May 15th, 2009
UW Police Department officers negotiate with Student Labor Action Project protestors about bringing signs into Gerberding Hall yesterday.
THE DAILY of the University of Washington
By Morgan Gard
May 7, 2009
Just a little more than a month ago, the UW celebrated an apparent victory
for international labor rights after direct intervention brought about
severance payments to almost 1,000 laid-off workers in Guatemala.
UW Police Department officers negotiate with Student Labor Action Project
protestors about bringing signs into Gerberding Hall yesterday.
Yesterday, some 30 members of the Student Labor Action Project (SLAP)
gathered in Red Square before entering Gerberding Hall to ask UW President
Mark Emmert once again to protest poor treatment of factory workers
producing UW apparel worldwide.
“Two unionized factories that produced logo apparel for the UW for Nike …
shut down in January,” said SLAP member George Robertson. “And workers weren’t
paid their legally owed severance pay, so $1.5 million is stilled owed to
these workers.”
Nike, like all UW licensees, agrees to a code of conduct, a major
stipulation of which is that workers get paid all legally mandated benefits.
In Honduras, part of that is severance pay for workers when a factory
closes.
“The fact that these workers have gone unpaid is a violation of that code of
conduct,” Robertson said.
The first step, Robertson said, is for the UW to notify Nike that it has
violated the code of conduct and not re-sign the licensing contract with the
company — which is set to expire in July — until Nike has at least made a
“good-faith move” in getting the workers paid.
SLAP is also trying to make sure these violations happen less frequently by
having a student voice at the negotiating table with UW licensees and UW
Trademarks and Licensing.
“SLAP has direct contact with workers all over the world,” said SLAP member
Amanda Alice. “So bringing a student voice, we would be representing workers
as well as our own interests as students.”
Alice said violations, such as the Nike dispute, are a direct result of
students and SLAP members not being included in the contract and negotiating
process.
However, Director of UW Trademarks and Licensing Kathy Hoggan said the issue
is more complicated, explaining that Nike is as powerless to get these
workers paid as the UW is.
Companies like Nike work with many different factories around the world,
Hoggan said, and with the amount of factories that are closing every day, it
would not be economically feasible for Nike to pay the severance of every
laid-off worker.
“The factory’s closed; they’re out of business because they have no money,”
Hoggan said. “Who are we going to pressure? The University of Washington can’t
pay; we can’t keep our own people employed. Nike can’t pay [the severance];
they can’t float the boat for the whole world.”
Hoggan praised the work of SLAP but insisted that there was nothing that
could be done. Even if the university decided to threaten Nike, renewal of
the contract happens automatically through the Collegiate Licensing Company,
which wrote the code of conduct UW uses, if the company is in good standing.
Schools can opt out of the renewal, but Nike has never been dropped from any
of the approximately 100 schools it licenses with, and Nike’s next six-month
contract extension is expected to go through, according to a press release
from Nike.
“There’s discussions happening in big government offices all over about
‘What are we gonna do with the economy and the unemployment?’” Hoggan said. “And that’s in every country.”
Reach reporter Morgan Gard at news@dailyuw.com.
May 15th, 2009
Story from Radio Free Asia
May 12, 2009
HONG KONG—Members of a Chinese minority group sent to work in a shoe factory thousands of miles from home include children, with some parents allegedly coerced into letting them go, workers at the factory have said.
The workers, from China’s largely Muslim Uyghur ethnic group, are employed at Longfa Shoe Factory in China’s southeastern Guangdong province.
The facility currently employs 660 workers through a program known as “Transfer Surplus Workforce Outwards.” More than half of the workers are female, and some 300 are under the age of 18, employees say.
Longfa Shoe Factory is owned by Taiwan-based Dean Shoes Co. Ltd., which supplies Oregon-based U.S. footwear giant Nike, Inc.
While the legal working age in China is 16, Nike’s code of conduct states that its contractors do not “employ any person below the age of 18 to produce footwear.”
Spokesmen for Nike and for Longfa Shoe Factory denied the allegation and said hiring underage workers would violate company policies.
But some workers at the factory say they were sent to work at age 15 or 16. They were supplied with fake identification papers showing earlier birthdates, they said.
Sawut and Abide, Uyghurs originally from China’s northwestern Xinjiang Uyghur Autonomous Region (XUAR), said that most of the girls were brought to Longfa at age 16 or 17 in three separate groups during March, April, and September of 2008.
