wfn.org | Mickey's ears ringing with church youth video message

["Barb Powell"<powellb@ucc.org>]

Aug. 19, 1998
Office of Communication
United Church of Christ
William C. Winslow, press contact
(212) 870-2137
winsloww@ucc.org
On the Web: <http://www.ucc.org>

Mickey's ears ringing with
church youth group video message

     NEW YORK CITY -- Mickey Mouse and his boss
probably won't like the message, but they'll love the medium in
which it was delivered.  
     A videotape sent to Disney chairman Michael Eisner
features a group of United Church of Christ teenagers crooning the
lyrics to "Dear Mr. Eisner," a song by the Rev. Brian Sirchio, a
UCC minister and professional songwriter from Madison, Wis. 
The refrain won't be music to the ears of the Walt Disney
Company's chairman:

     "If Disney won't pay a real living wage
     You won't get a dollar of mine
     I won't go to your movies, your theme parks or stores
     I'll tell folks that Mickey Mouse rips off the poor."

     The teens are protesting what they claim are sweatshop
conditions in apparel factories in Haiti that make clothing for
Disney.  "As young adults we appreciate everything Disney has
done for our generation," they say in a letter of petition
accompanying the video, but then go on to denounce what they
say is Disney's use of starvation wage labor in developing
countries.

     The taped message grew out of a recent Great Lakes
Regional Youth Event at Beloit (Wis.) College sponsored by the
United Church of Christ's Board for Homeland Ministries. 
Sirchio, who writes songs on social issues, performed "Dear Mr.
Eisner" during the event. The song, which Sirchio wrote after one
of several trips to Haiti, compares the Disney chairman's hourly
wage to how much the workers in Haiti make per hour. 
Captivated by the song's content and sound, the youth wanted to
learn the lyrics and sing it themselves.  They did   in front of a
video camera belonging to someone at the event.  That videotaped
recording is what Eisner was sent, along with a petition calling for
such reforms as global standards to outlaw starvation wage labor
and free unannounced access to factories in conjunction with other
human rights groups.

     "It was a real '70s type of moment for those of us old
enough to remember being teens in those years," confesses the
Rev. Jeffrey Dick, minister of South Haven (Mich.)
Congregational UCC and one of the youth event's adult advisors. 
"For the young people, it was a spiritual moment of putting their
faith on the line for others."

     The United Church of Christ has 1.4 million members and
some 6,000 local congregations in the United States and Puerto
Rico.  It was formed by the 1957 union of the Congregational
Christian Churches and the Evangelical and Reformed Church.
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