Since the 1970s, Nike, Inc. has been accused of using sweatshops to produce footwear and clothing items. Nike has denied claims in the past, suggesting the company has little control over sub-contracted factories. Beginning in 2002, Nike began auditing its factories for health and safety concerns.
Video Nike sweatshops
Allegations
Nike has been accused of using sweatshops since the early 1970s, when producing goods in South Korea, the People's Republic of China, and Taiwan. As the economies of these countries grow, workers become more productive, wages rise, and many are turning to higher-paying jobs. Nike finds cheaper workers in the People's Republic of China and Vietnam, which prohibit trade unions. When workers demand additional rights and benefits in these countries, Nike factories close down and move to different locations that will allow them to continue operating at low cost.
Throughout the 1990s, Nike was criticized for selling goods manufactured in sweatshops. They initially rejected claims against them. However, in 2001, Nike director Todd McKean stated in an interview that "the initial stance is, 'Hey, we do not have a factory.We do not control what's going on there.' To be honest, it's a kind of irresponsible way for this approach.We have people there every day looking at quality.Obviously, we have an influence and responsibility with certain parts of the business, so why not someone else? "On In 2005, protesters in more than 40 universities demanded that their institutions support companies that use "sweat-free" labor. Many student-led anti-sweatshop groups, such as United Students Against Sweatshops. At Brown University, Nike goes a long way to withdraw from a contract with a women's ice hockey team due to efforts by a student activist group that wants a code of ethics imposed by the company.
Tim Sweat is one of the largest groups that specifically track and protest Nike. Tim Sweat is an "international coalition of consumers, investors, and workers committed to ending injustices in Nike sweatshops worldwide" founded in 2000 by Jim Keady. While Keady did his research on Nike at St. University. John, the school signed a $ 3.5 million deal with Nike, which forced all athletes and coaches to support Nike. Keady openly refused to support Nike and was forced to resign his position as football coach in 1998. Since resigning, Keady has been doing original research into the conditions at Nike's Sweatshops. He traveled to Indonesia and stayed for a month among Nike factory workers, surviving at $ 1.25 a day as they did (http://www.villanovan.com/news/jim-keady-speaks-out- against-nike/article_9e6f7512- e353-5b69-a10c-35747d476267.html)
Factory investigation
Advocacy groups are involved in looking at the conditions of the factories where Nike, Inc. products created as a way to understand the problem more fully. Throughout the 1990s, Nike experienced rapid growth after they moved the main branch of production abroad. Broken profit records are reported and factory numbers are increasing to meet consumer demand for Nike products. Employees are generally poor people in the area around the factory looking for any income. The heads of factories are Nike contractors who often live in America or Europe and have nothing to do with their employees. Monitoring tasks are given to top level factory workers. The authority of the supervisor includes enforcing the rules to be followed by the workers and ensuring that they are working with optimal standards.
Findings from factory investigations show that superiors often go beyond their job. The laws protecting workers are ignored in order to cut costs and lower health standards. This is possible because political leaders are paid by factory supervisors to limit government interference. Leaders convey messages to military and police units to ignore conditions at the plant so that illegal environments can remain open and functioning. They were also warned to observe signs of labor activism near the factories to prevent workers from aligning each other for better conditions.
Women represent most of the factory employees. About 75 to 80% of workers are women and most of them are in their teens or early twenties. Factory work may require women to work long hours, ranging from nine to thirteen hours per day, six days a week. They are very limited in the amount of time they can release and are forced to work overtime on several occasions during the week. Although more women are employed in factories, they represent a minority in a higher paid supervisory position.
Maps Nike sweatshops
Advocacy efforts
The goal of transnational advocacy groups working on behalf of Nike factory workers is to enable workers to earn higher wages, improve factory working conditions, enable them to organize, and gain respect from their employers. Global efforts have increased the scattered information about Nike sweatshop conditions. Countries such as the Netherlands, Germany, France, and Belgium, where there is no Nike plant, have branches of organizations that work for better factory conditions. In countries such as Indonesia, Thailand, Mexico and Cambodia, where factories are common, non-governmental organizations encourage anti-Nike efforts by notifying the public through in-house workplace media. Some of the most notable advocacy groups are Global Exchange (United States), Christian Aid (UK), The Ethical Shopper (New Zealand), and Clean Clothes Campaign (Europe).
There are several types of advocacy groups, ranging from human rights organizations, religious groups, to workers' associations. Each has a different motive to support factory workers but they work together to improve the conditions of factory workers. Advocacy groups function through donations, fundraising, and in some cases government funding. The majority of them make hand-out information that they distribute to residents by mail or at events. There has been a rapid increase in the use of the Internet as a means to distribute information between advocacy groups. The spread of news across borders allows groups to mobilize and unify campaigns.
The main focus of political efforts in the host country is the increase in the minimum wage of workers. In Indonesia, other legislative measures include limits on the number of hours a person can work per day, mandated rest periods, minimum age requirements, and maternity leave for women. Restrictions on labor activism and trade unions restrict the number of unification workers developing within the plant. When Indonesian law was lifted in the late 1980s, factory workers and non-governmental organizations launched many strikes at Nike factories protesting against poor working conditions. The organization also works with international allies such as the United States to bring awareness in foreign countries, and often richer. These allies help unpaid workers on strike. Nongovernmental organizations in the country have less impact on their government's view of the protests, but groups outside the country have a stronger political pull because of their wealth.
