Powerbase - User contributions [en]

Nike & Corporate Social Responsibility

2006-04-26T22:23:50Z

Ifu03592: /* A Parody for Nike */

Back to Home Page: [[Nike]]

Corporate social responsibility (CSR) is a concept that has blossomed over the last fifteen years. Rather than being narrowly focused on the pursuit of profit at the expense of all else, businesses practicing CSR, should at least in theory, be behaving responsibly in the course of their profit-making, taking into account their economic, environmental and social impacts on society.

However, there is a lot of debate surrounding CSR practice, regarding both to what extent certain companies are living up to their responsible promises and regarding some of the possible ulterior motives involved in practicing CSR.

Reasons leveled at Nike for why they might be practicing CSR, other than just on basic moral grounds include:
* Defending their important public image
* Differentiating themselves from their competitors
* Helping to prevent financially damaging boycotts, strikes, lawsuits, etc
* Appealing to the ethical consumer
* Appealing to the ethical investor
* Appealing to the ethical employee
* Pressure to do so from NGO's, Government or to combat public relations disasters
* Using CSR policies as evidence that they do not need to be regulated any further than they already are at present

== Nikes CSR Policy ==
Nike maintain that their business is built on trust, teamwork, honesty and mutual respect. [http://www.nike.com/nikebiz/nikebiz.jhtml?page=7&item=responsibility] In order for this to be achieved, the company has put in place a set of corporate governance policies and practices and this has been extended in recent times to attempt to include corporate responsibility issues as a central part of their governance system. Nike's codes and policies are outlined below:

===Our Codes and Policies===
Our code of ethics is called Inside the Lines; it defines the standards of conduct we expect of our employees. Every year, all employees are required to verify that they have read and understand Inside the Lines.

We operate a global toll-free Alertline for employees to report in confidence any suspected violations of the law or our code of ethics. Any reported concerns around accounting, auditing or internal control are communicated to the Audit Committee of the Board.

We expect our suppliers to share our standards and to operate in a legal and ethical manner. While Inside the Lines covers the behavior of Nike employees, our Nike Code of Conduct covers contractors who manufacture Nike-branded products. It directs them to respect the rights of their employees, and to provide them with a safe and healthy work environment.

Taken from: [http://www.nike.com/nikebiz/nikebiz.jhtml?page=7&item=responsibility Nike Website]

===Corporate Responsibility Committee===

Jill Ker Conway, Non-Executive Director, Committee Chair

Douglas G. Houser, Non-Executive Director

Jeanne P. Jackson, Non-Executive Director

John R. Thompson, Jr., Non-Executive Director

Established in 2001, the CR Committee of the Board was set up to review significant policies and activities and make recommendations to the Board of Directors regarding labor and environmental practices, community affairs, charitable and foundation activities, diversity and equal opportunity, and environmental and sustainability initiatives. Meetings are held regularly where the Committee meet to discuss these issues. In addition, close to 150 Nike employees work on CR issues as their main function or have CR work included in their workload.

Taken from: [http://www.nike.com/nikebiz/nikebiz.jhtml?page=7&item=responsibility Nike Website]

== CSR in Practice ==

'''Nike’s approach to labour conditions in there contract factories is evolving.'''

The following is taken from Nike's website reflecting how they feel they are performing.

Nike has transformed from a focus on the Code of Conduct to advocating common standards across the industry. They have evolved from outsourcing labour monitoring to relying on a trained team of internal monitors and support for common monitoring platforms such as the “Fair Labour Association.” Furthermore they are growing from a focus on monitoring to a focus on capacity building. From an exclusive focus on factory floor impact to an exploration of ways to help change the industry through transparency and multi-stakeholder collaborations.

These changes are driven by awareness that structural issues, common to the global footwear, apparel and equipment industries affect an individual company’s ability to change conditions in particular factories.

There monitoring processes provide clear issues arising inside factories. What they do not tell us, however, is how those issues are affected by events of external factors. For example, in trying to reduce excessive overtime, we can focus on more effective policing of factories to achieve compliance. But simply focusing on policing does not address the root cause and might take resources away from engaging in broader discussions about why workers in some cases want extra hours. Those are the discussions that may lead to greater and more lasting changes. This kind of root cause analysis requires active listening and engagement in the broader dialogue with civil society, institutions and businesses around supply chain working conditions.
In recent years, we have focused on refining our skills at (a) identifying risk of code compliance (b) uncovering issues and (c) implementing strategies that can be used to drive performance and enable change within Nike internally and on a broader level.
They have become more systematic in identifying non-compliance risk, and they have become increasingly adept at uncovering issues, but despite anecdotal instances of success, they remain deeply challenged – challenged to understand how to measure systematically the impact of there own interventions and challenged by how they play a role in enabling widespread change within the industry, which they now know is critical to facilitating change within there contract supply chain.

One step in responding to this challenge is to reveal there contract factory base. While no one can say with certainty what greater levels of factory disclosure will unleash, they do know the current system of addressing factory compliance has to be fundamentally transformed to create sustainable change. They believe that disclosure of supply chains is a step toward greater efficiencies in monitoring and remediation and in shared knowledge and capacity building that will elevate overall conditions in the industry. No one company can solve these issues that are endemic to the industry.

Transparency also should increase the incentive of brands to work with factories that demonstrate CR excellence. A more thorough description and assessment of Nike’s approach in this area can be found in the FY04 Corporate Responsibility Report.[http://www.nike.com/nikebiz/nikebiz.jhtml?page=29&item=fy04]

Taken from: [http://www.nike.com/nikebiz/nikebiz.jhtml;bsessionid=R12NPVSQU0E3GCQFTBFCF5AKAWMB2IZB?page=25&cat=approach&subcat=compliance Nike Website]

'''Giving voice to workers: The Global Alliance’s legacy'''

One of our most important partners in understanding factory worker concerns, and in training for both workers and managers, has been the Global Alliance for Workers and Communities (GA). After five years of operations, its partners collectively chose to end the initiative in December 2004.

The Global Alliance was a partnership of Nike, Gap, the World Bank, the International Youth Foundation (IYF), and other organisations aimed at worker and workplace development. Since its launch in 1999, Global Alliance facilitated interviews with more than 16,000 workers, and launched a number of development projects focused primarily around building better management practices, and worker awareness of health issues.

The Global Alliance interviews and focus groups helped us uncover the kinds of compliance issues that are difficult to bring out in typical audits. For example, a series of worker interviews conducted in Indonesia in 2000-2001 made our compliance teams much more aware of verbal, physical and sexual harassment issues – of particular importance with a workforce that is predominantly young and female. They also helped us gauge overall satisfaction with the work environment.

Their revelations led us to specifically direct factories to institute confidential grievance systems, which do not exist broadly in the industry. The grievance system standard is beginning to take hold, though nearly a third of Nike contract factories audited in fiscal years 2003 and 2004 still have no confidential grievance process in place for workers.
They also led to training as well: During our 2004 fiscal year, Global Alliance trained more than 25,000 managers and workers in more than 60 factories in China, India, Indonesia, Thailand and Vietnam.

The Global Alliance was criticized in some quarters as, at best, irrelevant when compliance issues abound, and, at worst, an end-run around trade unions. We believe this dismissal of the Global Alliance misses a larger point: Though not a perfect effort, the five-year experience with the Global Alliance taught its partners a great deal about worker issues and aspirations, and highlighted some core compliance issues as well (as is clear from the example of harassment issues). We know now that to gain a deeper understanding of a workplace, we must go beyond M-Audit scores and probe under the surface to try to measure worker satisfaction with the workplace. The evolution of our own monitoring tool to now include a strong emphasis on worker interviews is one reflection of Global Alliance’s influence.

Although we were able to gather anecdotal information about some of the positive impacts of the Global Alliance on the workplace, particularly the management training and worker health training, a measurement of actual impacts is still to come. Global Alliance’s ability to expand programming and attract other corporate partners proved limited, which led to the decision to end the initiative.

For more information about the Global Alliance, see [http://www.theglobalalliance.org their Website]. You can also download the 2003 Indonesia reassessment report outlining workers’ views of workplace improvements in Nike contract facilities.

In addition to the Global Alliance training, Nike continues to sponsor a program of worker after-hours education generally aimed at securing a high school equivalency for workers in footwear factories in Thailand, Vietnam, Indonesia and China. In the 2003/2004 school year, 984 workers graduated from one of those programs. Our commitment to worker and workplace development remains. At this point in time we are exploring different ways in which the remaining funds can be utilized in the spirit of the GA – we will report on this in our fiscal year 2005 report.

