Shadow Business

- When you over in American Samoa, what…what surprised you the most?

- I guess what hit me the most is the condition of the factory that the workers were in:

The factory was surrounded by a fence and barbed wire on top and on the bottom. And they have a chain-linked fence surround the whole factory and, and dormitory compound. The gate has a…has a guard shack, where the guard sit there and control the worker movement in and out of the.. of the factory

- The factory are made of ahm.. tin panels with tin roof. It's really hot. The temperature over there is verily ninety degrees and inside the factory or the dormitory it reaches way over a hundred degrees.

[Verse 1]:

Yeah

It's the contemporary form of slavery, they call it slave labour

But they don't prosecute them cuz it's how they make paper

When you rocking that fly shit that's made in China

By an eight year old child tryna feed his mama

He exposed to contamination and disease

And only fifty-five percent of them will get degrees

And the women have to try to placate the boss

Because it's sex discrimination in the labour force

The slave master only let them speak in sign language

And they're suffering from lung disease and eye damage

fourteen hour shifts, seven days a week

two shitty meals a day, very little sleep

Human life only worth three cents an hour

All human right laws loose sense of power

What did four hundred years in the grave passes?

Only the improved cleverness of slave masters.

[Chorus]:

Is life worth living if you living in hell?

When the mind is confined to a prisoner's cell?

And the lies they devise in the system that fail

But I expect the system to fail!

Is life worth living if you living in hell?

When the mind is confined to a prisoner's cell?

And the lies they devise in the system that fail

But I expect the system to fail!

- Many Chinese workers are forced to sign secret agreements, known as shadow contracts, before they leave China, severely and, in some ways, illegally restricting their activities while on American soil. Workers are forbidden to participate in any religious or political activity or to ask for a salary increase or even to fall in love or get married.

[Verse 2]:

It's one point six million people locked in jail

They do new slave labour force trapped in hell

They generate over a billion dollars worth to power

And only getting paid twenty cents an hour

They make cloths for McDonald's and for Apple Bee's

And working fourteen hour shifts in prison factories

And while we sit around debating who the wack emcee is

They have to work when arthritic pain attack the knees

Slavery is not illegal, that's a fucking lie!

It is illegal, unless it's for conviction of a crime

The main objective is to get you in your fucking prime.

And keep the prison full and not give you a fucking dime

But they the real criminal keeping you confined

For a petty crime but they give you two-to-nine

And ain't nobody there to protect ya

Except a bunch of incompetent human rights inspectors

[Chorus]:

Is life worth living if you living in hell?

When the mind is confined to a prisoner's cell?

And the lies they devise in the system that fail

But I expect the system to fail!

Is life worth living if you living in hell?

When the mind is confined to a prisoner's cell?

And the lies they devise in the system that fail

But I expect the system to fail!

- The sweatshop situation's kind of cohesive and kind of take advantage on the people that are poor and at an economic disadvantage.

- This Chinese woman made T-shirts and pants at the factory until she became pregnant.

- When I told them I was pregnant, they told me to have an abortion..

- Tu Xiao Mei says she refused to have the abortion and has now been barred from entering the factory.

- To allow them to bring that on to US soil is a very deep concern. We've now documented the facts that management coerces female workers who become pregnant into having abortions.

- But human rights workers say it's common practice

- Inside that factory Chinese law applies, and Chinese law is… is supreme

- Even though it's the United States of America?

- The flag doesn't fly inside there.