#coprorate

ANOTHER REASON TO HATE THINGS.  *WATCH TIL THE VERY END*

InCe Comunica, agenzia di comunicazione, ha scelto noi come casa di produzione e PieroCostantini come regista per il nuovo video corporate della compagnia aerea tutta italiana Blue Panorama. E' un'autentica sfida sia dal punto di vista produttivo che post-produttivo. Ora siamo in fase di pre-produzione, gireremo a metà settembre e il video vedrà la luce i primi giorni di ottobre. State sintonizzati! 

As Americans we live in a buy-and-go society. We stop just long enough to purchase what we need, anxiously await our turn in line, consume, and repeat the experience. We drive around for ages looking to snag that prime spot in the front of the parking lot so we don’t have far to walk to get our beloved disposable goods from department stores while in other (less developed) countries people walk great distances just to get to work so that they can feed themselves that night, only to repeat the same process day in and day out with little to nothing to show for their efforts. Corporations use advertising ploys to not only to increase their sales, but also to misguide us into thinking the company is concerned with our wellbeing (as perhaps they could be) however they are certainly not concerned with the wellbeing of the people in the countries where their factories are located. For example, the much-beloved Walt Disney empire owns a production plant for clothing in Haiti (as well as other large corporations such as JC Penny, Wal-Mart and K-Mart). These American companies are attracted to places like Haiti by the high rates of unemployment and poverty because they know that these nearly-destitute people will be more than happy to work for anything they can get. The total of money paid to Disney employees in Haiti equates to being less than one percent of their generated revenue, so the question of whether or not Disney can afford to pay the ones who make them rich more adequately is simply not applicable. Workers in Haiti generally receive somewhere between five and ten cents per piece they complete. Most of the wages are so low that the cost of living is higher than they can possibly earn. Most work long days (up to 20 hours), totaling around 100 or more hours per week (there is only 160 hours in a week). There are no labor unions. There is little in the way of employee rights and/or benefits, and the cost of living is not as low as these companies oft tell those who pry into their secrecies. One documentary (“Mickey Mouse Goes to Haiti”) brought to my attention that about 70% of what Haiti consumes is imported. Food can be just as pricey as it is in the United States. In Bangladesh, people who are known as “ship breakers” do just that, tear old military and freight vessels apart with little more than their bare hands. These people work long days for just over a dollar a day. While the United States is no longer allowed to dispose of ships here (thanks to a bill passed in the Clinton days), many other countries still do. The people here handle toxic wastes with bare hands and walk amongst smoldering fires producing toxic fumes. Oil and other liquid wastes run freely from the beach into the ocean. China, the United States closest trading partner is not much better. Workers in factories there face many of the problems other nations workers face. There are even people being exploited in the United States. Our food prices stay low only because of the laboring of migrant workers. Our computer’s motherboards are broken open and the small metal parts are harvested by hand by workers in countries like Malaysia. The pharmaceutical company Bayer was found to knowingly have sold an IV-administered drug by the name of Factor VIII (an anti-hemophiliac) to Europe, South America, and Asia (as well as select other regions) after it was found to have a protein contaminated by the AIDS virus. Why would a company do something so blatantly harmful to the people they advertise to care so much about? I’ll leave that for you to ponder. One cannot hope to change such an entrenched global system such as this in a day by a mere article or series of articles, but perhaps we can all spread awareness of these crimes against humanity (yes, I truly believe these are indeed crimes) and rally for change as the knowledge spreads. While watching a part of the documentary “Mickey Mouse Goes to Haiti” I saw a related video from Disney’s Youtube channel urging people to extend a caring hand to help the people of Haiti after the earthquake in 2010. The tone was concerned and optimistic, however I found it odd that commenting was disabled on that video and was allowed on many others. Why would that be? The next time you go shopping I urge you to look into: what you’re buying, where it’s produced, and who made it. I realize that as an American consumer there really is no complete escape from giving your money to the people who allow these sorts of things to go on in the name of free business, but again I urge you to carry this with you after you read. We can make a change if we open enough eyes and let these companies know that we do not approve and that we will not tolerate their greed at the expense of those less fortunate than they.