June 16th, 2011
Team Sweat:
Today I went to visit with workers in Karawang, Indonesia. This is the location of PT Chang Shin, a Nike factory that has only been around for about a year. This is the factory where we won a recent victory with the union chairman. He was being significantly harassed and was illegally fired for simply asserting his rights. We documented the case, advocated on his behalf with Nike, and the matter was resolved.
After traveling from Jakarta to Karawang, I met the workers at the factory and then we headed to one of the most interesting locations I have ever held a discussion with workers - a local karaoke room. It was actually an excellent set up for a meeting. Although I am not sure that I did anyone any favors when, after our discussion, at the request of the workers, I belted out The Cure’s “Boys Don’t Cry” and Bon Jovi’s “Blaze of Glory.” I may have set back U.S.-Indonesian relations decades with my performance.
Our discussion was filled with concerns that I have heard from workers for more than a decade. They are not sure that they deserve anything more than the minimum wage they receive, despite the fact that they produce the “real wealth” (sneakers and apparel) that allows Nike to generate billions in profits. They are unsure how they could fight for what they want. They are afraid to take a leadership role and step up and demand what is fair from Nike. I have heard this all before and I know that collaborating with my worker friends to liberate them from this “mentality of the oppressed” is the first thing that must happen in our collective struggle for justice. I have been reflecting on this idea a lot during the past few days here and I am certain that this is where our energies must be focused. I am also lucky that I brought my copy of Paulo Freire’s “Pedagogy of the Oppressed” with me and I have been re-reading it during my free time. Freire’s analysis is so dead on, I feel at times that he has been sitting with me in these meetings with Nike workers.
As Freire writes:
“The oppressed, who have been shaped by the death-affirming climate of oppression, must find through their struggle the way to life-affirming humanization, which does not lie simply in having more to eat (although it does involve having more to eat and cannot fail to include this aspect). The oppressed have been destroyed precisely because their situation has reduced them to things. In order to regain their humanity they must cease to be things and fight as men and women. This is the radical requirement. They cannot enter the struggle as objects in order to later become human beings.”
This is not easy work, but it must be done.
Peace, Jim Keady
June 14th, 2011
Team Sweat:
I arrived safely in Jakarta this afternoon. After I settled in at my hotel and took a quick power nap, I headed out to my first meeting with Nike workers. The meeting went extremely well. We first discussed the important victories that Nike workers had in the past year, particularly the campaign that Nike workers won in Honduras and more recently, the campaign that we won at PT Chang Shin in Indonesia. We agreed that these victories can and should serve as models for workers as they continue to fight for the justice they deserve. In both of these cases, workers stood up for their rights, were supported by consumers and activists in the international community, and they WON.
With these victories in mind, we broadened our discussion to the topic of raising workers’ wages. This is, and always has been, the most critical issue for workers and yet it is the one that they most fear to confront and fight for. As we opined on what strategies might be effective in this fight, I had to point out to my friends that it seemed to me, that with every strategy we discussed, my Nike worker friends were only coming up with why the strategy might not work or why they might be afraid to even try it. After pointing this out, I asked them, “Do you know where this mentality of fear comes from in your culture?” They said they did not and I offered the following.
I drew a circle of people talking and I told them that this was a village of Indonesians who were trying to make a decision. I said that everyone was afraid to be a leader and get the village moving toward the goal they wanted to achieve. Outside of the circle of people I drew an angry looking man and I named him “The Dutch.” (The Dutch were, in fact, brutal colonizers of Indonesia for more than 350 years.) I shared with my worker friends that if someone in this village made a decision, “The Dutch” might not like it. I asked them, “If the Dutch did not like the decision this leader made, what might happen to him?” The workers agreed, “He would be killed.” I asked them, “Who would have turned this guy in to the Dutch?” They agreed, “His friends in the village.” We then discussed how this would create a dynamic where everyone would be afraid to take any action for fear of being turned in and killed by, “The Dutch.” I then shared that while the colonialist oppression of the Dutch may have ended many years ago, “The Dutch” have been replaced by the likes of neo-colonialist oppressors like Nike.
During this part of our meeting, you could have heard a pin drop. I wish I were able to videotape the meeting as the looks on my friends’ faces spoke volumes. I think for the first time, many of them saw themselves in the bigger picture of Indonesia’s long struggle for liberation from foreign oppressors. I also think that it may have been the first time that they realized why they think and act out of fear, rather than thinking and acting from a place of personal power that is their birthright as a human being.
I let this moment and these thoughts sit in air for a bit. I suggested that this would be a good time to wrap up our meeting and perhaps they could think about what we discussed and continue to share their thoughts with each other after I left. We agreed to meet again later this week. I am very much looking forward to it.
Peace, Jim Keady
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