkness. W. W. Norton and Company: New York, N.Y Henderson, David. “The Case for Sweatshops”. The Weekly Standard. 7 February Microsoft Internet Explorer. www-hoover.stanford.edu (5 March 2001). McGeveran, Elizabeth Elliot. “Disney’s Untold Story”. Microsoft Internet Explorer. (1 March 2001). Kernaghan Charles. “Letter on Disney’s Worker Rights Violations”. Microsoft Internet Explorer. (5 March 2001). Christian Industrial Committee. “Press Release: Report Exposes Sweatshop Abuses in Disney’s Chinese Supply Factories”. Microsoft Internet Explorer. (5 March 2001).