Globe Trotting Trainers Article on Exploitation of Workers in Lesser Economically Developed Countries The article 'Globe Trotting Trainers' is intended to persuade readers to complain about the exploitation of workers in lesser economically developed countries. The writer tries to persuade the reader to do something about it. The piece is written for teenagers or young adults. I know this because the title of the magazine is 'Young People Magazine.' Alternatively the article uses fashionable makes which are mostly associated with teenagers or younger people. Also it talks about friends, adults work lives are generally too hectic for them to have a significant social life. The article is probably written for Christian teenagers as the article is written by Christian Aid and therefore probably sold through churches. I think the writer is trying to argue that the workers of these L.E.D.C's are being exploited "A pair of trainers sells for £50 in Britain… But the forty or so factory workers in the Philippines who make the trainers will share just over £1 between them." I think the writer is getting consumers to use their consumer power to not buy the products being advertised, by appealing to the consumers conscience, bringing to their attention the plight of the workers in L.E.D.C's. "Christian Aid charges the sports shoes companies with short changing the workers in Asia. It has calculated how long it would take a young production worker to earn the annual salary of Nike boss Phil Knight." Christian Aid have spent a lot of time finding out the facts to back up what they say they are bringing you information straight from the bosses and the workers and showing the reader the pain the workers are going through. Also I think the writer is trying to get the consumer to write to the companies and tell them, to remind them, what their subcontractors is not right or fair. "The workers are lucky - One senior Nike employee told researchers: I don't think the workers in our factories are treated badly… Working conditions are
Scholarly intrigue and a hunger for knowledge led Kelsey Timmerman to write the book "Where Am I Wearing". "Where Am I Wearing" is a compilation of both Timmerman's thought-provoking questions: questions about wear the clothes we wear come from, about who makes our clothes, about the working conditions of the people who make our clothes, and the stories that he gathered during the many journeys that he went on while writing the book. Through his tales of travel Timmerman introduces his readers to the harsh realities of globalization, poverty, child labor, and sweatshops.
This article is real case of a particular factory in Indonesia which produces shoe, primarily for Reebok. It reveals how one of the world’s most powerful companies is influencing lives and working conditions in one of the poorest countries in the world.
The General Accountability Office defines a sweatshop as a “multiple labor law violator.” A sweatshop violates laws pertaining to benefits, working hours, and wages (“Toxic Uniforms”). To make more money, companies move their sweatshop factories to different locations and try to find the cheapest locations with the least regulations (“Sweatshops”). There are not as many sweatshop factories in the United States because the industries have been transferred overseas where the labor is cheaper and there are weaker regulations. In the United States, sweatshops are hidden from the public, with poor immigrant workers who are unable to speak out against the injustices (“Subsidizing Sweatshops”). Workers in sweatshops are forced to work overtime, earn below a living wage, do not earn benefits, and encounter verbal, physical and sexual abuse. Macy’s, JCPenney, Kohl’s, The
Nike’s sweatshop manufacturing practices which can be seen through media have shown people that this company goes under the good guys images, these images which are displayed in their commercials show people that their employees are treated well and their happy in their working environment.
Everyone loves his or her new set of Nike apparel. In fact, Nike can be found on the bodies of many athletic team members. Why would such a prosperous and well-known company rely on the exploitation of child slave labor? It all started when CEO Philip Knight came up with a "brilliant idea": put shoe factories in Asia, paying the workers pennies on the dollar, and raking in immense profits. Nike can easily afford to pay workers a fair amount. One can see that this is the antithesis of Nike's philosophy: doing what's fair. Workers in Nike sweatshops are denied human rights, pressured into working long and hard hours, and worst of all can't provide for themselves or their families. It's ironic how an American company, which enjoys the rights given to it by the American government, takes away human rights in other countries.
In June of 1996, Life magazine published a article about Nike’s child labor that was occurring in Pakistan. The article showed a little boy who was surrounded by pieces of Nike sports gear. The articles were shoes and soccer balls. Nike then knew then that they had to make some major changes in the way they were producing their items.
First, we want Nike to play a role in effecting positive, systemic change in working conditions within our industries. If our efforts lead to a workplace oasis -- one solitary and shining example in a desert of poor conditions -- then we’ve not succeeded. Even if that single shining example were to exist (and we’re not claiming it does), we’ve learned that positive changes won’t last unless the landscape changes. Our challenge is to work with the industry and our contract manufacturers to collectively address these systemic non-compliance issues that our data so highlight. This is one of the key reasons we made the decision to disclose our supply base; we believe this could encourage other companies to do the same. Our belief is that in disclosing, the industry will find ways to better share knowledge and learnings. This, in turn, will facilitate the building of further partnership approaches that are built on best practice and gradually lead us to standard codes, standard approaches to monitoring, standard reporting and standard parameters for transparency. It’s our belief that for market forces to enable responsible competitiveness, consumers must be able to reward brands and suppliers using fact-based information. Compliance efforts need to be optimized, made affordable and demonstrate real return if better working conditions are to become widespread. Disclosure of our supply chain is done in an effort to jump-start disclosure and collaboration throughout the industry and support efforts towards that final goal of market forces, providing the tipping point for the mainstreaming of best practice.