“Most of the girls here are 16 or 17. There are many of them like that. You can hardly find girls who are 18—maybe only five or 10 of them,” Sawut said.
“There are more 16-year-old girls here than older ones,” Abide said.
Others working at the factory who asked not to be identified also said they were under the age of 18.
“Today is my 17th birthday. I came here when I was 16, right after junior high,” said one girl.
Another said that she was 16. “I came here April 28 [2008]. It has been nine months and 10 days,” the girl said.
‘No workers under 18’
Longfa Shoes Corp.’s headquarters are located in Longxi town, in Bolo county, near Guangdong’s Huizhou city.
An official of Longfa’s human resources department refused to provide his name when contacted by telephone but denied that the company employed underage workers.
“According to our factory’s hiring policy, workers should be 18 or over. We do not hire workers under 18,” the official said.
“We are a shoe factory, and in terms of working conditions it is not suitable for us to hire child workers. In addition, our customers require the same standards of us. Therefore, we do not hire child workers when possible,” he said.
Nike’s response
“Nike takes these issues seriously and has a code of conduct that all contract factories must sign and adhere to, including a firm policy on age limits and working conditions,” the company said in a prepared statement.
“Nike has visited the Longfa factory in Huizhou, China, and after reviewing monitoring, audits, and interviews with Xinjiang workers we did not find evidence…that Longfa has employed workers under Nike’s minimum code of conduct age of 18 for footwear contract factories,” the statement said.
Kate Meyers, a spokeswoman for Nike Inc., said the company sent staff to investigate the claims about breaches of Nike’s code of conduct.
Meyers said interviews were conducted with approximately 50 workers at the factory from Xinjiang who are bilingual and speak fluent Mandarin, making the use of translators unnecessary.
“While monitoring and audits are not the only way to detect issues, they do give a real time indication of factory conditions,” Nike’s statement said.
Swapping IDs
Officials at companies connected to the labor transfer program may be unaware that they are hiring child laborers, or that they may be complicit in illegal hiring schemes orchestrated by local authorities in the workers’ hometowns, according to some girls.
Meryem, a Uyghur girl worker at Longfa, said government officials arranged for her to swap identification cards with her older sister.
“They told us that 16-year-olds cannot work, so they changed our names. I came here with my older sister’s name. We didn’t want to come here and would rather have stayed with our parents,” she said.
Meryem’s father, Emet Sawut, also says that the local government swapped his daughters’ identification cards.
“I said, ‘My daughter is only 16 years old. She is not eligible to work.’ But the village party secretary Emetjan Yantaq came to our house and said it was okay to change her identification card with her older sister’s,” he said.
When contacted by telephone, Emetjan Yantaq refused to comment.
Emet Sawut said the local government in Opal town, where his family resides, eventually forced his daughter to swap her identification with the threat of cutting off farming subsidies.
“They pressured me, saying, ‘If you do not give us your daughter, we will cancel your government poverty aid,’” Emet Sawut said.
“My older daughter in Karamay city filled the form out for my younger daughter. Then my younger daughter set off [for Guangdong] on April 20, 2008. It [is] one year this April,” he said.
Pashagül, party secretary of Opal town in the XUAR’s Kashgar prefecture, is responsible for transferring local laborers for the program.
She voiced surprise when questioned as to whether the identification cards of children had been swapped with those of other, older residents to increase the town’s number of viable workers.
“Where did you get this news? These questions make me feel uncomfortable. How do you know we did that and how did you get this news?” she asked.
Pashagül declined to comment further.
Labor programs
The U.S. Congressional-Executive Commission on China said in its 2008 annual report that the Chinese government continues to fill local jobs in Xinjiang with migrant labor, while maintaining programs that send young ethnic minorities to work in factories in China’s interior under conditions reported to be “abusive.”
“Local officials, following direction from higher levels of government, have used ‘deception, pressure, and threats’ toward young women and their families to gain recruits into the labor transfer program,” it said.
According to a report by Radio Free Asia, by the end of 2007 hundreds of Uyghur girls, most of them underage, had been forced into labor programs far from their homes in Xinjiang by local officials.
The girls were enrolled in training programs at factories and told they would be paid during their training, but they never received wages.
Most girls were unable to afford the cost of a return trip home, and those who did go back faced fines from hometown officials upon their return, the RFA report said.
Uyghurs constitute a distinct, Turkic-speaking, Muslim minority in northwestern China and Central Asia. They declared a short-lived East Turkestan Republic in Xinjiang in the late 1930s and 40s but have remained under Beijing’s control since 1949.
