Nike shows integrity?

Nike has a Global Corporate Responsibility Report on its website that is absolutely amazing.  Since 2005, Nike has been working to make its company more transparent as it does its best to provide the safest and abuse-free environment for its workers that it can.  Nike admits to covering things up in the past, and turning their head at first, but as of now they are going to do all they can to not only change their policies, but work to lead the way for systemic change in corporate-owned factories.  Nike makes a comment that they used to take a harmful waste or manufacturing product and supply safety measures and protection for the workers that would come into contact with it.  Now, they are trying to totally eliminate these hazards from the manufacturing process!  Nike also talks about its plan to be environment friendly, and their ideas almost sound too good to be true.  From what they say, they have been examining and calculating their exact ecological footprint and are working to lessen that as much as possible.  I will talk about this more soon.

Just Don’t Do It

There seems to be a lot of pressure on Nike to start doing what is right, but they just plain won’t admit to doing anything wrong.  One big issues that was being brought up some years ago was the contract they have with the Univesity of Michigan.  This contract requires all U of M coaches, players, and staff wear only Nike gear and have it openly visible at all times at all of their athletic events.  Along with the contract, which gives the school a bunch of free gear and other stuff (but not that much), Nike gets total access to swipe their swoosh and advertisements all over everything having to do with the University of Michigan.  I know I wouldn’t agree with this if I were an athelete there.  U of M endorsing Nike, and Nike endorsing the ill-treatment of impoverished workers!    As a prestigious university, they should make some demands of their own on this contract, and that is what some U of M students and faculty said.  These concerned citizens created a campain called “Just Don’t Do It” that pushed for the U of M to make these demands or suspend the contract – demands like paying a living wage, having safe working conditions at factories, and explaining to workers what their rights are.  This movement was being backed by quite a few organizations, but I haven’t found any evidence that anything came of this campaign.  It sounded like a good start, but universities are usually pretty hesitant to back out on these big corporate deals.   

Labor abuses abound.

I have found many instances of Nike labor abuses in China, Haiti, Vietnam, and Indonesia.  These instances include many of the typical labor abuse tactics, such as forcing workers to work 65+ hrs a week @ 15 or 20 cents an hour, trusting factory managers’ reports of legal practices.  Other accusations are that Nike forces Chinese workers to give up their first month’s pay for a deposit – only to be given back after a year of employment.   There are reports of Nike workers being forced to run in the sweltering heat as punishment, beaten with shoes, and sexual assault.  These seemingly common instances have resulted in hospitalization and even death.  To me, this is totally unacceptable.  I hope it is to you.  These workers, (mostly women and young girls as is the norm in these kind of places) are people too.  We can’t just go on being blind consumers, because our uninformed and lazy choices cause great suffering in these countries.  Something has to be done, and we can’t just expect a big corporation like Nike to just go ahead and do the right thing.  It would be nice, but they obviously have plenty of investors to please and other shoe companies to compete with that are doing the same thing.  It would take some radical movement, and its not going to come from within Nike, you can bet on that.  How do we get these people to care about anything beside profits?  I don’t know…  any suggestions?

Just to start this off…

I have heard alot of things about Nike endorsing sweatshops and child labor and I intend get to the bottom of this issue throughout the course of this blog.  All the online chatter I have found saying that Nike is a problem has come from less-than-perfect sources.  Hopefully I will prove that Nike is doing its best and setting a good example for other companies by making sure that its products are only produced by legitimate factories that pay their workers a decent amount of money!