Taken from websites: [http://www.nike.com/nikebiz/nikebiz.jhtml;bsessionid=R12NPVSQU0E3GCQFTBFCF5AKAWMB2IZB?page=25&cat=approach&subcat=compliance Nike Website Nike.com] & [http://www.theglobalalliance.org Global Alliance]

== The alternative viewpoints ==
http://perso.wanadoo.fr/jerome.lafourcade/Documents/Detente/Images/Anti-mondialiste/nike.jpg

Nike might see themselves as a victim of their own sucess. As one of the biggest manufacturers of sportswear, they are under considerably more scrutiny than many of their competitors, targeted by a broad range of campaigning NGOs and journalists as a symbol of the "Typical Multinational". In Nikes 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 and even publicly apologised for its past wrongdoings last year. However, some criticism continues.

===A Parody for Nike===
The results of an internet search regarding Nike will usually bring up a clever and thought provoking parody by a man called Atul, at http://www.toolness.com/nike high on the list. It ridicules Nike for some of their approaches to manufacturing in the third-world. While the parody, titled: "Nike SweatshopsÃ¢â€žÂ¢ Ã¢â‚¬â€? unlocking the power of poverty", provides no evidence of malpractice, it's sarcastic tone sums-up and reinforces what many people believe goes on.

Atul writes:

<center>"The theme of this parody is the idea that, from the perspective of our current economic system, poverty is a very good thing. Because it increases profit margins, its existence is beneficial to a global economy. In fact, it is in the best interests of multinational corporations and their shareholders to prolong poverty for as long as possible."</center>

The following is a list of accucations made in the parody, which highlight many respected NGO and activist opinions on third-world sweatshops:

* Nike actively seek to keep their sweatshop communities in poverty by
** Setting up schools that purposely provide a low level of education to keep the community low-skilled
** Paying a wage that employees can only just survive off to make sure that they can not save to start their own business, thus keeping a stranglehold on the economy.

* Nike build factories in areas with such high unemployment so employees have no choice but to work for Nike.
** They provide basic facilities for the factory community to further increase the communities dependence on them, so the community will be crippled if Nike leave

* Nike look after investors interests by keeping profit margins high, at the expense of their third-world employees
** Maintaining low third-world wages and poor working conditions to keep profit margins high
** If salaries become to high in the area they're operating in, they pull out, spelling high unemployment and deprivation for the community.

'''So, what truth is there in this parody? The following looks at four accucations regularly levelled at Nike.'''

'''Third world employees are:'''

===Overworked===
Ms. Lap Nguyen was a section leader with three years experience at the Sam Yang factory in Vietnam and had received awards for her skill and commitment. She was required to work over 100 hours of overtime during February and March 1998

In February and March 1998 several workers from the factory, including Ms. Lap, were interviewed by the US sports channel ESPN. They described problems at the factory, including use of violence by security guards towards workers. While working overtime on Sunday March 29 Ms. Lap became sick (feverish) and put her hands on her head to rest. Her manager hit her on the arm. She went home, obtained a doctors' certificate for her fever and took one and a half days sick leave. On her return to the factory her manager shouted at her and demoted her from team leader to sewer on the grounds that "section leaders can't take sick days." In the next few days, the supervisor continued to switch her from one job to another and deliberately humiliated her in front of other workers. During this time, the factory manager interrogated her about her interview with ESPN three times, using words like "we know what you have been doing behind our back," "confess now and you will be able to keep your job." The factory manager demoted her to cleaning the toilets and continued to harass her. Eventually she was asked to sign a letter of resignation and decided that she could no longer take the harassment and intimidation and signed.
Overtime must be voluntary, should not exceed 12 hours per week, must not be demanded on a regular basis, and must be compensated at a premium rate.

Taken from: [http://www.cleanclothes.org/companies/nike99-9-22.htm CleanClothes Website] Set up to improve working conditions in the global garment industry

===Underpaid===
At number 46 on the Forbes World Rich List 2005 [www.Forbes.com Forbes.com], Nike founder and chairman Philip Knight has made $8.2 Billion since setting up the company 42 years ago. It is no secret that much of the apparel his company sells is made by some of the poorest people in the world.

Much attention has been paid to Nike's exploitation of workers in economically strugglingcountries like Indonesia, Vietnam and China. Although Nike claims they are not responsible for much of what goes on in these sweatshops because they work through subcontractors and thus are not directly involved, the corporation has shown great irresponsibility and ignorance in dealing with the matter. In fact, Nike CEO Philip Knight's admitted as much in early 2005 when he launched the 2005 Nike Coarporate Social Responsibility report [http://www.nike.com Nike]

Nike has recently released a big advertising campaign in an effort to counter its negative image as a human rights violator. One ad proclaims "It's True. We routinely ignore the minimum age requirements at our factories." While it may now be true that Nike hires workers only 18 years or older, what the ad doesn't say is that Nike used to hire workers less than 18 AND that they only introduced this new policy under intense public demand. (This "responsible act" costs Nike nothing--there's plenty of workers over 18 who need jobs in economically depressed countries.) Another full-page ad announces "Good Morning Vietnam!" and congratulates Nike for its micro-loan program. Here Nike will match $75 contributions from private individuals to provide "serious venutre capital" to Vietnamese citizens. Nike claims they've issues 3200 such loans as of Nov. 1999. Nice try, Nike, but that's only $2400 in loans. How much did you spend on the ads trumpeting them? Clearly, Nike is worried about its public image. If it worried as much about its workers, industry-wide change might really happen. [http://spot.colorado.edu/~shortk/nike.html Colorado University]

Reports show the overseas workers to be underpaid, malnourished, and often physically and emotionally abused. Although Nike contends that they are paying above Indonesian minimum wage, the $2.36 a day workers earn is not even enough to buy three simple meals, estimated at $2.10. That's not even considering the minimum $6.00 a month rent, clothing, and hygienic products every worker needs. While many Nike factories provide subsidized meals, workers could afford their own meals if they were paid a living wage. Jeff Keaty, a U.S. coach who was fired for refusing to wear a uniform with the Nike logo, is in Jakarta, Indonesia trying to live on Nike factory wages. To learn more about working conditions there, see his report at www.nikewages.org. [http://spot.colorado.edu/~shortk/nike.html Colorado University]

According to the Coalition of Labor Union Women, the 20-million dollars which Nike paid Michael Jordan to endorse products for one year is equal to the amount they paid Indonesian workers to produce 19 million pairs of shoes, many valued at as much as $120 a pair.[http://www.cluw.org/ Coalition of Labor Union Women]

===Abused===
At a plant in Vietnam, a supervisor hit fifteen workers in a row in retaliation for poor sewing. The incident left two women hospitalized, and great emotional scars on every worker involved. The supervisor, Madame Baeck, was allowed to leave the country after the incident, despite conviction. Other incidents of abuse have since arisen: a woman's mouth taped shut for talking during working hours; 45 women forced to kneel on the ground with their hands in the air for 25 minutes straight; workers forced to stand in the sun for long periods of time as part of a heat punishment; and a Korean supervisor found guilty of molesting female workers. When a reporter from 48 Hours questioned a Nike spokesperson about this incident, he said he'd never heard of it, despite the fact it headlined Vietnamese newspapers.
[http://spot.colorado.edu/~shortk/nike.html Colorado University]
[http://wsws.org/public_html/iwb5-5/nike.htm socialequality.com's workers bulletin]
[http://christianaid.com Christian Aid]

===Refused Unions===
Recently, factories producing for Nike in Thailand have been shifting production to subcontractors and non-union facilities and to the provinces where wages and benefits are even lower. For example, unionized workers formerly producing for Nike at the Thai Iryo Garment factory in Rangsit were laid off while Nike production shifted to the Garment Tech factory in Bangkok and VT Garment in Sathupradit. Many workers have been laid off from the unionized Thai Iryo Garment and Par Garment factories just to wind up producing the same products for subcontractors and receiving lower wages without legal protection (Thai Labour Campaign, [http://www.thailabour.org/ Website] Coordinator: Junya Yimprasert, November 14, 2000). [http://cbae.nmsu.edu/~dboje/nike/thailand.html New Mexico State University]

The majority of workers interviewed at the Evergreen/Formosa factory in El Salvador said that they did not have the right to form a union, and many cited incidents in which workers had been dismissed for trying to organise one, according to a June 1999 report.

A 1999 report by the standards firm Verité confirms this situation still exists and that workers cannot freely form unions. Workers at Formosa were beaten and intimidated and earned subsistence wages, according to October 1998 testimony by Julia Pleites, a recent employee at Formosa. The report confirmed that the situation reported last year continues. Most workers interviewed had experienced, witnessed, or heard of incidents of verbal, physical, or sexual harassment of workers by supervisors. Workers reported (and were observed) being subject to systematic verbal abuse if they don't work fast enough. The workers who spoke to Verite made it clear that they were taking a risk in talking to the auditor and were afraid of the consequences.
Failure to uphold the right to form unions: violates local law (Article 204 of the El Salvador labour code, which stipulates freedom of association); international standards (ILO Convention 87); and the FLA standards, to which Nike is "committed."