Counter-criticism
William Stepp, of the libertarian Mises Institute, argues that the minimum wage is arbitrary and causes unemployment. Stepp goes on to state that workers are not exploited and clearly receive the benefits of working in factories "by coming to work every day, and by receiving salaries under mutually agreed terms." In addition to pay, these benefits include free annual physical examinations, uniforms and clothing, clinics and health services, food filled cafeterias, recreation and entertainment, and transportation. However, Stepp criticized Nike for its relationship with the World Bank, which he said was a real exploit from third world countries.
A study by the Global Alliance for Workers and the Nike Community found that 70% of Nike factory workers in Thailand rated their supervisors as good and 72% thought that their income was fair. In Vietnam, most workers "consider the plant a 'good place to work' and plan to continue at least three years" and 85% of those surveyed feel safe there. Furthermore, they felt that the factory offered a more stable career and a higher income than the work in the fields.
The addition of factories to poor Asian countries has enabled them to increase their income by providing jobs for previously unemployed groups of citizens. People flock to areas where they know the factory will be built to get wages, even if it's small. Human migration to common factories occurs among workers in order to be close to the factory. Migrant workers often send back their wages to their families in their home countries, which then spread the money brought by the factories. These employees are willing to do work that is not done by citizens of first world countries, especially for low wages. Since most economies of small and poor countries are centered around their market system, the introduction of large factories owned by a wealthy company greatly increases their money flows.
Nike's response
Nike began to monitor working conditions at the factories that produce their products. During the 1990s, Nike installed a code of ethics for their factory. This code is called SHAPE: Safety, Health, Attitude, People, and Environment. Companies spend about $ 10 million a year to follow the code, comply with regulations for fire safety, air quality, minimum wage, and overtime limits. In 1998, Nike introduced a program to replace petroleum-based solvents with less harmful water-based solvents. A year later, an independent expert stated that Nike had, "replacing less harmful chemicals in its production, installing local exhaust ventilation systems, and training key personnel in occupational health and safety issues." The study was conducted at a factory in Vietnam.
Nike created a non-governmental organization called the Global Alliance for Workers and Communities aligned with several other groups including the International Youth Foundation. The organization released a report on the company and its plans to improve the current conditions. The Global Alliance received a counterattack in 2001 when a report on Nike Inc. excluding recent events such as strikes, layoffs, and the lack of collective bargaining in their Indonesian factories.
Between 2002 and 2004, Nike audited its factory about 600 times, giving each scoring factory on a scale of 1 to 100, which was then linked to the value of the letter. Most factories accept B, showing some problems, or C, indicating a serious problem is not corrected fast enough. When a factory receives a D grade, Nike threatens to stop production at the plant unless its condition rapidly increases. Nike has plans to expand its monitoring process to include environmental and health issues starting in 2004.
Monitoring has become the most popular method of enforcing regulations at Nike factories. After studying the results of the audit, the system proved to be less effective than the authorities expected. When studying the monitoring process, it is important to see how monitoring is conducted, who takes part in it, and the purpose of the examination. The person making the visit should enter without bias towards the desire or do not want to find flaws in the factory. The supervisors associated with the company have been found to hide the error and those who have non-governmental organizations or other interest groups have exaggerated the findings. Greater involvement of higher-level Nike employees such as those working for enterprise systems is seen as a possible solution to labor issues. At the design level, the complexity of patterns on Nike products has been controlled to prevent factory workers unable to complete merchandise. By providing benefits to factory workers from a strong position, Nike is able to create a better working environment in production.
Consumer reaction
Common forms of protest against factory conditions that are not sufficient by consumers include protests, hunger strikes, and boycotts. Several universities, united by the Worker Rights Consortium, organized a national hunger strike in protest against their school using Nike products for athletics. Feminist groups also mobilized a boycott of Nike products after learning of unfair conditions for women workers. In the early 1990s when Nike began pushing to increase advertising for women's athletic equipment, these groups created a campaign called "Just Do not Do It" in order to inform women about the bad conditions of the factories where women created Nike products..
Dissemination of information in terms of factory conditions has spread faster since social media has become an international method of communication. Websites like Facebook and Twitter have allowed people from far away countries to share ideas and collaborate with each other. Advocacy groups generally have groups on social media sites that allow their members to post about upcoming events and to keep members informed about the group's activities. At the Nike factory in Vietnam, a worker accused his employer of hitting him. After contacting a factory advocate, the worker was interviewed by the news station and the video finally reached an ESPN affiliate in Vietnam where he was seen by millions of observers around the world before officials in the United States had officially heard of the incident.
Other controversies
In 2000, Nike chairman, Phil Knight, plans to donate $ 30 million to his alma mater, the University of Oregon. When the University of Oregon joined the Worker Rights Consortium (WRC), Knight revoked its contribution because the WRC had been blocked by Nike from inspecting its factory. The Fair Labor Association (co-founded by Nike in the 1980s) was supported by Nike and the United States government, while the Worker Rights Consortium did not. There is a debate between the university and Knight about the legitimacy of the FLA and which labor monitoring organization is more effective.
Another dispute arose from Nike's personalized system, NIKEiD. MIT graduate Jonah Peretti is trying to order a pair of shoes from Nike. He chose the word "sweatshop" embroidered on it. Nike sends Peretti an email explaining that personalization requests can not be granted for one of four things: it contains trademarks of other parties or other intellectual property, the name of athlete or team Nike has no legal right to use, indecent or inappropriate words, or left blank. Peretti replied, telling Nike that personalization does not contain content that violates the criteria mentioned above. Nike responded by allowing Peretti to personalize and Peretti chose not to change it and cancel the order. Ironically, the publicity caused Nike to sell more personalized shoes.
See also
- Child labor
References
External links
- Nike, Inc.
- British Student Against Sweatshop
Source of the article : Wikipedia
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