With those flashy sneakers and inspirational commercials, it’s hard to hate a brand like Nike. They’ve been sponsoring top athletes like Rafa Nadel and Serena Williams for decades and manufacture some of the best sports merchandise on the market. On top of that, Nike forms contracts with college athletic departments across the nation and even makes products specifically for students right here, at William and Mary. So what could be so bad about Nike?
Well, judging from Jim Keady’s experience: A LOT. Keady delivered a compelling presentation to William and Mary students this Thursday evening addressing Nike’s labor practices. Keady learned of Nike’s overseas sweatshop factories as a soccer coach at St. John’s University. When the university accepted a contract with Nike, he refused to endorse their products—a decision which cost him his job. He then began to raise awareness on the issue; he traveled to Indonesia and spent a month living on a sweatshop wage, under the same conditions as Nike factory employees.
The experience, which Keady captured in a documentary, was horrifying. With less than two dollars a day, he could barely afford enough to eat. The Nike workers in the Indonesian town survive in cramped, unsanitary conditions and cannot send their children to school. They are cheated out of overtime wages, surrounded by Nike’s scrap rubber dumping grounds, and abused in any number of ways. Female Nike employees even reported being forced to prove that they were menstruating in order to use the restrooms.
Keady has constantly lobbied the corporation to reform their practices since this initial trip in 1998. He has returned to Indonesia multiple times in order to interview workers and uncover their stories of exploitation. Keady’s work, along with the efforts of other activists, organizations, and students, has led to some victories, like a decrease in physical abuse and two days of “menstrual leave” for women. However, from a broad perspective, this is not enough.
When asked of his hope for the future, a worker told Keady that he longed to one day afford a pair of the Nike sneakers he had been manufacturing for years. He hoped to buy them for his daughter and show her how he makes a living. The simple truth is that Nike workers are proud of their jobs and want to make Nike products. But they also want the dignity of being treated with respect and the justice of fair rights and wages.
Unfortunately, these types of reforms won’t be brought about on their own and exploited workers across the world need more vocal support.
According to Nike’s website, the corporation writes that their “greatest responsibility as a global company is to play a role in bringing about positive systemic change for workers within our own supply chain, and in the industry.”
It’s time to pressure Nike to stop promising change and finally “just do it.”
Here are some estimates of Nike’s wages:
Wage of Indonesian worker: $2.46/day
Wage of Vietnamese worker: $1.60/day
Wage of Chinese worker: $1.51/day
Phil Knight, the chairman of Nike: sixth richest man in America
To learn more about this issue or to learn about ways you can help visit:
www.teamsweat.org
Sources:
www.teamsweat.org
www.nikebiz.org
Image:
http://mytreetv.wordpress.com/2011/02/27/slavery/
This article is written by a student writer from the Her Campus at WM chapter.