Taken from: [http://www.cleanclothes.org/companies/nike99-9-22.htm CleanClothes Website] Set up to improve working conditions in the global garment industry

Back to Homepage [[Nike]]

==Reference==
[http://spot.colorado.edu/~shortk/nike.html

Nike & Corporate Social Responsibility

2006-04-26T22:23:29Z

Ifu03592: /* Abandoned= */

Back to Home Page: [[Nike]]

Corporate social responsibility (CSR) is a concept that has blossomed over the last fifteen years. Rather than being narrowly focused on the pursuit of profit at the expense of all else, businesses practicing CSR, should at least in theory, be behaving responsibly in the course of their profit-making, taking into account their economic, environmental and social impacts on society.

However, there is a lot of debate surrounding CSR practice, regarding both to what extent certain companies are living up to their responsible promises and regarding some of the possible ulterior motives involved in practicing CSR.

Reasons leveled at Nike for why they might be practicing CSR, other than just on basic moral grounds include:
* Defending their important public image
* Differentiating themselves from their competitors
* Helping to prevent financially damaging boycotts, strikes, lawsuits, etc
* Appealing to the ethical consumer
* Appealing to the ethical investor
* Appealing to the ethical employee
* Pressure to do so from NGO's, Government or to combat public relations disasters
* Using CSR policies as evidence that they do not need to be regulated any further than they already are at present

== Nikes CSR Policy ==
Nike maintain that their business is built on trust, teamwork, honesty and mutual respect. [http://www.nike.com/nikebiz/nikebiz.jhtml?page=7&item=responsibility] In order for this to be achieved, the company has put in place a set of corporate governance policies and practices and this has been extended in recent times to attempt to include corporate responsibility issues as a central part of their governance system. Nike's codes and policies are outlined below:

===Our Codes and Policies===
Our code of ethics is called Inside the Lines; it defines the standards of conduct we expect of our employees. Every year, all employees are required to verify that they have read and understand Inside the Lines.

We operate a global toll-free Alertline for employees to report in confidence any suspected violations of the law or our code of ethics. Any reported concerns around accounting, auditing or internal control are communicated to the Audit Committee of the Board.

We expect our suppliers to share our standards and to operate in a legal and ethical manner. While Inside the Lines covers the behavior of Nike employees, our Nike Code of Conduct covers contractors who manufacture Nike-branded products. It directs them to respect the rights of their employees, and to provide them with a safe and healthy work environment.

Taken from: [http://www.nike.com/nikebiz/nikebiz.jhtml?page=7&item=responsibility Nike Website]

===Corporate Responsibility Committee===

Jill Ker Conway, Non-Executive Director, Committee Chair

Douglas G. Houser, Non-Executive Director

Jeanne P. Jackson, Non-Executive Director

John R. Thompson, Jr., Non-Executive Director

Established in 2001, the CR Committee of the Board was set up to review significant policies and activities and make recommendations to the Board of Directors regarding labor and environmental practices, community affairs, charitable and foundation activities, diversity and equal opportunity, and environmental and sustainability initiatives. Meetings are held regularly where the Committee meet to discuss these issues. In addition, close to 150 Nike employees work on CR issues as their main function or have CR work included in their workload.

Taken from: [http://www.nike.com/nikebiz/nikebiz.jhtml?page=7&item=responsibility Nike Website]

== CSR in Practice ==

'''Nike’s approach to labour conditions in there contract factories is evolving.'''

The following is taken from Nike's website reflecting how they feel they are performing.

Nike has transformed from a focus on the Code of Conduct to advocating common standards across the industry. They have evolved from outsourcing labour monitoring to relying on a trained team of internal monitors and support for common monitoring platforms such as the “Fair Labour Association.” Furthermore they are growing from a focus on monitoring to a focus on capacity building. From an exclusive focus on factory floor impact to an exploration of ways to help change the industry through transparency and multi-stakeholder collaborations.

These changes are driven by awareness that structural issues, common to the global footwear, apparel and equipment industries affect an individual company’s ability to change conditions in particular factories.

There monitoring processes provide clear issues arising inside factories. What they do not tell us, however, is how those issues are affected by events of external factors. For example, in trying to reduce excessive overtime, we can focus on more effective policing of factories to achieve compliance. But simply focusing on policing does not address the root cause and might take resources away from engaging in broader discussions about why workers in some cases want extra hours. Those are the discussions that may lead to greater and more lasting changes. This kind of root cause analysis requires active listening and engagement in the broader dialogue with civil society, institutions and businesses around supply chain working conditions.
In recent years, we have focused on refining our skills at (a) identifying risk of code compliance (b) uncovering issues and (c) implementing strategies that can be used to drive performance and enable change within Nike internally and on a broader level.
They have become more systematic in identifying non-compliance risk, and they have become increasingly adept at uncovering issues, but despite anecdotal instances of success, they remain deeply challenged – challenged to understand how to measure systematically the impact of there own interventions and challenged by how they play a role in enabling widespread change within the industry, which they now know is critical to facilitating change within there contract supply chain.

One step in responding to this challenge is to reveal there contract factory base. While no one can say with certainty what greater levels of factory disclosure will unleash, they do know the current system of addressing factory compliance has to be fundamentally transformed to create sustainable change. They believe that disclosure of supply chains is a step toward greater efficiencies in monitoring and remediation and in shared knowledge and capacity building that will elevate overall conditions in the industry. No one company can solve these issues that are endemic to the industry.

Transparency also should increase the incentive of brands to work with factories that demonstrate CR excellence. A more thorough description and assessment of Nike’s approach in this area can be found in the FY04 Corporate Responsibility Report.[http://www.nike.com/nikebiz/nikebiz.jhtml?page=29&item=fy04]

Taken from: [http://www.nike.com/nikebiz/nikebiz.jhtml;bsessionid=R12NPVSQU0E3GCQFTBFCF5AKAWMB2IZB?page=25&cat=approach&subcat=compliance Nike Website]

'''Giving voice to workers: The Global Alliance’s legacy'''

One of our most important partners in understanding factory worker concerns, and in training for both workers and managers, has been the Global Alliance for Workers and Communities (GA). After five years of operations, its partners collectively chose to end the initiative in December 2004.

The Global Alliance was a partnership of Nike, Gap, the World Bank, the International Youth Foundation (IYF), and other organisations aimed at worker and workplace development. Since its launch in 1999, Global Alliance facilitated interviews with more than 16,000 workers, and launched a number of development projects focused primarily around building better management practices, and worker awareness of health issues.

The Global Alliance interviews and focus groups helped us uncover the kinds of compliance issues that are difficult to bring out in typical audits. For example, a series of worker interviews conducted in Indonesia in 2000-2001 made our compliance teams much more aware of verbal, physical and sexual harassment issues – of particular importance with a workforce that is predominantly young and female. They also helped us gauge overall satisfaction with the work environment.

Their revelations led us to specifically direct factories to institute confidential grievance systems, which do not exist broadly in the industry. The grievance system standard is beginning to take hold, though nearly a third of Nike contract factories audited in fiscal years 2003 and 2004 still have no confidential grievance process in place for workers.
They also led to training as well: During our 2004 fiscal year, Global Alliance trained more than 25,000 managers and workers in more than 60 factories in China, India, Indonesia, Thailand and Vietnam.

The Global Alliance was criticized in some quarters as, at best, irrelevant when compliance issues abound, and, at worst, an end-run around trade unions. We believe this dismissal of the Global Alliance misses a larger point: Though not a perfect effort, the five-year experience with the Global Alliance taught its partners a great deal about worker issues and aspirations, and highlighted some core compliance issues as well (as is clear from the example of harassment issues). We know now that to gain a deeper understanding of a workplace, we must go beyond M-Audit scores and probe under the surface to try to measure worker satisfaction with the workplace. The evolution of our own monitoring tool to now include a strong emphasis on worker interviews is one reflection of Global Alliance’s influence.

Although we were able to gather anecdotal information about some of the positive impacts of the Global Alliance on the workplace, particularly the management training and worker health training, a measurement of actual impacts is still to come. Global Alliance’s ability to expand programming and attract other corporate partners proved limited, which led to the decision to end the initiative.

For more information about the Global Alliance, see [http://www.theglobalalliance.org their Website]. You can also download the 2003 Indonesia reassessment report outlining workers’ views of workplace improvements in Nike contract facilities.

In addition to the Global Alliance training, Nike continues to sponsor a program of worker after-hours education generally aimed at securing a high school equivalency for workers in footwear factories in Thailand, Vietnam, Indonesia and China. In the 2003/2004 school year, 984 workers graduated from one of those programs. Our commitment to worker and workplace development remains. At this point in time we are exploring different ways in which the remaining funds can be utilized in the spirit of the GA – we will report on this in our fiscal year 2005 report.

