cbs 48

CBS 48 HOURS HITS NIKE'S VIETNAM SUBCONTRACTORS FOR BEATING WORKERS
(Corporate Crime Reporter, 4 November 1996)

  CBS 48 Hours reporter Roberta Baskin went to Vietnam earlier this year to document how subcontractors for Nike are mistreating workers.   In Vietnam, she found supervisors beating workers.
  Last month, Baskin reported how 15 Nike workers at a facility in Vietnam were singled out and punished by their Korean supervisor. The supervisor used a Nike shoe to hit the women workers in retaliation for "poor sewing."
  "She hit all of the 15 team leaders in turn from the first one to the 15th," one woman told Baskin. The Koreamsupervisor Madame Baeck, told reporters "It's not a big deal - it's just a method for managing workers."
  Robert Templer, a journalist in Vietnam who reports on labor issue, told Baskin that a new phrase has crept into the vocabulary in Vietnam - "To Nike" someone is "to take out one's frustration on a fellow worker," Templer said.
  Workers in Nike's Vietnam facilities also reported getting their mouths taped shut and being forced to kneel with hands extended skyward.   Like in Indonesia, Nike doesn't own the facilities where its shoes are made - the subcontractors do.
  "Coca Cola is doing just fine owning and operating its own factories," Baskin reported. "Coca Cola workers are offered English classes and sales training. The pay is about twice the Vietnamese minimum wage."   "I would like a pair of Nike shoes as a souvenir, but I could never afford it," one worker told Baskin.
  In a letter sent to all Nike athletes, retailers and employees, Nike said that "CBS chose to focus on a few isolated incidents in a work force that numbers more than 20,000 workers."
  "In fact, Nike and its subcontractors had dealt with these problems immediately and effectively, long before the television cameras arrived," according to the letter.

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