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Globalization of child labour in Nike corporation
Case study analysis of Nike
Case study analysis of Nike
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Introduction The Nike Inc. company “Just do It” logo encourages many to be motivated to push themselves to work hard and to believe in themselves. The Nike Inc. shoe industry has marketed their sneakers through popular icons such as sport players. However, the same should be encouraged in employees who manufacture these products overseas in China, Indonesia and Korea. Nike has a responsibility to ensure that Management in the manufacturing company is held to a higher practice to avoid unsafe working conditions, unfair pay and child labor.
Unsafe Working Conditions
Marketing agencies know that the way to encourage buying it to present a need or want based on popularity. Therefore, it is unbelievable that those superstars that people
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The rising cost of supplies and companies having limited resources in the United States, it would seem logical that companies venture out and obtain for cost effective material and labor. However, Nike is also reported to have no knowledge of working conditions by subcontractors overseas. In addition, reports indicated that employees working at a facility that is “owned and operated by a Korean subcontractor, were forced to work 65 hours a week, far more than Vietnamese law allows, for $10 a week” (Greenhouse, 1997, November 8). In addition to working long hours and little pay, Nike manufacturing companies in China are said to be in violation of exploiting child labor.
Child Labor and Slavery
According to Nike’s own investigation, it was discovered “167 cases of its existing employees that were underage, but now have reached the legal age of 18 years old and two cases where there were current underage workers”. (Fasion Ezine, 2016). Women and children are both working up to 60 hours per week at times located in dwellings away from family. Often, these are low income or poverty driven workers that are confined to the factor’s needs to push out more production to meet the growing needs of consumers.
Senior Management and Policy on Social
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.
Scanning the conforming, ephemeral trendy masses, a large percent of the attire donned by the populace is made by cheap labor under horrible conditions. Many of the stores that fill malls and line streets are stocked with morally tainted products. Various popular brand names and stores use sweat shops as a means of production to maintain a low manufacturing cost, and reap a higher profit. Not only do these socially irresponsible conglomerates exist, they thrive on the blinded, and complacent materialistic society. Outfitting popular sports teams, and celebrities, these businesses have immense control, and take a big part in not only the fashion industry, but foreign affairs, as well. Although providing labor to third world countries may at first seem acceptable, the circumstances under which these sweatshops run are not. There are lists of rules by the United Nations, that outline the requirements a corporation must meet to be a socially responsible company. There are many companies that are popular today, however, that don’t meet the criteria stipulated by the UN, and fall in the “sweatshop” category.
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...
Pittman, B. (2012, September 14). Nike sweatshop history: Should action be taken?. Retrieved from https://sites.google.com/site/americanlaborcrises/labor-crises/nike-sweatshop-action
Nike is one of the biggest footwear and apparel manufacturing companies in the word. The company came into existence in 1964 by Bill Boweman and Phil Knight and named it as the Blue Ribbon Sports. The company changed the name to Nike, which is Greek word meaning victory, in 1972 after producing a good brand of shoes that became popular among the athletes (NIKE, Inc., 2001). Since then, the company has been successful, dominating the world market of athletic shoes. The company’s products are sold in more than 170 countries across the world. The company also sponsors various sports events at national and international levels. The company slogan “just do it” is catchy and attract many people tom buying its products. This makes the company to grow continuously due to wide and stable customer base.
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...
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
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.
Child Labor is not an isolated problem. The phenomenon of child labor is an effect of economic discrimination. In different parts of the world, at different stages of histories, laboring of child has been a part of economic life. More than 200 million children worldwide, some are as young as 4 and 5 years old, are slaves to the production line. These unfortunate children manufacture shoes, matches, clothing, rugs and countless other products that are flooding the American market and driving hard-working Americans out of jobs. These children worked long hours, were frequently beaten, and were paid a pittance. In 1979, a study shows more than 50 million children below the age of 16 were considered child labor (United Nation labors agency data). In 1998, according to the Campaign for Labor rights that is a NGO and United Nation Labor Agency, 250 million children around the world are working in farms, factories, and household. Some human rights experts indicate that there are as many as 400 million children under the age of 15 are performing forced labor either part or full-time under unsafe work environment. Based upon the needs of the situation, there are specific areas of the world where the practice of child labor is taking place. According to the journal written by Basu, Ashagrie gat...
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.
With the development of a global market place, industry and manufacturing is no longer confined to its mother country. Worldwide demand has created an expanded market for competitive goods and services. Consequently, many large corporations have located their primary centers of production overseas in third world nations, which manufacture goods at bottom line costs. This demand for cheaply produced goods has also lead to a demand for laboring workers (Henderson 49). As a result, millions of children have become bonded laborers to fulfill this need for cheap labor. Essentially, the unknowing consumer fuels this pr...
This project concentrates on the Nike Sports shoe; Nike is one of most significant shoe manufacturing company worldwide. Sportswear manufactured by Nike is known for quality and is most liked brand of athletes. (Daniel, 2011)
manufacturing products overseas, specifically in Bangladesh. The focal point of the article was how Nike was attempting to achieve the lowest possible manufacturing costs while still maintaining worker safety and producing high-quality products. Both consequences and benefits of manufacturing in foreign companies was discussed in the article. In addition to how manufacturing costs affect the financial outlook of the company, the article addressed how having factories in less-developed countries has an impact on public opinion of Nike.
America is a birthplace of NIKE Company. Nike’s workplace consists of a leader, visionaries and experienced employees who are very passionate to maintain the status ...