Taken from websites: [http://www.nike.com/nikebiz/nikebiz.jhtml;bsessionid=R12NPVSQU0E3GCQFTBFCF5AKAWMB2IZB?page=25&cat=approach&subcat=compliance Nike Website Nike.com] & [http://www.theglobalalliance.org Global Alliance]

== The alternative viewpoints ==
http://perso.wanadoo.fr/jerome.lafourcade/Documents/Detente/Images/Anti-mondialiste/nike.jpg

Nike might see themselves as a victim of their own sucess. As one of the biggest manufacturers of sportswear, they are under considerably more scrutiny than many of their competitors, targeted by a broad range of campaigning NGOs and journalists as a symbol of the "Typical Multinational". In Nikes 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 and even publicly apologised for its past wrongdoings last year. However, some criticism continues.

===A Parody for Nike===
The results of an internet search regarding Nike will usually bring up a clever and thought provoking parody by a man called Atul, at http://www.toolness.com/nike high on the list. It ridicules Nike for some of their approaches to manufacturing in the third-world. While the parody, titled: "Nike SweatshopsÃ¢â€žÂ¢ Ã¢â‚¬â€? unlocking the power of poverty", provides no evidence of malpractice, it's sarcastic tone sums-up and reinforces what many people believe goes on.

Atul writes:

<center>"The theme of this parody is the idea that, from the perspective of our current economic system, poverty is a very good thing. Because it increases profit margins, its existence is beneficial to a global economy. In fact, it is in the best interests of multinational corporations and their shareholders to prolong poverty for as long as possible."</center>

The following is a list of accucations made in the parody, which highlight many respected NGO and activist opinions on third-world sweatshops:

* Nike actively seek to keep their sweatshop communities in poverty by
** Setting up schools that purposely provide a low level of education to keep the community low-skilled
** Paying a wage that employees can only just survive off to make sure that they can not save to start their own business, thus keeping a stranglehold on the economy.

* Nike build factories in areas with such high unemployment so employees have no choice but to work for Nike.
** They provide basic facilities for the factory community to further increase the communities dependence on them, so the community will be crippled if Nike leave

* Nike look after investors interests by keeping profit margins high, at the expense of their third-world employees
** Maintaining low third-world wages and poor working conditions to keep profit margins high
** If salaries become to high in the area they're operating in, they pull out, spelling high unemployment and deprivation for the community.

'''So, what truth is there in this parody? The following looks at five accucations regularly levelled at Nike.'''

'''Third world employees are:'''

===Overworked===
Ms. Lap Nguyen was a section leader with three years experience at the Sam Yang factory in Vietnam and had received awards for her skill and commitment. She was required to work over 100 hours of overtime during February and March 1998

In February and March 1998 several workers from the factory, including Ms. Lap, were interviewed by the US sports channel ESPN. They described problems at the factory, including use of violence by security guards towards workers. While working overtime on Sunday March 29 Ms. Lap became sick (feverish) and put her hands on her head to rest. Her manager hit her on the arm. She went home, obtained a doctors' certificate for her fever and took one and a half days sick leave. On her return to the factory her manager shouted at her and demoted her from team leader to sewer on the grounds that "section leaders can't take sick days." In the next few days, the supervisor continued to switch her from one job to another and deliberately humiliated her in front of other workers. During this time, the factory manager interrogated her about her interview with ESPN three times, using words like "we know what you have been doing behind our back," "confess now and you will be able to keep your job." The factory manager demoted her to cleaning the toilets and continued to harass her. Eventually she was asked to sign a letter of resignation and decided that she could no longer take the harassment and intimidation and signed.
Overtime must be voluntary, should not exceed 12 hours per week, must not be demanded on a regular basis, and must be compensated at a premium rate.

Taken from: [http://www.cleanclothes.org/companies/nike99-9-22.htm CleanClothes Website] Set up to improve working conditions in the global garment industry

===Underpaid===
At number 46 on the Forbes World Rich List 2005 [www.Forbes.com Forbes.com], Nike founder and chairman Philip Knight has made $8.2 Billion since setting up the company 42 years ago. It is no secret that much of the apparel his company sells is made by some of the poorest people in the world.

Much attention has been paid to Nike's exploitation of workers in economically strugglingcountries like Indonesia, Vietnam and China. Although Nike claims they are not responsible for much of what goes on in these sweatshops because they work through subcontractors and thus are not directly involved, the corporation has shown great irresponsibility and ignorance in dealing with the matter. In fact, Nike CEO Philip Knight's admitted as much in early 2005 when he launched the 2005 Nike Coarporate Social Responsibility report [http://www.nike.com Nike]

Nike has recently released a big advertising campaign in an effort to counter its negative image as a human rights violator. One ad proclaims "It's True. We routinely ignore the minimum age requirements at our factories." While it may now be true that Nike hires workers only 18 years or older, what the ad doesn't say is that Nike used to hire workers less than 18 AND that they only introduced this new policy under intense public demand. (This "responsible act" costs Nike nothing--there's plenty of workers over 18 who need jobs in economically depressed countries.) Another full-page ad announces "Good Morning Vietnam!" and congratulates Nike for its micro-loan program. Here Nike will match $75 contributions from private individuals to provide "serious venutre capital" to Vietnamese citizens. Nike claims they've issues 3200 such loans as of Nov. 1999. Nice try, Nike, but that's only $2400 in loans. How much did you spend on the ads trumpeting them? Clearly, Nike is worried about its public image. If it worried as much about its workers, industry-wide change might really happen. [http://spot.colorado.edu/~shortk/nike.html Colorado University]

Reports show the overseas workers to be underpaid, malnourished, and often physically and emotionally abused. Although Nike contends that they are paying above Indonesian minimum wage, the $2.36 a day workers earn is not even enough to buy three simple meals, estimated at $2.10. That's not even considering the minimum $6.00 a month rent, clothing, and hygienic products every worker needs. While many Nike factories provide subsidized meals, workers could afford their own meals if they were paid a living wage. Jeff Keaty, a U.S. coach who was fired for refusing to wear a uniform with the Nike logo, is in Jakarta, Indonesia trying to live on Nike factory wages. To learn more about working conditions there, see his report at www.nikewages.org. [http://spot.colorado.edu/~shortk/nike.html Colorado University]

According to the Coalition of Labor Union Women, the 20-million dollars which Nike paid Michael Jordan to endorse products for one year is equal to the amount they paid Indonesian workers to produce 19 million pairs of shoes, many valued at as much as $120 a pair.[http://www.cluw.org/ Coalition of Labor Union Women]

===Abused===
At a plant in Vietnam, a supervisor hit fifteen workers in a row in retaliation for poor sewing. The incident left two women hospitalized, and great emotional scars on every worker involved. The supervisor, Madame Baeck, was allowed to leave the country after the incident, despite conviction. Other incidents of abuse have since arisen: a woman's mouth taped shut for talking during working hours; 45 women forced to kneel on the ground with their hands in the air for 25 minutes straight; workers forced to stand in the sun for long periods of time as part of a heat punishment; and a Korean supervisor found guilty of molesting female workers. When a reporter from 48 Hours questioned a Nike spokesperson about this incident, he said he'd never heard of it, despite the fact it headlined Vietnamese newspapers.
[http://spot.colorado.edu/~shortk/nike.html Colorado University]
[http://wsws.org/public_html/iwb5-5/nike.htm socialequality.com's workers bulletin]
[http://christianaid.com Christian Aid]

===Refused Unions===
Recently, factories producing for Nike in Thailand have been shifting production to subcontractors and non-union facilities and to the provinces where wages and benefits are even lower. For example, unionized workers formerly producing for Nike at the Thai Iryo Garment factory in Rangsit were laid off while Nike production shifted to the Garment Tech factory in Bangkok and VT Garment in Sathupradit. Many workers have been laid off from the unionized Thai Iryo Garment and Par Garment factories just to wind up producing the same products for subcontractors and receiving lower wages without legal protection (Thai Labour Campaign, [http://www.thailabour.org/ Website] Coordinator: Junya Yimprasert, November 14, 2000). [http://cbae.nmsu.edu/~dboje/nike/thailand.html New Mexico State University]

The majority of workers interviewed at the Evergreen/Formosa factory in El Salvador said that they did not have the right to form a union, and many cited incidents in which workers had been dismissed for trying to organise one, according to a June 1999 report.

A 1999 report by the standards firm Verité confirms this situation still exists and that workers cannot freely form unions. Workers at Formosa were beaten and intimidated and earned subsistence wages, according to October 1998 testimony by Julia Pleites, a recent employee at Formosa. The report confirmed that the situation reported last year continues. Most workers interviewed had experienced, witnessed, or heard of incidents of verbal, physical, or sexual harassment of workers by supervisors. Workers reported (and were observed) being subject to systematic verbal abuse if they don't work fast enough. The workers who spoke to Verite made it clear that they were taking a risk in talking to the auditor and were afraid of the consequences.
Failure to uphold the right to form unions: violates local law (Article 204 of the El Salvador labour code, which stipulates freedom of association); international standards (ILO Convention 87); and the FLA standards, to which Nike is "committed."