Original reporting by Mamatjan Juma for RFA’s Uyghur service. Director: Dolkun Kamberi. Written for the Web in English by Joshua Lipes. Edited by Sarah Jackson-Han.
May 7th, 2009
Team Sweat:
More consumers have joined the fight against Nike’s sweatshop abuses. If you would like your voice to be heard and for Nike to know what you think, send an email to info@teamsweat.org.
Peace, Jim Keady
I went to CBA, heard Jim talk at my senior retreat, and it really made me aware.
- Luke Harold
NIKE=CAPITALIST
-Java13
I am disgusted with Nike and their multimillion dollar athletes, making all that money and they pay workers (less than $3) a day…Disgraceful.
- Kevin Hanlon
I am so glad that I was able to meet such an inspirational person in my lifetime. James Keady is truly and absolutely the best speaker I have heard so far because of his undeniable compassion and devotion to make this world a better place for all human beings, regardless of nationality, race or religion.
I am a Temple University business student, and upon watching a short movie about Keady’s experience in Indonesia, I realized how powerful can be the voice of just one man. Subsequentlsy, the more voices you have, the more leverage there is to promote your idea. I was sitting in the very front of the class, which allowed me to see the kind of passion and dedication this man has for justice. I applaude you James and am excited to join this campaign, contributing as much as I can at this time.
Best Regards,
Kamila Sharipova
I joined Team Sweat because I think it’s disgusting to see millionare athletes enjoy endorsement money, while Nike employees in Indonesia can’t even afford to feed themselves, let alone their children on the extremely small salary that they make.
-Chelsey
I joined Team Sweat because I’m an athlete at a Jesuit high school were we strive to be men and women with and for others. I can’t do that while supporting sweatshops such as Nike. I don’t support sweatshops, therefor I don’t support Nike.
- Christina Vlahos
People are being hurt. And I’m lucky enough to be able to help, I’m obligated to help, and more importantly, I WANT to help.
- Najla Fawal
Jim made an awesome presentation at SI Prep last week. I am now aware of the injustices that Nike and many other companies make and I want to do something about it. Heres to step 1!
- Sophia Melone
I was always aware of the existence of sweatshops for different companies, especially Nike. But nothing put it in perspective for me until I read John Perkins’ book “the Secret History of the American Empire”. What you and Leslie Kretzu did I thought was very brave and amazing thing to do. I go to a private school in Canada and am constantly surrounded by girls who consume designer products without knowing where its coming from. I must admit I was one of them. Even our athletics department uses nike and adidas. But after reading John Perkins’ book, my friends and i have vowed to only consume sweatshop free clothing. Its unfortunate that the girls that go to my school are so educated in academics, but so naive when it comes to materialistic things. Thank you for what you are doing!
- Connie
I really enjoy helping misfourtunate people in certain situations.
- Matt
I joined Team Sweat because Jim was over at Temple University a few weeks ago to speak on the social injustices of Nike. As a business major preparing to enter the business world, I believe that it is time for my generation to take a stand against such horrible business practices. I also believe that by taking a stand we can effect change and usher in an era of socially responsible business.
- Chekwube Ofili
I have had a long time interest in social justice concerns such as these. I learned of Team Sweat, particularly, from the Wilkes-Barre Peace and Justice Center.
- Athena Ford
(I joined Team Sweat because) a presentation was given about it at my high school, Loyola Academy (IL).
- Daniel Vanderbosch
I have been teaching a Peace & Justice course for over 20 years. I have tried to explore with my students the conditions in the sweatshops around the world, and help them investigate ways that they could have some impact on changing the situation.
- George Peter
May 6th, 2009
Team Sweat:
In response to Nike’s April 17, 2009 letter about disclosing wage rates, I am sending the following letter to Ms. Hannah Jones, Nike’s VP for Corporate Responsibility, today.
To: Hannah Jones
From: Jim Keady
Re: Disclosing Wage Rates
May 6, 2009
Ms. Jones,
I am in receipt of your letter dated April 17, 2009 that sets forth Nike’s current position regarding the disclosure of wage rates at your partner factories. In response to the information you shared, I would like to focus our conversation on the statements in paragraphs four and five of your letter.
You wrote:
“Nike does require that factories manufacturing our products comply with local legal minimum wages, and this is something we aim to verify in our auditing process. However, because factories are not Nike-owned, it is not possible for us to mandate what wages should be paid by the factories to workers. Moreover, this data is not something that we collect; it is owned and managed by factories, which is why Nike cannot disclose workers’ wage rates.
