How many of you out there own an item of Nike clothing or footwear? I’d imagine quite a lot. I mean you’re always gonna be able to pick something up in the latest sale at JJB Sports or somewhere similar aren’t you. Besides a hooded top’s a hooded top, and a pair of trainers is a pair of trainers right?
Well will you think differently if I tell you that your nice new Nike trainers were probably manufactured in Asia, by either a child or disadvantaged adult, who was paid on average 20 cents (15p) an hour, faced corporal punishment for such misdemeanours as "poor sewing" and could work under constant threat of sexual abuse? These are facts, not simply anti-Nike sentiment put about by some fringe anti-corporate group. In fact they are taken from a story by US television network CBS’s news programme "48 Hours". Other articles regarding Nike’s labour practices can be found in The New York Times, The Washington Post, and USA Today.
Nike in Vietnam
The organisation "Vietnam Labour Watch", at the invitation of Nike, travelled to Vietnam to visit the factories there, meeting with workers, shoe manufacturing executives, labour union officials, union representatives, legal experts and foreign investment experts in Vietnam. They had an "official" tour of a factory, but also carried out surprise visits to a number of factories, and carried out in-depth interviews with 35 workers outside their respective factories. The report they produced does not create a very pretty picture.
Highlights of the report include the fact that workers don’t make a liveable wage; $1.60 a day – the cost of eating three simple meals is $2.10. Workers cannot go to the toilet more than once per eight hour shift, and are only allowed to drink water twice per shift. Consequently it is common for workers to faint from exhaustion, heat, fumes, and poor nutrition.
Verbal abuse, sexual harassment, and corporal punishment are frequent; one of the better known examples of this is when 56 women were forced to run laps around the factory premises because they weren’t wearing regulation shoes. The run was so strenuous that 12 of the women had to be hospitalised. Finally health care is totally inadequate; at one factory employing 6000 people, one doctor works only 2 hours a day, while the factory operates for 20!!!
Nike Elsewhere in the World
Vietnam is not the only country in South-East Asia where Nike is able to get hold of extremely cheap labour to manufacture it’s later overpriced shoes. Before it was involved in Vietnam, Nike had several factories in Indonesia. Events in Indonesia in the past year have served to make many people more aware of the oppressive government that was in power over there. By investing in Indonesia Nike has helped to prop up the previous military dictatorship, so providing indirect support for the occupation of East Timor. Nike have also not been beyond calling in military help to detain and intimidate labour organisers. Investing in low-wage countries with repressive governments is great as far as Nike is concerned; such repressive regimes help prevent workers from organising for better wages and conditions, and can often be relied upon to put down any troublemakers.
China is another country where Nike seems to have a rather relaxed view to both local, and its own, labour laws. Shoe manufacturing in China used to be State owned, but more recently it has been opened up, and Nike has been quick to subcontract its products to these cheap labour sourced. A report by the "Asia Monitor Resource Centre" found that workers in one Nike subcontracted factory worked at least 11 hours a day, in violation of Chinese law, and Nike’s code of practice, and in addition, all must work overtime, or be fined an entire days pay.
The 3-4 hours overtime a day, is in further violation of labour law, which allows for only 36 hours overtime a month. Workers must also fulfil quotas, which are often harsh, and if they fail in this, they must continue working, unpaid, until they have. Hourly wages are also lower than the national minimum wage, as is the overtime rate. The workers are not allowed to talk to co-workers whilst working, and while they are allowed to organise there is no trades union, and most workers are worried about losing their jobs if they were to complain to a supervisor, there are also tales of corporal punishment being used, though more often punishment is through fines. There are further reports of factories employing children as young as 13-15, even though China’s labour law says that no child under 16 can be employed, and Nike who say they don’t employ anyone under the age of 15.
Indeed Child labour is another issue surrounding Nike. As well as factories in Vietnam, China, and Indonesia, they also have established factories in Pakistan, a place well known to make use of Children to work in so called "sweatshops". Nike are by no means the only culprits (nor are they in the other countries), Nike simply makes a good example. Reebok trainers, Wal-Mart jeans, "Official" Manchester United footballs, and numerous other items much desired by western consumers are being made in these factories where children as young as 4 or 5 end up shackled to a production line. They can be working 70 hours a week, they earn nothing because they have been sold into slavery, and ‘civilised’ western companies do nothing to stop it!!
