The following article is condensed and reprinted from Boycott Quarterly. A one-year subscription to BQ is available by sending $20 to The Center for Economic Democracy, PO Box 30727, Seattle 98103-0727.
An Oregon coalition known as "Justice. Do It Nike!" has called a boycott of Nike, the world's largest shoemaker, in response to working conditions in Nike-contracted factories in Indonesia and China.
"Justice. Do It Nike!" is working in conjunction with a coalition of organizations across the country to persuade the Oregon-based company to treat subcontracted workers more fairly. The coalition is encouraging Nike to: allow independent monitoring of their subcontracted production facilities overseas; raise workers' wages above the $1.80 per day average wage they currently receive; support the rights of workers to organize for better wages and working conditions; stop allowing the Indonesian military to suppress peaceful strikes at factories; cease the use of child labor; and settle claims by Indonesian workers who have been unjustly balcklisted by their subcontractors for attempting to improve conditions in their plants.
Nike has dramatically lowered the costs of producing shoes over the last fifteen years by subcontracting these services in developing countries. Originally, many of these factories were located in Taiwan and South Korea. Workers began organizing for better treatment as their plants became successful. Nike seized the advantage of improved trade conditions with other more authoritarian regimes and moved its subcontracted facilities to China and Indonesia.
Organizations have repeatedly requested meetings with Nike to discuss working conditions overseas. Nike's Indonesian subcontractors' $1.80 per day wage does not even meet subsistence levels within the factories' own impoverished country. Children as young as eight years old have been documented as regular workers by concerned outside organizations. In one new Nike-run Indonesian factory, workers sew and stitch for twelve hours a day, seven days a week, without any benefits or additional compensation. Past attempt to organize for better conditions have been met with brutal military force, beatings from supervisors, and swift firings. According to Amnesty International, workers in China and Indonesia have virtually no legal recourse against these indiscriminate forms of punishment and dismissal.
So far, Nike has mostly ignored the issues raised by the Justice boycott. CEO Philip Knight has refused to meet with these organizations and regular workers from Nike's subcontacted plants. Nike's annual reports note that the company itself audits overseas factories, although it has refused to allow independent monitoring and has not released the results of these audits. They also have denied charges that they indirectly employ children to work in slavish conditions to make their shoes. The company claims that subcontractors abide by all the laws and customs of the countries in which they operate.
For more information on the Nike boycott, contact Max White of "Justice. Do It Nike!" in Portland, Oregon at (503) 292-8168. To contact Nike call (800) 344-6453.
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Contents this page were published in the July/August, 1997 edition of the Washington Free Press.
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