THE NUMBERS:

We know of protests in 13 countries: Australia (more than 10 cities), Canada (at least 10 cities), England, Finland, Ireland, Italy, Malaysia, The Netherlands, New Zealand (several cities), Singapore, Sweden, Switzerland and the United States (more than 50 cities).
In the U.S., there are activities in at least 28 states: Arizona, California, Colorado, Connecticut, District of Columbia, Florida, Georgia, Illinois, Indiana, Iowa, Massachusetts, Maryland, Michigan, Minnesota, Missouri, New Jersey, New Mexico, New York, North Carolina, Ohio, Oregon, Pennsylvania, Texas, Utah, Vermont, Washington, Wisconsin and Wyoming.

Around the world, there are at least 84 communities and campuses which have actions in support of the rights of Nike workers. This is truly a global protest!

ARE WE WINNING?

The following are our main requests to Nike:
* Pay a living wage based on an 8-hour day
* Stop requiring forced overtime
* Treat workers with respect
* Allow workers to join a union and bargain collectively
* Cooperate with monitoring by local nonprofit human rights and religious organizations
* Redress the claims of workers fired for seeking decent pay and working conditions

Nike has taken some steps toward cleaning up its labor practices. Each improvement has been a direct result of pressure from the Nike campaign whose representatives the company vilifies. These modest steps by Nike management demonstrate that the company is not immune to public pressure.

* The June, 1996 issue of Life Magazine exposed Nike's use of child labor in Pakistan in the production of soccer balls. Public outrage forced Nike to set up a stitching center to prevent the use of child labor. However, the company refuses to allow independent monitors to inspect its stitching center.

* In early 1997, all Nike factories in Indonesia asked the government for permission not to pay the new minimum wage, which was scheduled to rise by 20 cents to a total of $2.46 per day. Workers protests and international condemnation forced Nike to make its contractors promise to pay the new minimum. However, an Asian monetary crisis in recent months has dropped the value of the Indonesian minimum wage to only $1.57 per day. Nike still refuses to commit to paying its workers a living wage.

* In May of 1997, Vietnam Labor Watch released a report on factory conditions in Vietnam. Following widespread criticism after the release of this report, Nike dismissed one supervisor accused of beating workers.

* In September of 1997, Nike announced that it is providing all of its overseas workers with a wallet-size laminated card summarizing the company's code of conduct. Although the terms of the code are vaguely worded on the cards and although the company still refuses to permit independent external monitoring of its factories, this program represents a beginning step toward informing Nike's workers that they have rights which ought to be respected.

NIKE TRIES AN 11TH-HOUR SURPRISE

Two days before the international mobilization of october 18, with great fanfare, Nike released in summary form a wage-and needs study of Nike workers in Indonesia and Vietnam. According to the study, Nike workers are so well paid that they are buying telephones, VCRs and motorbikes and still have money left over to send home to family members. Certain points are worth raising about this study.

* Nike released a summary of the study just two days before the international mobilization but refused to allow access to the study itself until two weeks later. There is no way to discuss the validity of the methodology without seeing the actual study. If this is such a great study, why is Nike afraid to have it examined while it's still a hot news item?

* The supervisors of the study (faculty at the Amos Tuck School of Business at Dartmouth College) also conducted a similar study for Disney with similar findings exonerating the Disney company of underpaying its Haitian workforce. Subsequent investigation found the Disney report to be if not outright fraudulent, then incompetent at best.

* Although Nike clearly hopes to buttress the credibility of this report through the fact that it was done by academics at Dartmouth, in fact releasing and publicizing a summary in advance of publishing the complete research study is in strong violation of accepted academic standards.

* The prime source of country income data is the World Bank, which also just happens to be one of the prime agents responsible for poverty in the Third World.

* The study seems not to take into account the extent to which forced overtime influences workers' yearly wages.

* The study considers money sent home to families to be discretionary income even though an International Labor Organization (ILO) study demonstrated that Indonesian workers literally will starve themselves to the point of malnutrition in order to be able to send money home to family members.

6,000 NIKE WORKERS ISSUE A REBUTTAL

Just prior to the October 16 Nike announcement of the Dartmouth findings, on October 13-15 6,000 Nike workers went on strike in Indonesia to protest a Nike contractor's attempt to cheat them out of legally-owed severance pay. In April of this year, 10,000 Indonesian Nike workers and 1,300 Vietnamese Nike workers went on strike. The claims of some MBA students and faculty >from Dartmouth (that Nike workers are comfortable and happy) seem shaky when compared with the living testimony of more than 17,000 Nike workers.

EXCITING RECENT DEVELOPMENTS:

On October 24, Representatives Bernie Sanders (I-VT) and Marcy Kaptur (D-Ohio) announced that they are circulating a letter for co-signatures to members of Congress addressed to Nike CEO Philip Knight. The letter asks Knight to meet with members of Congress to discuss how his company can move forward to treat its Third World workers with respect, pay decent wages and start manufacturing some of its athletic shoes in the United States.

An October 26 New York Times article announced that a coalition of women's groups has attacked Nike as hypocritical for its new television commercials that feature female athletes, asserting that something is wrong when the company calls for empowering American women but pays its largely female overseas work force poorly. The commercials show women saying they will be stronger, healthier and more independent if they are allowed to play sports. In a letter to Philip Knight, the coalition -- which includes the National Organization for Women, the Feminist Majority and the Ms. Foundation for Women -- wrote, "While the women who wear Nike shoes in the United States are encouraged to perform their best, the Indonesian, Vietnamese and Chinese women making the shoes often suffer from inadequate wages, corporal punishment, forced overtime and/or sexual harassment."

WHERE DO WE GO FROM HERE?

Because of the success of the October 18 mobilization, Campaign for Labor Rights is calling for another international Nike day of action in April of 1998 ö the exact date still to be determined. We are much stronger now than when we started organizing for October 18. We have contact information for a global network of national and local activists who are ready to show their support for the rights of Nike's overseas workforce. We expect that network to grow between now and April. Like the October event, the emphasis in April will be on local activities. And, of course, Nike leafleting actions between now and April are most welcome!

Campaign for Labor Rights is pulling together an alliance of activists on the campuses where Nike has contracts. In many cases, these activists already have been engaged in the Guess campaign and other anti-sweatshop work through the excellent outreach efforts of the UNITE textile workers union.

Campaign for Labor Rights urges Nike campaign activists to reach out to other constituencies in your communities: to become more racially diverse and to include the active participation of youth in the schools, communities of faith and organized labor.

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