Sweatshops And Disney Essays - Anti-corporate Activism,

Sweatshops And Disney Consumers can play an important role in closing sweatshops, and they have a right to know what companies are using sweatshops to produce their product there are simple steps consumers can take to help fight against the use of sweatshops. Right now many famous companies are using sweatshops readily to save money. However, ironically, the companies that use them are the companies that can afford to spend the extra money for regular labor. Some of these name brand companies include; Nike, Disney, Kathie- Lee Gifford, Gap, Liz Claiborne, Ralph Lauren, and Wal-Mart. Many people have no idea that these companies are using sweatshops. Disney for example is a very well known company. No one would ever expect that their favorite childhood Disney memory could have been created through sweatshops and child labor. Disney is just one of the many well respected, loved companies with dark secrets. It is hard to believe as a consumer that a company that consumers have grown to trust and love uses such forced labor, with underaged sweatshop employees making consumers favorite characters come to life. Well, Peter and Rochelle Schweizer makes it clear that it could be a possibility: ? The face of Disney the manufacturer is not a pretty one. All too often Disney clothes, toys, and trinkets are made by child laborers. Disney licensees have been caught using child labor on three continents? (245). Many other companies are practicing the same type of labor policies without consumers's knowledge. If companies feel that sweatshops are a decent and fair way of doing business and have no problems with continuing to use them, they should at least make these reasons public and confront their consumers's concerns. They should let their consumers know why they choose to conduct their business in this manner. Consumers would then have the real information on the product that they choose, and not only what the company wants them to Mueckler 2 know. Consumers would then be able to base their product choice on work place conditions as well as the over all product information. Some companies's use of sweatshops have been made public. Kathie-Lee Gifford's designer clothes company for example was widely evident in the news in 1996. Gifford was shocked when she heard of the sweatshop conditions her company was using. Since this Gifford has been involved in organizing the Apparel Industry Partnership with the U.S. Department of Labor. This organization tries to crack down on the use of child labor. This is one example of where the public influenced a company to change its policies. This gives hope that with consumer support other companies can be influenced in similar ways. Disney, however, has not been so noteworthy in their efforts. Disney licensees go out of their way to bring their company to countries such as Burma, where the practice of child labor is a normal everyday event, and they exploit this to create their product as cheaply as possible. Schweizer explains how remote the locations that Disney licensees use, ? For years Disney licensees were manufacturing in a country few Americans could locate on a map. Burma- also known as Myanmar, the name given it by the ruling military junta- is a poverty - stricken nation wedged between India, China, and the lush mountains of Thailand.? (251). This is an ideal location because so few people are aware of it. This makes it easy for the Disney licensees to continue their business without being detected. Another insight to Burma is that drug lords hold great power and are protected by the government. Disney licensees had to get the permission to have sweatshops in Burma from these drug lords. This shows how the drug lords are the ones with the power in Burma. First companies must win the respect of these drug lords before they are able to work there. ? Burma's attraction as a manufacturing site is obvious: ultracheap labor.? (252). Mueckler 3 When consumers and human rights groups along with labor organizations took action in 1996, they did get a response from Disney. The National Labor Committee and other organizations together made Disney's involvement in Burma public with the Free Burma Campaign. Disney denied these claims. They pretended they had no involvement in Burma. They knew how the negative public announcement would hurt the company, which is the major reason why companies hide the facts from the consumers. Schweizer explains that many other respectable companies have volunteered to monitor their working conditions,

