We won! Nike workers paid $1,000,000.00 in overtime cheating case

Team Sweat:

I spent this afternoon meeting with Bambang Wirahoso, the Chairman of the Serikat Pekerja Nasional (SPN) – a trade union that represents tens of thousands of Nike factory workers in Indonesia. Our discussion centered on the case of forced overtime without pay at Nike’s PT Nikomas factory.

(CLICK HERE to learn more about the background on this case.)

I am now proud to report that following almost a year of investigation and negotiation, 4,437 Nike factory workers will be paid $1 million dollars for overtime they were forced to do without payment. The settlement between SPN and the factory management reflects 593,468 of unpaid overtime hours that workers put in sewing Nike sneakers at the plant during the past two years.

Workers will receive the money they are owed in two installments – the first on January 20th and the second on February 5th. And while workers are pleased with the result, in reality they are owed millions of dollars more. The practice of forcing workers to do overtime without pay was actually happening for 18 years, but Indonesian law only allows redress for the past two years.

Pak Bambang and I both agreed that the significance of this victory could go well beyond the Nike workers at Nikomas. This has the potential to send shockwaves through the Indonesian labor movement. Now that a precedent has been established, Bambang and the leadership at SPN are gearing up to take on the fight for the Adidas and Puma workers at Nikomas who also have been subjected to forced overtime without pay.

My friends, this is justice served. It took eleven months of hard work and we had to fight through denials and outright lies by the factory management, but the workers persevered and we won. We really won. We should savor this victory, but it is important to know that we have only just begun.

Peace,

Jim Keady