Inhumane Working Conditions in Nike Factories 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. To begin, Nike’s inhumane working conditions can be analyzed through its history. It all started back in the 1970s when they first moved their factories from Oregon to countries like Vietnam, China, South Korea, Indonesia, and Taiwan because these countries have access to cheap labor (Wilsey, Lichtig). According to Matt Wilsey and Scott Lichtig,“These corporations could now reap the benefit of the United States consumer market, while keeping their costs extremely low in offshore …show more content…
In factories workers encounter abusive supervisors, low wages, health hazards, child labor, and forced overtime (Wilsey, Lichtig). Factory conditions can be hazardous to health because workers come into contact with dangerous chemicals. According to Sanders and Kaptur “In Vietnam, young women toil sixty-five hour work weeks for $10, in air so bad that 78% of the employees have respiratory problems.” Along with the chemicals and respiratory problems, abuse from supervisors can also be damaging to their health. In Vietnam factories several women were forced by their abusive supervisors to run laps until they fainted (Saporito, Larimer, McCarthy). Nike workers also have to deal with low wages, and in fact, “aA worker of Nike receives $2.28 a day”(Dumbrava). This daily income only covers 78% of the basic needs for one person
Large corporations such as Nike, Gap, and Reebok and many others from the United States have moved their factories to undeveloped nations; barely pay their employees enough to live on. Countries such as China, Indonesia, and Haiti have readily abundant cheap labor. There should be labor laws or an obligation of respecting workers to provide decent working conditions, fair wages, and safety standards.
Young girls were not allowed to open the windows and had to breathe in the dust, deal with the nerve-racking noises of the machines all day, and were expected to continue work even if they 're suffering from a violent headache or toothache (Doc 2). The author of this report is in favor of employing young women since he claimed they seemed happy and they loved their machines so they polished them and tied ribbons on them, but he didn 't consider that they were implemented to make their awful situations more bearable. A woman who worked in both factory and field also stated she preferred working in the field rather than the factory because it was hard work but it never hurt her health (Doc 1), showing how dangerous it was to work in a factory with poor living conditions. Poor living conditions were common for nearly all workers, and similar to what the journalist saw, may have been overlooked due to everyone seeming
Corporations in the United States have proved time and time again that they are all about profit and not about what is good for America. One example of this is the fact that many corporations have factories in other countries, or buy from other corporations that do. Nike (an athletic shoe and clothing company) produces most of their shoes and apparel in factories in other countries, including Japan, South Korea, Indonesia, China, Vietnam and Malaysia. According to Nike’s factory disclosure list released May 2011, only 49 of it’s over 700 factories are located in the U.S. (Nike, Inc.) This means that thousands of jobs that could be filled by needy Americans are instead being filled by workers in other countries. This reason that Nike and other corporations outsource is very simple, it is very cheap to do so. In an excerpt from Jeffrey St. Clair's book “Born Under a Bad Sky” the author describes the vast differences between Nike’s production costs and retail prices. “In Vietnam, it costs Nike only $1.50 to manufactu...
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.
... ethics? Well, the honest answer would be to eliminate the sweatshops completely. This is unlikely because it would be very difficult for a company with such a broad reach in the corporate world to shut down its factories overseas. Companies will always continue to exploit lower wages as long as the opportunity is present. A possible way would be to improve their employee surroundings. Since Nike is benefiting from low wages, they should at least provide a safer working environment for its employees. No employee should ever be put at risk due to a lack of environmental awareness. Nike should also pay attention to wage laws that govern the area that they manufacture in. With all the profits Nike earns, it couldn’t possibly hurt them to pay their employees no less than minimum wage. Otherwise, any company that possesses such blatant greed will not last in the long run.
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...
For many years people around the world have argued over whether or not the U.S. should buy products that were manufactured using child labor. Many companies such as Nike use child labor. Young children are having to work very hard, sometimes just to get by. United States companies should not buy products made with child labor because it is not safe for the kids and they are not being paid fairly. While many people say the U.S. should buy these products because it helps with child poverty, no company should be allowed to buy these types of products.
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
With the increasing awareness and publicity of poor working conditions in subcontracted factories in East Asia, Nike has stimulated an uprising of activist and watchdog groups working toward seeing these conditions changed. With Nike in the negative spotlight, various organizations have revolved around generating a negative outlook on Nike’s practices of social irresponsibility. Certain campaigns such as the “National Days of Consciousness” and “International Day of Protest” were organized to educate people on the deplorable working conditions in Nike’s Asian manufacturing plants, and were designed to get more people involved in global employment issues.
The current affair which I had choose was the Nikes equality campaign takes a stance on diversity and oppurtuinity. The campaign was made to encourage others to take the fairness and respect they see on the variety of sport venues to help them aid others to use in the world outside sports. Nike has made equality the center of the campaign using voice and the power which support has today modern society. Nike has a history of being behind such campaigns which reflects the companies values including recent partnerships with Mentor National partnership and Peaceplayer international which regonizes for uniting divided communities. To broaden their market they have included Nikes finest athletes in a short film with the name of Equality.
Most of these companies have big scandals that correspond to their working conditions, which we already knew. I want to present some examples of working conditions in the factories which are owned by such well-known brands. In a factory in China that makes Levi jeans, women sew for 12 hours a day for less than 12 cents an hour, with only 2 days off each month. Also, they receive no healthcare and no compensation for injury. In a factory in Vietnam that makes Nike tennis shoes, employees work for 65 hours each week, for less than $10 a week.
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.
In my point of view, the most unethical Nike’s decision is not to take the responsibility to ensure at least minimum and humane standards that it should offer to its work force. For example, in Vietnam, Nike paid its workers less than the cost of three meals of rice and vegetables and tofu. It treated workers no better than in sweatshops with only two drinks of water and one bathroom break in an eight hour shift. Also Nike let its contractors in developing countries to use child labor under sub-standard conditions. On the other hand, the least unethical Nike’s decision is to have a TV commercial featured a Manchester United player explaining how spitting at a fan and insulting a coach won him a Nike contract.