What Nike says
Here are some quotes from representatives of the Nike corporation who were challenged about their company’s operations. These are all taken from a ‘Christian Aid’ article by Bethan Brookes and Peter Madden entitled "The Globe Trotting Sports Shoe." There are basically three lines of response; "the workers are lucky", "it’s not the company’s business", and "we’re dealing with the problem":
|
"
Nike impacts the lives of its subcontracted workers twice: as a client of their employer and as a participant in their country's economy. And in both roles, Nike's presence is a positive one." According to a senior Nike employee "I don't think the girls in our factories are treated badly. The wages may be small, but it's better than having no job". The alternative, it was suggested, would be "harvesting coconut meat in the tropical sun."
"
Well I think you should be asking that question of the United Nations...I don't think it's something you can lay at a shoe company and say "You must accept responsibility for improving the social and living conditions of all employees."
"Nike expatriates investigated when they noticed a high number of workers being paid a training wage in Nike's Indonesian factories....When the factories were questioned, there was a significant drop in the number of those employees."
"We don't pay anybody at the factories and we don't set policy within the factories: it is their business to run."
The GoodWorks-Young Report
There has actually been an official report on Nike’s labour practices in South-East Asia, carried out by an independent company, an Atlanta firm called GoodWorks International. But before you begin to think that this sounds promising, the New Republic investigated this report and found a great many problems. GoodWorks is run by a former UN ambassador and civil rights hero called Andrew Young.
Mr Young is however simply another businessman, one wishing to stimulate investment in developing countries. His mission statement appears to include helping companies deal with PR messes in such overseas endeavours.
So what exactly is wrong with GoodWorks report? Well aside from the point that the Nike venture was the company’s first big client, the report is full of mis-representations, and was carried out using poor methodology. The report lists 34 "Non- Governmental Organisations" consulted by GoodWorks, this is the bit that gives such publications intellectual credibility. However New Republic contacted a number of these "experts" listed in the report, and found that a large number were either not contacted at all, or at most received a fleeting phone call, for the most part asking if they would like a copy of the report. How do GoodWorks explain this? One spokesperson is quoted as saying "The heading only says that we "spoke" with them. Sometimes it just may have been very briefly."
OK, so GoodWorks told a little fib about how many experts on labour practices they spoke to, not really that bad a thing is it? Well there’s quite a lot more wrong with the report. For instance Andy Young, when he visited the factories, was, unfortunately, not fluent in any of the languages. That’s alright cos Nike were quite happy to provide him with their own official translators. There is actually a set of international rules for inspection of human rights (‘The Belgrade Minimum Rules’), and number 10 stipulates that analysts should provide all their own experts. Regardless of this, surely using Nike’s own translators is rather similar to wanting to investigate atrocities against Kurds in both Iraq and Turkey, and using translators employed by either or both relevant governments. Foreign journalists would consider having your own translator a basic of fact finding, despite the significant cost.
This is not the only fairly common sensical mistake of the GoodWorks investigation. Another obvious requirement is surely to spend enough time in the relevant environment to truly investigate it.
Young reports that his investigators spent on average 3 to 4 hours in each factory, an amount of time that has lead a European labour consultant to suggest "He might as well have been at Disneyland…" GoodWorks and Young were told by some consultants at the time that they were not spending enough time on the ground to conduct a through study. However the general opinion from these consultants seems to be that Young never really wanted the contract anyway.
A fundamental flaw in the report is that it doesn’t even consider questions about whether Nike pays it’s workers the local minimum wage – something that is at the heart of most of the complaints against the company. Young claims he wasn’t asked to consider this issue, however Nike’s "Code of Conduct" (which GoodWorks were supposed to be investigating) makes explicit mention of wages. So investigating wages was well within the scope of the report. An alternative reason for not investigating wages is that determining what is a "‘fair wage’ in a foreign country is a very complicated process." This seems hard to believe when you consider that salary compensation is one of the most written about aspects of foreign labour.
So there you have it, perhaps next time you go out for a new pair of trainers, or a hooded top or whatever, you’ll think about what you’re buying. Don’t simply shrug and say "well everyone does it, I’d have to make my own shoes if I wanted to boycott all of ‘em" that just is not case. Try and find items that say "made in UK [or US]" on them, chances are that these workers will have been treated a hell of a lot better than those that made the Nikes.
All information used for this article, plus much more can be found on the "Boycott Nike" homepage. Any comments etc should be addressed to me: complicityrecs@hotmail.com
Back
|
