Nike: Sweatshops And Child Labor

Nike
Nike, like many successful companies we know, started with a simple purpose and goal. Bill Bowerman, a co-founder and coach, wanted to create more efficient running shoes and raise his student’s performance. The name of this student was Phil Knight, he was a runner, scholar of Stanford University, and co-founder of Nike. Phil Knight wrote a paper suggesting that manufacturing shoes in Japan would help many retailers compete with big-box brands. This suggestion was unheard of, and no one was buying into it, so he decided to pursue it himself. Knight imported shoes from Japan and started to sell them in his area. He attempted to sell his first stock of shoes to his past coach Bowerman, who was interested in joining him, so they decided

In February 2005, Nike released results from Oregon, stating the amount of money and jobs created. Nike added a whopping $2 billion to the state economy, and added 16,500 indirect and direct jobs to top it all off. However in other countries such as Vietnam, there are many downfalls to creating many jobs. In third-world countries there are sweatshops and child labor, as Nike demands them to fill the orders requested. In Vietnam specifically, human trafficking and child labor is very common. As soon as the word had spread out about these sweatshops and the child labor in Vietnam and other third-world countries, Nike went to Vietnam and tried to improve working conditions in the factories and tried to deny any evidence of these negative working societies. Even in some first-world countries, Nike doesn't reward long hours, as they believe that it is their duty. Nike even affects the government economics, exporting out of the US or Canada helps the government generate revenue. Because Nike is such a large and well-known company it stimulates economic growth and provides competition for other companies, which is better for the

Nike impacts communities, cities, states, countries, and the world. Cheyenne says, “We sit down with students and help them with their education. We provide children with after-school programs, so we can help them stay fit. We also do lots of charity work…we donate a lot to hospitals” (Nike, Cheyenne. Personal Interview. 11 Mar. 2016). With the after-school programs Nike provides, it encourages kids to get active, as this is a current problem with kids. Working for Nike also improves leadership in the business community. The environment is also very important to nike because recently Nike has been working on trying to decrease energy use and greenhouse gas emissions. Reducing manufacturing waste in supply chains is also another problem Nike is trying to tackle. Not only does Nike affect people locally, but they affect people on a global scale as well. As stated earlier, Nike dominates the sports market, which means companies around the world will try to compete. This increases the competition in this sector of the market. With Nike being such a large company, they demand a lot from their out-of-country factories. Because of this, developing countries are pressured to prioritize export and payment of foreign debt. This is the reason for many