#nike justdoit unfairwages unsafefactories indonesia

[sustainablecomposing]

NIKE and CSR

   Nike has become one of those global companies targeted by a broad range of  journalists as a symbolic representation of a popular business in society. In Nike’s case, the issues are those of human rights and conditions for workers in factories in developing countries. In the face of constant accusations, Nike has developed a considered response, supported by corporate website reporting. It now has a well developed focus for its corporate responsibility on improving conditions in contracted factories, aiming for carbon neutrality, and making sports available to young people across the world. The criticism continues, however.

   The Global Alliance report on the factories in Indonesia gave the following workforce profile: 58% of them are young adults between 20 and 24 years old, and 83% are women. Few have work-related skills when they arrive at the factory. Nike has around 700 contract factories, within which around 20% of the workers are creating Nike products. Conditions for these workers has been a source of heated debate, with allegations made by campaigns of poor conditions, with constant harassment and abuse. Nike has sought to respond to these allegations by putting into place a code of conduct for all of its suppliers, and working with the Global Alliance to review around 21 of these factories, and to pick up and respond to issues.

    In Indonesia, the following was reported: 30.2% of the workers had personally experienced, and 56.8% had observed, verbal abuse. An average of 7.8% of workers reported receiving unwelcome sexual comments, and 3.3% reported being physically abused. In addition, sexual trade practices in recruitment and promotion were reported by at least two workers in each of two different factories, although a deep investigation was unable to confirm this.

    Naomi Klein, in her popular book "No Logo" deals quite extensively with Nike, accusing them of abandoning countries as they developed better pay and employment rights in favor of countries like China, where these are less of a cost. She shows a photo published in 1996 showing children in Pakistan stitching Nike footballs as an example of the use of child labor.

    Nike accuses Naomi Klein of spreading inaccurate and old information. They point out that they have not abandoned countries as she claims, and remain in Taiwan and Korea despite the higher wages and labor rights. They admit that the 1996 photo portrayed what they describe as a "large mistake" when they began to order soccer balls for the first time from a supplier in Pakistan. They now operate stitching centers where the non-use of child labor can be verified.  Nike are also troubled at how they have attained the status of lead focus in this area. “They request that people look towards their competitors and see how many of them have taken the kind of measures the company has over the last few years.”(2014)

After discovering all of this negative information portrayed of Nike, I asked myself if any corporation or company could possibly support them and their actions? This is what I concluded: It said "Upon due consideration, members of the Operating Council unanimously expressed their judgement that upon learning of the alleged violations surfaced through the Global Alliance assessment process, that Nike had acted in good faith, and developed a serious and reasonable remediation plan."(2014)

To find out for yourself visit these provided sites:

The nike business site:

http://nikebiz.com/

The critics:

http://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php?title=Nike

Nike’s ethos falls nothing but short here. One can only view them in a negative aspect upon gathering this information. Nike needs to further investigate every factory and shop that produces anything “Nike.” They need to make sure that all of their thousands of employees are lead and protected by certified officials. Nike portrays themselves to the public as a great company enhancing the health of people around the world. In doing this, they must make sure the people behind the scenes are respected and taken care of as well.

“Corporate Social Responsibility- Companies in the news-Nike.” Website. Website, 6 March. 2014. Web. 6 March. 2014. http://www.mallenbaker.net/csr/CSRfiles/nike.html

-Kelsey Walker