We are, however, interested in establishing a baseline measurement of overall worker well-being, including an understanding of the extent to which factory wages are meeting local basic needs, in order to identify where significant gaps may exist. There may be ways that Nike, leveraged with other companies, donors, governments, and civil society organizations, can work to help reduce barriers to development, so that wages further meet the needs of workers and their families.”
You state that Nike requires factories to comply with legal minimum wages and that you aim to verify this in your auditing process. But then you say that this data is not something you collect.
If you have auditing reports that document what workers are being paid to ensure that factories are complying with legal minimums, do you not, in fact, have the data we are requesting?
You state that these factories are not Nike-owned and therefore it is not possible to mandate what wages should be paid by the factories to workers.
If Nike cannot mandate what wages are paid at the factories, what exactly did Mr. Vada Manager mean when in response to a report by the National Labor Committee, he said, “Where was Kernaghan when we raised wages 70 percent in Indonesia? We have a code that applies globally and that provides wages that far surpass regional or national minimum wages”? (Washington Post, December 22, 2000)
If it is true that you cannot mandate what wages should be paid to workers, was Mr. Manager wrong when he said that you (Nike) raised wages 70% in Indonesia?
With regard to worker compensation, Nike’s Code of Conduct states:
“The contractor provides each employee at least the minimum wage, or the prevailing industry wage, whichever is higher; provides each employee a clear written accounting for every pay period; and does not deduct from employee pay for disciplinary infractions.”
That is the only mention of compensation in Nike’s Code of Conduct.
In reference to Mr. Manager’s statement above, can you please direct me to the part where the code “provides wages that far surpass regional or national minimum wages”?
With regard to documentation and inspection, Nike’s Code of Conduct states:
“The contractor maintains on file all documentation needed to demonstrate compliance with this Code of Conduct and required laws; agrees to make these documents available for Nike or its designated monitor; and agrees to submit to inspections with or without prior notice.”
It is clear by the information above that: Nike requires that employees are provided the minimum wage or prevailing industry wage, whichever is higher; and Nike requires that contractors maintain records of this information and that these documents must be made available to Nike upon request.
But in your April 17, 2009 letter you wrote, “…this data is not something that we collect; it is owned and managed by factories, which is why Nike cannot disclose workers’ wage rates.”
If you do not collect the data, how are you ensuring that employees are in compliance with your code and are providing the minimum wage or prevailing industry wage?
In paragraph five of your letter you wrote:
“We are, however, interested in establishing a baseline measurement of overall worker well-being, including an understanding of the extent to which factory wages are meeting local basic needs, in order to identify where significant gaps may exist.”
How exactly do you plan on establishing a baseline measurement that includes the extent to which factory wages are meeting local basic needs if “this data is not something that we (Nike) collect; it is owned and managed by factories”?
Finally, I would like to revisit the statement that Mr. Knight made to a reporter from PBS with regard to wages, as noted in my March 19, 2009 letter.
The reporter asked, “Mr. Knight… do you feel comfortable that your workers are making a living wage?”
Mr. Knight responded, “Absolutely. No question about it.”
Can you please provide me with Mr. Knight’s definition of a living wage? Also, can you provide the data he used at the time to back up his assertion that workers were “absolutely” being paid a living wage, “no question about it”?
On behalf of Team Sweat, I am requesting that you provide a written response to all of the questions above by June 1, 2009.
I appreciate your time and your attention to this matter and I hope that this finds you well.
Peace,
Jim Keady, Captain
Team Sweat
cc. Phil Knight, Chairman of the Board
Mark Parker, CEO
Caitlin Morris, Director of Compliance and Integration
May 6th, 2009
Team Sweat:
On April 17th, I received the following letter from Hannah Jones, Nike’s Vice President of Corporate Responsibility in response to our March 19, 2009 letter requesting that Nike disclose wage rates for all their partner factories.
April 17, 2009
Mr. Jim Keady
106 Meadow Point Lane,
Point Pleasant, NJ 08742
Dear Mr. Keady,
Thank you for writing on behalf of Team Sweat regarding the disclosure of wages paid at contract factories producing Nike product around the world. Your letter was forwarded to me by Phil Knight’s office.
We believe that we have increased our transparency regarding the challenges in our supply chain since we first began to learn about working conditions in contract factories over a decade ago.