Taken from: [http://www.cleanclothes.org/companies/nike99-9-22.htm CleanClothes Website] Set up to improve working conditions in the global garment industry

Back to Homepage [[Nike]]

==Reference==
[http://spot.colorado.edu/~shortk/nike.html

Nike & Corporate Social Responsibility

2006-04-26T22:17:10Z

Ifu03592: /* Refused Unions */

Back to Home Page: [[Nike]]

Corporate social responsibility (CSR) is a concept that has blossomed over the last fifteen years. Rather than being narrowly focused on the pursuit of profit at the expense of all else, businesses practicing CSR, should at least in theory, be behaving responsibly in the course of their profit-making, taking into account their economic, environmental and social impacts on society.

However, there is a lot of debate surrounding CSR practice, regarding both to what extent certain companies are living up to their responsible promises and regarding some of the possible ulterior motives involved in practicing CSR.

Reasons leveled at Nike for why they might be practicing CSR, other than just on basic moral grounds include:
* Defending their important public image
* Differentiating themselves from their competitors
* Helping to prevent financially damaging boycotts, strikes, lawsuits, etc
* Appealing to the ethical consumer
* Appealing to the ethical investor
* Appealing to the ethical employee
* Pressure to do so from NGO's, Government or to combat public relations disasters
* Using CSR policies as evidence that they do not need to be regulated any further than they already are at present

== Nikes CSR Policy ==
Nike maintain that their business is built on trust, teamwork, honesty and mutual respect. [http://www.nike.com/nikebiz/nikebiz.jhtml?page=7&item=responsibility] In order for this to be achieved, the company has put in place a set of corporate governance policies and practices and this has been extended in recent times to attempt to include corporate responsibility issues as a central part of their governance system. Nike's codes and policies are outlined below:

===Our Codes and Policies===
Our code of ethics is called Inside the Lines; it defines the standards of conduct we expect of our employees. Every year, all employees are required to verify that they have read and understand Inside the Lines.

We operate a global toll-free Alertline for employees to report in confidence any suspected violations of the law or our code of ethics. Any reported concerns around accounting, auditing or internal control are communicated to the Audit Committee of the Board.

We expect our suppliers to share our standards and to operate in a legal and ethical manner. While Inside the Lines covers the behavior of Nike employees, our Nike Code of Conduct covers contractors who manufacture Nike-branded products. It directs them to respect the rights of their employees, and to provide them with a safe and healthy work environment.

Taken from: [http://www.nike.com/nikebiz/nikebiz.jhtml?page=7&item=responsibility Nike Website]

===Corporate Responsibility Committee===

Jill Ker Conway, Non-Executive Director, Committee Chair

Douglas G. Houser, Non-Executive Director

Jeanne P. Jackson, Non-Executive Director

John R. Thompson, Jr., Non-Executive Director

Established in 2001, the CR Committee of the Board was set up to review significant policies and activities and make recommendations to the Board of Directors regarding labor and environmental practices, community affairs, charitable and foundation activities, diversity and equal opportunity, and environmental and sustainability initiatives. Meetings are held regularly where the Committee meet to discuss these issues. In addition, close to 150 Nike employees work on CR issues as their main function or have CR work included in their workload.

Taken from: [http://www.nike.com/nikebiz/nikebiz.jhtml?page=7&item=responsibility Nike Website]

== CSR in Practice ==

'''Nike’s approach to labour conditions in there contract factories is evolving.'''

The following is taken from Nike's website reflecting how they feel they are performing.

Nike has transformed from a focus on the Code of Conduct to advocating common standards across the industry. They have evolved from outsourcing labour monitoring to relying on a trained team of internal monitors and support for common monitoring platforms such as the “Fair Labour Association.” Furthermore they are growing from a focus on monitoring to a focus on capacity building. From an exclusive focus on factory floor impact to an exploration of ways to help change the industry through transparency and multi-stakeholder collaborations.

These changes are driven by awareness that structural issues, common to the global footwear, apparel and equipment industries affect an individual company’s ability to change conditions in particular factories.

There monitoring processes provide clear issues arising inside factories. What they do not tell us, however, is how those issues are affected by events of external factors. For example, in trying to reduce excessive overtime, we can focus on more effective policing of factories to achieve compliance. But simply focusing on policing does not address the root cause and might take resources away from engaging in broader discussions about why workers in some cases want extra hours. Those are the discussions that may lead to greater and more lasting changes. This kind of root cause analysis requires active listening and engagement in the broader dialogue with civil society, institutions and businesses around supply chain working conditions.
In recent years, we have focused on refining our skills at (a) identifying risk of code compliance (b) uncovering issues and (c) implementing strategies that can be used to drive performance and enable change within Nike internally and on a broader level.
They have become more systematic in identifying non-compliance risk, and they have become increasingly adept at uncovering issues, but despite anecdotal instances of success, they remain deeply challenged – challenged to understand how to measure systematically the impact of there own interventions and challenged by how they play a role in enabling widespread change within the industry, which they now know is critical to facilitating change within there contract supply chain.

One step in responding to this challenge is to reveal there contract factory base. While no one can say with certainty what greater levels of factory disclosure will unleash, they do know the current system of addressing factory compliance has to be fundamentally transformed to create sustainable change. They believe that disclosure of supply chains is a step toward greater efficiencies in monitoring and remediation and in shared knowledge and capacity building that will elevate overall conditions in the industry. No one company can solve these issues that are endemic to the industry.

Transparency also should increase the incentive of brands to work with factories that demonstrate CR excellence. A more thorough description and assessment of Nike’s approach in this area can be found in the FY04 Corporate Responsibility Report.[http://www.nike.com/nikebiz/nikebiz.jhtml?page=29&item=fy04]

Taken from: [http://www.nike.com/nikebiz/nikebiz.jhtml;bsessionid=R12NPVSQU0E3GCQFTBFCF5AKAWMB2IZB?page=25&cat=approach&subcat=compliance Nike Website]

'''Giving voice to workers: The Global Alliance’s legacy'''

One of our most important partners in understanding factory worker concerns, and in training for both workers and managers, has been the Global Alliance for Workers and Communities (GA). After five years of operations, its partners collectively chose to end the initiative in December 2004.

The Global Alliance was a partnership of Nike, Gap, the World Bank, the International Youth Foundation (IYF), and other organisations aimed at worker and workplace development. Since its launch in 1999, Global Alliance facilitated interviews with more than 16,000 workers, and launched a number of development projects focused primarily around building better management practices, and worker awareness of health issues.

The Global Alliance interviews and focus groups helped us uncover the kinds of compliance issues that are difficult to bring out in typical audits. For example, a series of worker interviews conducted in Indonesia in 2000-2001 made our compliance teams much more aware of verbal, physical and sexual harassment issues – of particular importance with a workforce that is predominantly young and female. They also helped us gauge overall satisfaction with the work environment.

Their revelations led us to specifically direct factories to institute confidential grievance systems, which do not exist broadly in the industry. The grievance system standard is beginning to take hold, though nearly a third of Nike contract factories audited in fiscal years 2003 and 2004 still have no confidential grievance process in place for workers.
They also led to training as well: During our 2004 fiscal year, Global Alliance trained more than 25,000 managers and workers in more than 60 factories in China, India, Indonesia, Thailand and Vietnam.

The Global Alliance was criticized in some quarters as, at best, irrelevant when compliance issues abound, and, at worst, an end-run around trade unions. We believe this dismissal of the Global Alliance misses a larger point: Though not a perfect effort, the five-year experience with the Global Alliance taught its partners a great deal about worker issues and aspirations, and highlighted some core compliance issues as well (as is clear from the example of harassment issues). We know now that to gain a deeper understanding of a workplace, we must go beyond M-Audit scores and probe under the surface to try to measure worker satisfaction with the workplace. The evolution of our own monitoring tool to now include a strong emphasis on worker interviews is one reflection of Global Alliance’s influence.

Although we were able to gather anecdotal information about some of the positive impacts of the Global Alliance on the workplace, particularly the management training and worker health training, a measurement of actual impacts is still to come. Global Alliance’s ability to expand programming and attract other corporate partners proved limited, which led to the decision to end the initiative.

For more information about the Global Alliance, see [http://www.theglobalalliance.org their Website]. You can also download the 2003 Indonesia reassessment report outlining workers’ views of workplace improvements in Nike contract facilities.

