Nike: “Just pay it”

Big corporations and Brand names like Nike will NEVER put their profit in the hands of cheap labourers who make their clothes, right? Wrong!

In the past Nike has always blamed their sub contractors for abusing the human rights of their labourers. In fact most high street labels and big brands do that. BUT that is all about to change. Nike is going to pay $1.5 million to help workers abruptly laid off last year by 2 subcontractors in Honduras.

This is only happening as the United Students Against Sweatshops (USAS) demanded that Nike stop blaming their subcontractors and take responsibility for the workers who had been laid off.

A lot of brands and high street shops that use sweatshops will often blame their “sub contractors” (the people who supply to the brand/high street shop) saying that they can’t control how their sub contractors behave.

However in April, University of Wisconsin-Madison chancellor, Biddy Martin made the school the first to end a licensing agreement with Nike, which means that Nike can no longer produce their apparel. She said “Nike had violated its code of conduct, which requires university licensees to be responsible for their subcontractors.”

And only after the USAS launched the “just pay it” campaign against Nike did they take responsibility of their supply chain. If Nike hadn’t taken action then the schools and universities would not carry on buying from Nike.

A lot of people think that the brands and labels are in control and no matter what we do they will always exist and carry on. We forget that we have the POWER- if we stopped buying their products they would not exist. We are the consumers and these brands will do anything to make sure we keep buying from them. So we’d might as well use that power we have to influence Nike and change an underpaid garment workers life!

We can show the brands and labels we- the consumers will not stand for unethical treatment of workers. The United Students Against Sweatshops have made a difference.

Can you? Find out how you can do something different

Nike: Ticks the right box

Not only has England actually made it to the World Cup this year but a very important issue has become a part of the great sporting event. Nike has produced environmentally friendly uniforms for the upcoming 2010 football world cup.

The kits are going to be made from discarded plastic bottles collected from landfills in Japan and Taiwan.

When I first read on Ecouterre about this, I was a tad confused. “How on earth are they going to pull that off?” Well the plastic bottles get melted down into yarn first and are then spun into fabric.

Each shirt is made from 8 plastic bottles. Apart from just saving on raw materials, Nike managed to reduce 13 million plastic bottles from the landfill which is enough to cover a football pitch 29 times over!

Nike seems to have grown a corporate conscience since the late 1990’s. It feels like just yesterday that a photo of a Pakistani boy stitching Nike footballs started making its rounds...

Image Credit- James Temple on Flickr at Creative Commons 

Nike: Just sew it!

Nike has walked a rocky road between ‘leading sports retailer’ and ‘human rights violator’.

Let me take you back in time.....

When Nike started out they operated in Taiwan and South Korea because of the low wages and laws that restricted workers from forming unions. Over a period of 20 years workers from these countries lobbied to amend the law and managed to win the right to form unions and had a right to better wages.

People living in poverty could finally stand up for themselves and be treated like human beings. Well it turns out it doesn’t make much business sense to remain in a country as liberated as this. So Nike ran quicker than you can say “what about the developing nations needs?”

Nike thought it would make more ‘business sense’ to move their factories to China, Indonesia and Vietnam. Here Nike could maintain paying Michael Jordan millions and millions of dollars to stand and take pictures and keep paying the women and children less than how much the CEO of Nike makes in an hour!

Nike did some damage control after all this info became public knowledge, and in 1999 Nike increased the wages of all their workers from the Indonesian factories. Nike also agreed to allow random factory inspections from the Fair Labour Association, and to set up independent monitoring with both US and international organizations.


Nike can now pat itself on the back as they have added their own on-staff of one hundred workers who are responsible for performing inspections of the company's partner factories. Inspectors score the factory on factors ranging from employee safety to humane working conditions.

In 2002, Nike devised a Code of Conduct to all its factories, regulating the conditions and safety requirements that work should be conducted by. The company's 2004 Responsibility Report was considered a major victory for workers and many human right's groups, because Nike included a full list of its factories and their addresses throughout the world. This has allowed for independent monitoring and investigations. While this is a positive effort on Nike's part, the human rights campaign against the company has not ended.

Between 50 and 100 percent of Nike factories require more working hours than those permitted by the Code of Conduct. In 25 to 50 percent of factories, workers are required to work 7 days a week, and in the same percentage of factories, workers are still paid less than the local minimum wage.According to the Educating for Justice group

Corporations care what the public thinks about them. With more people like you and me making a stand against companies who are not practicing fair wage practices, one day the term ethical fashion won’t have to be an irony.

Image Credit- Labour behind the Label on Flickr at Creative Commons