The disclosure of the names and locations of contract factories used by Nike in 2004 was a step along the path towards greater transparency. Moreover, our 2006 Corporate Responsibility report went into great detail regarding our factory auditing process, and it included an honest admission of some of the challenges of the compliance challenges we continue to face. As a result of this, we have identified the need for better root cause analysis of problems, as well as promoting systemic changes, such as the need to implement human resource management training programs in contract factories used by Nike.
We understand your interest in continuing to hold Nike to account, and on our more than 10-year journey in corporate responsibility, we have made mistakes and learned from them by continuing to have dialogue with stakeholders such as yourself. But we also hope that you recognize that over the past few years, Nike has increased our Corporate Responsibility staff capacity in countries where major manufacturing takes place, which has helped us gain greater visibility to challenges within factories, as well as a better understanding of possible solutions. This includes a growing understanding about the complex issue of wages.
Nike does require that factories manufacturing our products comply with local legal minimum wages, and this is something we aim to verify in our auditing process. However, because factories are not Nike-owned, it is not possible for us to mandate what wages should be paid by the factories to workers. Moreover, this data is not something that we collect; it is owned and managed by factories, which is why Nike cannot disclose workers’ wage rates.
We are, however, interested in establishing a baseline measurement of overall worker well-being, including an understanding of the extent to which factory wages are meeting local basic needs, in order to identify where significant gaps may exist. There may be ways that Nike, leveraged with other companies, donors, governments, and civil society organizations, can work to help reduce barriers to development, so that wages further meet the needs of workers and their families.
We hope that you will collaborate with us in this next step in our learning, and we are looking forward your trip to Indonesia with Nike staff this summer to explore some of these issues first-hand. We hope that this will bring us closer to making impactful changes that will help improve the lives of workers and their families.
Hannah Jones
VP, Corporate Responsibility
May 6th, 2009
Team Sweat:
On March 19, 2009, I sent the following letter to Nike requesting that they disclose wage rates for all their partner factories worldwide.
To: Mr. Phil Knight
From: Jim Keady
Re: Disclosing Wage Rates
Date: March 19, 2009
Mr. Knight:
I am writing you on behalf of Team Sweat – the international coalition of consumers, investors, and workers who are fighting to end sweatshop abuses in Nike’s factories around the world.
For several months now, members and supporters of Team Sweat have been sending you postcards requesting that you disclose wage rates for all of the factories from which you source.
To date, Nike has not made this information public. This seems in contradiction to Nike’s public commitment to transparency set forth in your 2005-2006 Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR) Report. The report states that:
“Transparency is the first step towards open-source approaches to problem solving.”
We would like you to be transparent on the issue of wages because there seems to be some confusion on Nike’s current public position on this matter. Referring again to your 2005-2006 CSR Report, it states that:
“Some worker advocates suggest that a living wage should be paid… We (Nike) do not support this approach.”
We are unsure as to why Nike would not support workers receiving a living wage, given your response to a PBS Reporter when asked about workers’ wages in Nike’s overseas factories. The reporter asked:
“Mr. Knight… do you feel comfortable that your workers are making a living wage?”
You responded:
“Absolutely. No question about it.”
Team Sweat is eager to review the data upon which you based your assertion. We are eager, because your assertion that workers in Nike partner factories “absolutely” make a living wage seems to run counter to both our research and to the position put forth in your CSR Report.
Basically, we are unsure as to why Nike would not support a living wage being paid to workers, as per the CSR Report, if in fact, you, Mr. Knight, are absolutely sure that living wages are already being paid. Again, in the spirit of transparency and in an effort to address what is clearly some inconsistency on this matter on Nike’s part, Team Sweat is formally requesting that Nike publicly disclose the wage rates that workers are paid at each of your partner factories around the world. We are also requesting that you provide a written response to this letter by April 15, 2009 letting us know when you will publicly disclose this information.
I appreciate your time and your attention to this matter.
Peace,
Jim Keady, Captain
Team Sweat
cc. Mark Parker, CEO
Hannah Jones, VP of CR
Caitlin Morris, Director of Compliance and Integration
May 4th, 2009
Team Sweat:
I recently received a letter from Nike in response to our postcard campaign demanding that they disclose wage rates for all their partner factories worldwide. At the moment, they are refusing to comply. I am in the midst of crafting a response and I will post both the original letter, the response, and the call to action in the coming days.
Peace, Jim Keady
Visit Team Sweat on Facebook!
Visit Team Sweat on MySpace!
Visit Team Sweat on Twitter!