In addition to the Global Alliance training, Nike continues to sponsor a program of worker after-hours education generally aimed at securing a high school equivalency for workers in footwear factories in Thailand, Vietnam, Indonesia and China. In the 2003/2004 school year, 984 workers graduated from one of those programs. Our commitment to worker and workplace development remains. At this point in time we are exploring different ways in which the remaining funds can be utilized in the spirit of the GA – we will report on this in our fiscal year 2005 report.

Taken from websites: [http://www.nike.com/nikebiz/nikebiz.jhtml;bsessionid=R12NPVSQU0E3GCQFTBFCF5AKAWMB2IZB?page=25&cat=approach&subcat=compliance Nike Website Nike.com] & [http://www.theglobalalliance.org Global Alliance]

== The alternative viewpoints ==
http://perso.wanadoo.fr/jerome.lafourcade/Documents/Detente/Images/Anti-mondialiste/nike.jpg

Nike might see themselves as a victim of their own sucess. As one of the biggest manufacturers of sportswear, they are under considerably more scrutiny than many of their competitors, targeted by a broad range of campaigning NGOs and journalists as a symbol of the "Typical Multinational". In Nikes 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 and even publicly apologised for its past wrongdoings last year. However, some criticism continues.

===A Parody for Nike===
The results of an internet search regarding Nike will usually bring up a clever and thought provoking parody by a man called Atul, at http://www.toolness.com/nike high on the list. It ridicules Nike for some of their approaches to manufacturing in the third-world. While the parody, titled: "Nike SweatshopsÃ¢â€žÂ¢ Ã¢â‚¬â€? unlocking the power of poverty", provides no evidence of malpractice, it's sarcastic tone sums-up and reinforces what many people believe goes on.

Atul writes:

<center>"The theme of this parody is the idea that, from the perspective of our current economic system, poverty is a very good thing. Because it increases profit margins, its existence is beneficial to a global economy. In fact, it is in the best interests of multinational corporations and their shareholders to prolong poverty for as long as possible."</center>

The following is a list of accucations made in the parody, which highlight many respected NGO and activist opinions on third-world sweatshops:

* Nike actively seek to keep their sweatshop communities in poverty by
** Setting up schools that purposely provide a low level of education to keep the community low-skilled
** Paying a wage that employees can only just survive off to make sure that they can not save to start their own business, thus keeping a stranglehold on the economy.

* Nike build factories in areas with such high unemployment so employees have no choice but to work for Nike.
** They provide basic facilities for the factory community to further increase the communities dependence on them, so the community will be crippled if Nike leave

* Nike look after investors interests by keeping profit margins high, at the expense of their third-world employees
** Maintaining low third-world wages and poor working conditions to keep profit margins high
** If salaries become to high in the area they're operating in, they pull out, spelling high unemployment and deprivation for the community.

'''So, what truth is there in this parody? The following looks at five accucations regularly levelled at Nike.'''

'''Third world employees are:'''

===Overworked===
Ms. Lap Nguyen was a section leader with three years experience at the Sam Yang factory in Vietnam and had received awards for her skill and commitment. She was required to work over 100 hours of overtime during February and March 1998

In February and March 1998 several workers from the factory, including Ms. Lap, were interviewed by the US sports channel ESPN. They described problems at the factory, including use of violence by security guards towards workers. While working overtime on Sunday March 29 Ms. Lap became sick (feverish) and put her hands on her head to rest. Her manager hit her on the arm. She went home, obtained a doctors' certificate for her fever and took one and a half days sick leave. On her return to the factory her manager shouted at her and demoted her from team leader to sewer on the grounds that "section leaders can't take sick days." In the next few days, the supervisor continued to switch her from one job to another and deliberately humiliated her in front of other workers. During this time, the factory manager interrogated her about her interview with ESPN three times, using words like "we know what you have been doing behind our back," "confess now and you will be able to keep your job." The factory manager demoted her to cleaning the toilets and continued to harass her. Eventually she was asked to sign a letter of resignation and decided that she could no longer take the harassment and intimidation and signed.
Overtime must be voluntary, should not exceed 12 hours per week, must not be demanded on a regular basis, and must be compensated at a premium rate.

Taken from: [http://www.cleanclothes.org/companies/nike99-9-22.htm CleanClothes Website] Set up to improve working conditions in the global garment industry

===Underpaid===
At number 46 on the Forbes World Rich List 2005 [www.Forbes.com Forbes.com], Nike founder and chairman Philip Knight has made $8.2 Billion since setting up the company 42 years ago. It is no secret that much of the apparel his company sells is made by some of the poorest people in the world.

Much attention has been paid to Nike's exploitation of workers in economically strugglingcountries like Indonesia, Vietnam and China. Although Nike claims they are not responsible for much of what goes on in these sweatshops because they work through subcontractors and thus are not directly involved, the corporation has shown great irresponsibility and ignorance in dealing with the matter. In fact, Nike CEO Philip Knight's admitted as much in early 2005 when he launched the 2005 Nike Coarporate Social Responsibility report [http://www.nike.com Nike]

Nike has recently released a big advertising campaign in an effort to counter its negative image as a human rights violator. One ad proclaims "It's True. We routinely ignore the minimum age requirements at our factories." While it may now be true that Nike hires workers only 18 years or older, what the ad doesn't say is that Nike used to hire workers less than 18 AND that they only introduced this new policy under intense public demand. (This "responsible act" costs Nike nothing--there's plenty of workers over 18 who need jobs in economically depressed countries.) Another full-page ad announces "Good Morning Vietnam!" and congratulates Nike for its micro-loan program. Here Nike will match $75 contributions from private individuals to provide "serious venutre capital" to Vietnamese citizens. Nike claims they've issues 3200 such loans as of Nov. 1999. Nice try, Nike, but that's only $2400 in loans. How much did you spend on the ads trumpeting them? Clearly, Nike is worried about its public image. If it worried as much about its workers, industry-wide change might really happen. [http://spot.colorado.edu/~shortk/nike.html Colorado University]

Reports show the overseas workers to be underpaid, malnourished, and often physically and emotionally abused. Although Nike contends that they are paying above Indonesian minimum wage, the $2.36 a day workers earn is not even enough to buy three simple meals, estimated at $2.10. That's not even considering the minimum $6.00 a month rent, clothing, and hygienic products every worker needs. While many Nike factories provide subsidized meals, workers could afford their own meals if they were paid a living wage. Jeff Keaty, a U.S. coach who was fired for refusing to wear a uniform with the Nike logo, is in Jakarta, Indonesia trying to live on Nike factory wages. To learn more about working conditions there, see his report at www.nikewages.org. [http://spot.colorado.edu/~shortk/nike.html Colorado University]

According to the Coalition of Labor Union Women, the 20-million dollars which Nike paid Michael Jordan to endorse products for one year is equal to the amount they paid Indonesian workers to produce 19 million pairs of shoes, many valued at as much as $120 a pair.[http://www.cluw.org/ Coalition of Labor Union Women]

===Abused===
At a plant in Vietnam, a supervisor hit fifteen workers in a row in retaliation for poor sewing. The incident left two women hospitalized, and great emotional scars on every worker involved. The supervisor, Madame Baeck, was allowed to leave the country after the incident, despite conviction. Other incidents of abuse have since arisen: a woman's mouth taped shut for talking during working hours; 45 women forced to kneel on the ground with their hands in the air for 25 minutes straight; workers forced to stand in the sun for long periods of time as part of a heat punishment; and a Korean supervisor found guilty of molesting female workers. When a reporter from 48 Hours questioned a Nike spokesperson about this incident, he said he'd never heard of it, despite the fact it headlined Vietnamese newspapers.
[http://spot.colorado.edu/~shortk/nike.html Colorado University]
[http://wsws.org/public_html/iwb5-5/nike.htm socialequality.com's workers bulletin]
[http://christianaid.com Christian Aid]

===Refused Unions===
Recently, factories producing for Nike in Thailand have been shifting production to subcontractors and non-union facilities and to the provinces where wages and benefits are even lower. For example, unionized workers formerly producing for Nike at the Thai Iryo Garment factory in Rangsit were laid off while Nike production shifted to the Garment Tech factory in Bangkok and VT Garment in Sathupradit. Many workers have been laid off from the unionized Thai Iryo Garment and Par Garment factories just to wind up producing the same products for subcontractors and receiving lower wages without legal protection (Thai Labour Campaign, [http://www.thailabour.org/ Website] Coordinator: Junya Yimprasert, November 14, 2000). [http://cbae.nmsu.edu/~dboje/nike/thailand.html New Mexico State University]

The majority of workers interviewed at the Evergreen/Formosa factory in El Salvador said that they did not have the right to form a union, and many cited incidents in which workers had been dismissed for trying to organise one, according to a June 1999 report.