Nike does not merely sell products these days. They spend billions of dollars for advertising contracts with famous athletes like Tiger Woods to increase the value of the brand by associating the factor of lifestyle to their products. The company's image has been damaged many times by press releases as well as a variety of NGOs who have long pointed out the inhumane working conditions in the production facilities of sporting goods manufacturers. This leads to the question whether should Nike orientate the regulations of the suppliers to the labor standards in their respective countries or those in the United States? The labor conditions are so inhumane that Nike at least should try to converse to the US standard to improve the situation. The following analysis of an abstract of Nikes’ Responsibility Concept, including SHAPE and their Code of Conduct, should give an insight into the difficulties of the Sweatshops.
Phil Knight started his shoe company by selling shoes from the back of his car. As he became more successful in 1972 he branded the name Nike. In the 1980’s Nike Corporation quickly grew and established itself as a world leader in manufacturing and distributing athletic footwear and sports' attire. The Nike manufacturing model has followed is to outsource its manufacturing to developing nations in the Asia Pacific, Africa, South and Latin Americas; where labor is inexpensive. It quickly became known for its iconic “swoosh” and “Just do it” advertisements and products. Its highly successful advertising campaigns and brand developed its strong market share and consumer base. But, the road has not always been easy for Nike; in the late 1990’s they went through some challenging times when their brand become synonymous with slave wages and child labor abuses. During this period, Nike learned that it paramount that the company understands its stakeholders’ opinions and ensures their values are congruent with their stakeholders. Nike learned that their stakeholders were concerned with more than buying low cost products; their customers were also concerned with ethical and fair treatment of their workers. Because Nike was unwilling to face the ethical treatment of its employees, the company lost its loyal customers and damaged its reputation. Nike has bounced back since the late 1990’s and revived its reputation by focusing on its internal shortfalls and attacking its issues head on. Nike nearly collapsed from its missteps in the late 1990’s. They have learned from their mistakes and taken steps to quickly identify ethical issues before they become a crisis through ethics audits. This paper is based on the case study of Nike: From Sweatsh...
Another area of concern is the discrepancy of differences in East Asian worker regulations and wages compared to the North American standards. Much speculation has gone toward attacking Nike for their blatant disregard of American labour ethics, but Nike is having difficulty explaining their justification of meeting offshore requirements. For example, the legal age in Indonesia was 14, an age at which compulsory Schooling has ended. Nike was criticized for apparently having girls at this age working in their factories (which wasn’t true), and was shunned for inhuman labour practices according to American standards.
“I was 18 years old when I first went with the Consumers’ League into sweatshops in New York City. For the first time in my life I saw conditions I would not have believed existed, women and children working in dark, crowded quarters, toiling, I was told, all day long and way into the night to earn a few pennies. I can never forget these conditions” (Meltzer 63). In 1902, Eleanor Roosevelt got a small taste of how the United States was exploiting workers through sweatshops. Even though time has passed, the problem has not. Sweatshops are still in operation. Some United States companies even support them by taking advantage of lower trade barriers, failing transportation, and communication costs to relocate production of goods to poor countries
Nike has plenty of critics, but some believe the company has done nothing wrong with the treatment of their workers. William Stepp, from Libertarian Mises Institute, believes that the benefits the workers are given at the factories improve their lives (Nike sweatshops, 2017). William backs his opinion by the fact the workers agreed to the wage and work hours before deciding to take the job (Nike sweatshops, 2017). The workers are supplied with benefits like free physicals, clinic and health services, uniforms, food, transportation, and entertainment; if the other part of the factory work is not as glamorous, the workers still receive better treatment from the factories than other jobs (Nike sweatshops, 2017). In addition, studies were conducted by the Global Alliance for Workers and Communities, and they discovered that 70% of Nike workers in Thailand would rate their supervisors as good, and that 72% thought they were paid fair wages (Nike sweatshops, 2017). If the workers believe they are being treated fairly, and that the factory job is more stable than farm work, is there really a problem. Many factory workers will migrate towards factories because the work is steady than farmland, and they can send money back to their families. The factories supply jobs to people who normally would not be able to find jobs that pay a decent and consistent wage (Nike sweatshops,
“Only 4 out of the top 10 nations that have the highest number of suspected sweatshops have an hourly wage that exceeds $1 per hour.” (“Calculating Profitability Index Examples.”) Sweatshop workers hardly make a livable wage even though they work for hours everyday. They also have to deal with working in terrible physical conditions. The treatment these workers are receiving is atrocious and there should be more things done to stop it.
When a customer purchases Nike equipment they are supporting child labor, long work hours, forced overtime, and abusive work environments (Russell). Millions of people know about Nike because it is the largest supplier and manufacturer of sports apparel, but not many people think about how Nike employees are being treated in factories (Sanders, Kaptur). The inhumane working conditions that workers face in Nike can be analyzed through its background/history, the current issue, and the solution.
According to the text The World of Child Labor: An Historical and Regional Survey “In 1905 in the Carolinas, Georgia, and Alabama alone, it was estimated that there were 62,000 children under fourteen working in mills. Only thirty percent of the workforce was over twenty-one, the other seventy percent were under fourteen” (“The World of Child Labor: An Historical and Regional Survey”). Child labor dominated factories and mills during the late 18th and early 19th century, increasing the abuse and barbaric treatment of children. Child labor, the harmful use of children in factories, is one of the worst parts of United States’ history due to the fact children worked longer and harder than most adults, but were paid less, children were treated