How to Build Sentences With Appositives

How to Build Sentences With Appositives An appositive is a word or group of words that identifies or renames another word in a sentence. As weve seen (in the article What Is an Appositive?), appositive constructions offer concise ways of describing or defining a person, place, or thing. In this article, you will learn how to construct sentences with appositives. From Adjective Clauses to Appositives Like an adjective clause, an appositive provides more information about a noun. In fact, we may think of an appositive as a simplified adjective clause. Consider, for example, how the following two sentences can be combined: Jim Gold is a professional magician.Jim Gold performed at my sisters birthday party. One way to combine these sentences is to turn the first sentence into an adjective clause: Jim Gold, who is a professional magician, performed at my sisters birthday party. We also have the option of reducing the adjective clause in this sentence to an appositive. All that we need to do is omit the pronoun who and the verb is: Jim Gold, a professional magician, performed at my sisters birthday party. The appositive a professional magician serves to identify the subject, Jimbo Gold. Reducing an adjective clause to an appositive is one way to cut the clutter in our writing. However, not all adjective clauses can be shortened to appositives in this fashiononly those that contain a form of the verb to be (is, are, was, were). Arranging Appositives An appositive most often appears directly after the noun it identifies or renames: Arizona Bill, The Great Benefactor of Mankind, toured Oklahoma with herbal cures and a powerful liniment. Note that this appositive, like most, could be omitted without changing the basic meaning of the sentence. In other words, its nonrestrictive and needs to be set off with a pair of commas. Occasionally, an appositive may appear in front of a word that it identifies: A dark wedge, the eagle hurtled earthward at nearly 200 miles per hour. An appositive at the beginning of a sentence is usually followed by a comma. In each of the examples seen so far, the appositive has referred to the subject of the sentence. However, an appositive may appear before or after any noun in a sentence. In the following example, the appositive refers to roles, the object of a preposition: People are summed up largely by the roles they fill in society wife or husband, soldier or salesperson, student or scientistand by the qualities that others ascribe to them. This sentence demonstrates a different way of punctuating appositiveswith dashes. When the appositive itself contains commas, setting off the construction with dashes helps to prevent confusion. Using dashes instead of commas also serves to emphasize the appositive. Placing an appositive at the very end of a sentence is another way to give it special emphasis. Compare these two sentences: At the far end of the pasture, the most magnificent animal I had ever seen- a white-tailed deer- was cautiously edging toward a salt-lick block.At the far end of the pasture, the most magnificent animal I had ever seen was cautiously edging toward a salt-lick block- a white-tailed deer. Whereas the appositive merely interrupts the first sentence, it marks the climax of sentence two. Punctuating Nonrestrictive and Restrictive Appositives As weve seen, most appositives are nonrestrictivethat is, the information that they add to a sentence is not essential for the sentence to make sense. Nonrestrictive appositives are set off by commas or dashes. A restrictive appositive (like a restrictive adjective clause) is one that cannot be omitted from a sentence without affecting the basic meaning of the sentence. A restrictive appositive should not be set off by commas: John-Boys sister Mary Ellen became a nurse after their brother Ben took a job at a lumber mill. Because John-Boy has multiple sisters and brothers, the two restrictive appositives make clear which sister and which brother the writer is talking about. In other words, the two appositives are restrictive, and so they are not set off by commas. Four Variations 1. Appositives that Repeat a NounAlthough an appositive usually renames a noun in a sentence, it may instead repeat a noun for the sake of clarity and emphasis: In America, as in anywhere else in the world, we must find a focus in our lives at an early age, a focus that is beyond the mechanics of earning a living or coping with a household. - Santha Rama Rau, An invitation to Serenity Notice that the appositive in this sentence is modified by an adjective clause. Adjectives, prepositional phrases, and adjective clauses (in other words, all of the structures that can modify a noun) are often used to add details to an appositive. 2. Negative AppositivesMost appositives identify what someone or something is, but there are also negative appositives that identify what someone or something is not: Line managers and production employees, rather than staff specialists, are primarily responsible for quality assurance. Negative appositives begin with a word such as not, never, or rather than. 3. Multiple AppositivesTwo, three, or even more appositives may appear alongside the same noun: Saint Petersburg, a city of almost five-million people, Russias second-largest and northernmost metropolis, was designed three centuries ago by Peter the Great. As long as we dont overwhelm the reader with too much information at one time, a double or triple appositive can be an effective way of adding supplementary details to a sentence. 4. List Appositives with PronounsA final variation is the list appositive that precedes a pronoun such as all or these or everyone: Streets of yellow row houses, the ochre plaster walls of old churches, the crumbling sea-green mansions now occupied by government offices all seem in sharper focus, with their defects hidden by the snow. - Leona P. Schecter, Moscow The word all is not essential to the meaning of the sentence: the opening list could serve by itself as the subject. However, the pronoun helps to clarify the subject by drawing the items together before the sentence goes on to make a point about them.