A 1999 report by the standards firm Verité confirms this situation still exists and that workers cannot freely form unions. Workers at Formosa were beaten and intimidated and earned subsistence wages, according to October 1998 testimony by Julia Pleites, a recent employee at Formosa. The report confirmed that the situation reported last year continues. Most workers interviewed had experienced, witnessed, or heard of incidents of verbal, physical, or sexual harassment of workers by supervisors. Workers reported (and were observed) being subject to systematic verbal abuse if they don't work fast enough. The workers who spoke to Verite made it clear that they were taking a risk in talking to the auditor and were afraid of the consequences.
Failure to uphold the right to form unions: violates local law (Article 204 of the El Salvador labour code, which stipulates freedom of association); international standards (ILO Convention 87); and the FLA standards, to which Nike is "committed."

Taken from: [http://www.cleanclothes.org/companies/nike99-9-22.htm CleanClothes Website] Set up to improve working conditions in the global garment industry

===Abandoned====

Back to Homepage [[Nike]]

==Reference==
[http://spot.colorado.edu/~shortk/nike.html

Nike & Corporate Social Responsibility

2006-04-26T22:16:46Z

Ifu03592: /* Overworked */

Back to Home Page: [[Nike]]

Corporate social responsibility (CSR) is a concept that has blossomed over the last fifteen years. Rather than being narrowly focused on the pursuit of profit at the expense of all else, businesses practicing CSR, should at least in theory, be behaving responsibly in the course of their profit-making, taking into account their economic, environmental and social impacts on society.

However, there is a lot of debate surrounding CSR practice, regarding both to what extent certain companies are living up to their responsible promises and regarding some of the possible ulterior motives involved in practicing CSR.

Reasons leveled at Nike for why they might be practicing CSR, other than just on basic moral grounds include:
* Defending their important public image
* Differentiating themselves from their competitors
* Helping to prevent financially damaging boycotts, strikes, lawsuits, etc
* Appealing to the ethical consumer
* Appealing to the ethical investor
* Appealing to the ethical employee
* Pressure to do so from NGO's, Government or to combat public relations disasters
* Using CSR policies as evidence that they do not need to be regulated any further than they already are at present

== Nikes CSR Policy ==
Nike maintain that their business is built on trust, teamwork, honesty and mutual respect. [http://www.nike.com/nikebiz/nikebiz.jhtml?page=7&item=responsibility] In order for this to be achieved, the company has put in place a set of corporate governance policies and practices and this has been extended in recent times to attempt to include corporate responsibility issues as a central part of their governance system. Nike's codes and policies are outlined below:

===Our Codes and Policies===
Our code of ethics is called Inside the Lines; it defines the standards of conduct we expect of our employees. Every year, all employees are required to verify that they have read and understand Inside the Lines.

We operate a global toll-free Alertline for employees to report in confidence any suspected violations of the law or our code of ethics. Any reported concerns around accounting, auditing or internal control are communicated to the Audit Committee of the Board.

We expect our suppliers to share our standards and to operate in a legal and ethical manner. While Inside the Lines covers the behavior of Nike employees, our Nike Code of Conduct covers contractors who manufacture Nike-branded products. It directs them to respect the rights of their employees, and to provide them with a safe and healthy work environment.

Taken from: [http://www.nike.com/nikebiz/nikebiz.jhtml?page=7&item=responsibility Nike Website]

===Corporate Responsibility Committee===

Jill Ker Conway, Non-Executive Director, Committee Chair

Douglas G. Houser, Non-Executive Director

Jeanne P. Jackson, Non-Executive Director

John R. Thompson, Jr., Non-Executive Director

Established in 2001, the CR Committee of the Board was set up to review significant policies and activities and make recommendations to the Board of Directors regarding labor and environmental practices, community affairs, charitable and foundation activities, diversity and equal opportunity, and environmental and sustainability initiatives. Meetings are held regularly where the Committee meet to discuss these issues. In addition, close to 150 Nike employees work on CR issues as their main function or have CR work included in their workload.

Taken from: [http://www.nike.com/nikebiz/nikebiz.jhtml?page=7&item=responsibility Nike Website]

== CSR in Practice ==

'''Nike’s approach to labour conditions in there contract factories is evolving.'''

The following is taken from Nike's website reflecting how they feel they are performing.

Nike has transformed from a focus on the Code of Conduct to advocating common standards across the industry. They have evolved from outsourcing labour monitoring to relying on a trained team of internal monitors and support for common monitoring platforms such as the “Fair Labour Association.” Furthermore they are growing from a focus on monitoring to a focus on capacity building. From an exclusive focus on factory floor impact to an exploration of ways to help change the industry through transparency and multi-stakeholder collaborations.

These changes are driven by awareness that structural issues, common to the global footwear, apparel and equipment industries affect an individual company’s ability to change conditions in particular factories.

There monitoring processes provide clear issues arising inside factories. What they do not tell us, however, is how those issues are affected by events of external factors. For example, in trying to reduce excessive overtime, we can focus on more effective policing of factories to achieve compliance. But simply focusing on policing does not address the root cause and might take resources away from engaging in broader discussions about why workers in some cases want extra hours. Those are the discussions that may lead to greater and more lasting changes. This kind of root cause analysis requires active listening and engagement in the broader dialogue with civil society, institutions and businesses around supply chain working conditions.
In recent years, we have focused on refining our skills at (a) identifying risk of code compliance (b) uncovering issues and (c) implementing strategies that can be used to drive performance and enable change within Nike internally and on a broader level.
They have become more systematic in identifying non-compliance risk, and they have become increasingly adept at uncovering issues, but despite anecdotal instances of success, they remain deeply challenged – challenged to understand how to measure systematically the impact of there own interventions and challenged by how they play a role in enabling widespread change within the industry, which they now know is critical to facilitating change within there contract supply chain.

One step in responding to this challenge is to reveal there contract factory base. While no one can say with certainty what greater levels of factory disclosure will unleash, they do know the current system of addressing factory compliance has to be fundamentally transformed to create sustainable change. They believe that disclosure of supply chains is a step toward greater efficiencies in monitoring and remediation and in shared knowledge and capacity building that will elevate overall conditions in the industry. No one company can solve these issues that are endemic to the industry.

Transparency also should increase the incentive of brands to work with factories that demonstrate CR excellence. A more thorough description and assessment of Nike’s approach in this area can be found in the FY04 Corporate Responsibility Report.[http://www.nike.com/nikebiz/nikebiz.jhtml?page=29&item=fy04]

Taken from: [http://www.nike.com/nikebiz/nikebiz.jhtml;bsessionid=R12NPVSQU0E3GCQFTBFCF5AKAWMB2IZB?page=25&cat=approach&subcat=compliance Nike Website]

'''Giving voice to workers: The Global Alliance’s legacy'''

One of our most important partners in understanding factory worker concerns, and in training for both workers and managers, has been the Global Alliance for Workers and Communities (GA). After five years of operations, its partners collectively chose to end the initiative in December 2004.

The Global Alliance was a partnership of Nike, Gap, the World Bank, the International Youth Foundation (IYF), and other organisations aimed at worker and workplace development. Since its launch in 1999, Global Alliance facilitated interviews with more than 16,000 workers, and launched a number of development projects focused primarily around building better management practices, and worker awareness of health issues.

The Global Alliance interviews and focus groups helped us uncover the kinds of compliance issues that are difficult to bring out in typical audits. For example, a series of worker interviews conducted in Indonesia in 2000-2001 made our compliance teams much more aware of verbal, physical and sexual harassment issues – of particular importance with a workforce that is predominantly young and female. They also helped us gauge overall satisfaction with the work environment.

Their revelations led us to specifically direct factories to institute confidential grievance systems, which do not exist broadly in the industry. The grievance system standard is beginning to take hold, though nearly a third of Nike contract factories audited in fiscal years 2003 and 2004 still have no confidential grievance process in place for workers.
They also led to training as well: During our 2004 fiscal year, Global Alliance trained more than 25,000 managers and workers in more than 60 factories in China, India, Indonesia, Thailand and Vietnam.

The Global Alliance was criticized in some quarters as, at best, irrelevant when compliance issues abound, and, at worst, an end-run around trade unions. We believe this dismissal of the Global Alliance misses a larger point: Though not a perfect effort, the five-year experience with the Global Alliance taught its partners a great deal about worker issues and aspirations, and highlighted some core compliance issues as well (as is clear from the example of harassment issues). We know now that to gain a deeper understanding of a workplace, we must go beyond M-Audit scores and probe under the surface to try to measure worker satisfaction with the workplace. The evolution of our own monitoring tool to now include a strong emphasis on worker interviews is one reflection of Global Alliance’s influence.

Although we were able to gather anecdotal information about some of the positive impacts of the Global Alliance on the workplace, particularly the management training and worker health training, a measurement of actual impacts is still to come. Global Alliance’s ability to expand programming and attract other corporate partners proved limited, which led to the decision to end the initiative.

For more information about the Global Alliance, see [http://www.theglobalalliance.org their Website]. You can also download the 2003 Indonesia reassessment report outlining workers’ views of workplace improvements in Nike contract facilities.

