The company that brought the world Mickey Mouse is in hot water with both labour groups and pro-democracy activists over its connections with a garment assembly plant in Burma.

Walt Disney Company has received clothing, under a licensing agreement with the New York firm Mamiye Brothers/American Character Classics, from the Yangon plant in Burma, partly owned by that country’s repressive military, according to the National Labour Committee (NLC), a New York labour group.

As a result of the Burmese junta’s 45-percent stake in the Yangon garment factory and an additional 5-percent tax on all exports, “50 cents of every dollar earned producing the ‘Mickey and Co.’ label at the Yangon factory flows back directly into the pockets of the Burmese military,” the NLC argues.

That money goes a long way to help consolidate Burma’s military junta, the State Law and Order Restoration Council (SLORC), added Larry Dohrs, a coordinator in Seattle of the ‘Free Burma’ Campaign.

“The garment industry accounts for a substantial portion of Burma’s foreign earnings,” Dohrs said, noting the U.S. Embassy in Rangoon estimates that the country earned some 65.1 million dollars — 80 percent of its total exports to the United States — from garment production in 1995.

“Disney is a big player that field,” Dohrs added. “And the government dominates all business activity in Burma — that’s just a basic fact.”

For Burmese workers, it is an extremely low-paying field. The U.S. Embassy estimates that many Burmese garment workers spend 60 hours a week assembling clothes, for a wage of only six cents an hour.

The NLC contends that, on average, Burmese workers earn only two or three cents for making a Mickey Mouse T-shirts that sells for 17 dollars in the United States.

In its June 1996 report on foreign economic trends, the U.S. Embassy points out that a large number of the garment assembly firms are at least partly owned by either the Burmese junta or by businessmen in “the opiates sector.”

Noting the U.S. State Department’s recognition of Burma as a major source of world heroin and opium production, Dohrs said that by involving itself in garment production there, “Disney is in with some unsavoury company.”

But a Disney spokesman denies the charges, noting the company has no direct involvement in Burma.

“We have decided already not to do any business in Burma as a company,” said the spokesman, who insisted on anonymity. The subcontracting agreement at the Yangon factory is “three steps removed from Disney,” he argued.

Nevertheless, he said, following reports of low pay and abuses at the plant, Disney is beginning its own investigation of conditions there.

A spokesman for Mamiye Brothers told IPS that the company “independently pulled out of Burma six months ago.” Even before the reports of abuses at the Yangon plant surfaced, he said, the New York-based firm decided not to place any orders at the plant for its 1997 production.

The news about Disney’s link to garment assembly in Burma comes even as students at some 60 colleges and 10 high schools fasted this week to protest U.S. investment in Burma.

The students are fasting because “the situation is getting worse in Burma, with mass arrests and a crackdown on the (pro- democracy) National League for Democracy (NLD),” said Sein Win, a NLD leader now based in Washington and the movement’s choice for Burmese prime minister.

U.S. firms, Sein Win added, should respond by cutting off trade with Burma, which is heavily controlled by the ruling SLORC.

“Until we have a system that guarantees rule of law and basic democratic institutions, no amount of aid or investment will benefit our people,” Aung San Suu Kyi, the NLD’s chief and the 1991 Nobel Peace Prize laureate, warned in a taped message to the fasters. “Profits from business enterprises will merely go towards enriching a small, very privileged elite.”

“It would be fitting, especially during the fast for Burma… for Disney to announce that it has made a grave mistake and will immediately sever all ties to Burma until the democratic government, which has overwhelming support, is restored to office,” said NLC director Charles Kernaghan.

The recent focus on Burma, including President Bill Clinton’s restrictions on the travel to the United States of most SLORC members and their families, has already had an effect on U.S. businesses dealing with Burma.

Several U.S. apparel firms, including Liz Claiborne, pulled out of Burma. The Heineken Brewery ended its contracts with Rangoon recently, explicitly because connections to the SLORC “could have an adverse effect on our brand and corporate reputations,” according to Heineken chief executive officer Karel Vuurstein.

Disney, because of its image as a family-oriented business, could be equally sensitive to any links with Burma’s military regime, Dohrs argued. “Disney is such a high-profile company that it is quite possible to bring pretty close scrutiny to them,” he said.

A campaign against Disney also could help raise awareness about companies more closely linked to deals with that allegedly benefit the SLORC, including the U.S. petroleum firm Unocal and French firm Total SA, which have invested in a major gas pipeline in Burma, Dohrs added.

Sein Win believes the battle over U.S. public opinion is already being won by the NLD and democratic movement. “The movement is gaining support at the city level, at the state level, and among local people,” he said. “A year ago, we didn’t see much of this kind of awareness in the United States.”

But Kernaghan worries that, regardless, U.S. firms will continue to do business with military regimes and other governments that treat workers unfairly.

“What the rest of the world won’t take, we do,” he contended. “Why is the U.S. apparel industry always on the wrong side, opening its arms to sweatshops in outlaw regimes?”