In addition to the Global Alliance training, Nike continues to sponsor a program of worker after-hours education generally aimed at securing a high school equivalency for workers in footwear factories in Thailand, Vietnam, Indonesia and China. In the 2003/2004 school year, 984 workers graduated from one of those programs. Our commitment to worker and workplace development remains. At this point in time we are exploring different ways in which the remaining funds can be utilized in the spirit of the GA – we will report on this in our fiscal year 2005 report.

Taken from websites: [http://www.nike.com/nikebiz/nikebiz.jhtml;bsessionid=R12NPVSQU0E3GCQFTBFCF5AKAWMB2IZB?page=25&cat=approach&subcat=compliance Nike Website Nike.com] & [http://www.theglobalalliance.org Global Alliance]

== The alternative viewpoints ==
http://perso.wanadoo.fr/jerome.lafourcade/Documents/Detente/Images/Anti-mondialiste/nike.jpg

Nike might see themselves as a victim of their own sucess. As one of the biggest manufacturers of sportswear, they are under considerably more scrutiny than many of their competitors, targeted by a broad range of campaigning NGOs and journalists as a symbol of the "Typical Multinational". In Nikes 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 and even publicly apologised for its past wrongdoings last year. However, some criticism continues.

===A Parody for Nike===
The results of an internet search regarding Nike will usually bring up a clever and thought provoking parody by a man called Atul, at http://www.toolness.com/nike high on the list. It ridicules Nike for some of their approaches to manufacturing in the third-world. While the parody, titled: "Nike SweatshopsÃ¢â€žÂ¢ Ã¢â‚¬â€? unlocking the power of poverty", provides no evidence of malpractice, it's sarcastic tone sums-up and reinforces what many people believe goes on.

Atul writes:

<center>"The theme of this parody is the idea that, from the perspective of our current economic system, poverty is a very good thing. Because it increases profit margins, its existence is beneficial to a global economy. In fact, it is in the best interests of multinational corporations and their shareholders to prolong poverty for as long as possible."</center>

The following is a list of accucations made in the parody, which highlight many respected NGO and activist opinions on third-world sweatshops:

* Nike actively seek to keep their sweatshop communities in poverty by
** Setting up schools that purposely provide a low level of education to keep the community low-skilled
** Paying a wage that employees can only just survive off to make sure that they can not save to start their own business, thus keeping a stranglehold on the economy.

* Nike build factories in areas with such high unemployment so employees have no choice but to work for Nike.
** They provide basic facilities for the factory community to further increase the communities dependence on them, so the community will be crippled if Nike leave

* Nike look after investors interests by keeping profit margins high, at the expense of their third-world employees
** Maintaining low third-world wages and poor working conditions to keep profit margins high
** If salaries become to high in the area they're operating in, they pull out, spelling high unemployment and deprivation for the community.

'''So, what truth is there in this parody? The following looks at five accucations regularly levelled at Nike.'''

'''Third world employees are:'''

===Overworked===
Ms. Lap Nguyen was a section leader with three years experience at the Sam Yang factory in Vietnam and had received awards for her skill and commitment. She was required to work over 100 hours of overtime during February and March 1998

In February and March 1998 several workers from the factory, including Ms. Lap, were interviewed by the US sports channel ESPN. They described problems at the factory, including use of violence by security guards towards workers. While working overtime on Sunday March 29 Ms. Lap became sick (feverish) and put her hands on her head to rest. Her manager hit her on the arm. She went home, obtained a doctors' certificate for her fever and took one and a half days sick leave. On her return to the factory her manager shouted at her and demoted her from team leader to sewer on the grounds that "section leaders can't take sick days." In the next few days, the supervisor continued to switch her from one job to another and deliberately humiliated her in front of other workers. During this time, the factory manager interrogated her about her interview with ESPN three times, using words like "we know what you have been doing behind our back," "confess now and you will be able to keep your job." The factory manager demoted her to cleaning the toilets and continued to harass her. Eventually she was asked to sign a letter of resignation and decided that she could no longer take the harassment and intimidation and signed.
Overtime must be voluntary, should not exceed 12 hours per week, must not be demanded on a regular basis, and must be compensated at a premium rate.

Taken from: [http://www.cleanclothes.org/companies/nike99-9-22.htm CleanClothes Website] Set up to improve working conditions in the global garment industry

===Underpaid===
At number 46 on the Forbes World Rich List 2005 [www.Forbes.com Forbes.com], Nike founder and chairman Philip Knight has made $8.2 Billion since setting up the company 42 years ago. It is no secret that much of the apparel his company sells is made by some of the poorest people in the world.

Much attention has been paid to Nike's exploitation of workers in economically strugglingcountries like Indonesia, Vietnam and China. Although Nike claims they are not responsible for much of what goes on in these sweatshops because they work through subcontractors and thus are not directly involved, the corporation has shown great irresponsibility and ignorance in dealing with the matter. In fact, Nike CEO Philip Knight's admitted as much in early 2005 when he launched the 2005 Nike Coarporate Social Responsibility report [http://www.nike.com Nike]

Nike has recently released a big advertising campaign in an effort to counter its negative image as a human rights violator. One ad proclaims "It's True. We routinely ignore the minimum age requirements at our factories." While it may now be true that Nike hires workers only 18 years or older, what the ad doesn't say is that Nike used to hire workers less than 18 AND that they only introduced this new policy under intense public demand. (This "responsible act" costs Nike nothing--there's plenty of workers over 18 who need jobs in economically depressed countries.) Another full-page ad announces "Good Morning Vietnam!" and congratulates Nike for its micro-loan program. Here Nike will match $75 contributions from private individuals to provide "serious venutre capital" to Vietnamese citizens. Nike claims they've issues 3200 such loans as of Nov. 1999. Nice try, Nike, but that's only $2400 in loans. How much did you spend on the ads trumpeting them? Clearly, Nike is worried about its public image. If it worried as much about its workers, industry-wide change might really happen. [http://spot.colorado.edu/~shortk/nike.html Colorado University]

Reports show the overseas workers to be underpaid, malnourished, and often physically and emotionally abused. Although Nike contends that they are paying above Indonesian minimum wage, the $2.36 a day workers earn is not even enough to buy three simple meals, estimated at $2.10. That's not even considering the minimum $6.00 a month rent, clothing, and hygienic products every worker needs. While many Nike factories provide subsidized meals, workers could afford their own meals if they were paid a living wage. Jeff Keaty, a U.S. coach who was fired for refusing to wear a uniform with the Nike logo, is in Jakarta, Indonesia trying to live on Nike factory wages. To learn more about working conditions there, see his report at www.nikewages.org. [http://spot.colorado.edu/~shortk/nike.html Colorado University]

According to the Coalition of Labor Union Women, the 20-million dollars which Nike paid Michael Jordan to endorse products for one year is equal to the amount they paid Indonesian workers to produce 19 million pairs of shoes, many valued at as much as $120 a pair.[http://www.cluw.org/ Coalition of Labor Union Women]

===Abused===
At a plant in Vietnam, a supervisor hit fifteen workers in a row in retaliation for poor sewing. The incident left two women hospitalized, and great emotional scars on every worker involved. The supervisor, Madame Baeck, was allowed to leave the country after the incident, despite conviction. Other incidents of abuse have since arisen: a woman's mouth taped shut for talking during working hours; 45 women forced to kneel on the ground with their hands in the air for 25 minutes straight; workers forced to stand in the sun for long periods of time as part of a heat punishment; and a Korean supervisor found guilty of molesting female workers. When a reporter from 48 Hours questioned a Nike spokesperson about this incident, he said he'd never heard of it, despite the fact it headlined Vietnamese newspapers.
[http://spot.colorado.edu/~shortk/nike.html Colorado University]
[http://wsws.org/public_html/iwb5-5/nike.htm socialequality.com's workers bulletin]
[http://christianaid.com Christian Aid]

===Refused Unions===
Recently, factories producing for Nike in Thailand have been shifting production to subcontractors and non-union facilities and to the provinces where wages and benefits are even lower. For example, unionized workers formerly producing for Nike at the Thai Iryo Garment factory in Rangsit were laid off while Nike production shifted to the Garment Tech factory in Bangkok and VT Garment in Sathupradit. Many workers have been laid off from the unionized Thai Iryo Garment and Par Garment factories just to wind up producing the same products for subcontractors and receiving lower wages without legal protection (Thai Labour Campaign, [http://www.thailabour.org/ Website] Coordinator: Junya Yimprasert, November 14, 2000). [http://cbae.nmsu.edu/~dboje/nike/thailand.html New Mexico State University]

The majority of workers interviewed at the Evergreen/Formosa factory in El Salvador said that they did not have the right to form a union, and many cited incidents in which workers had been dismissed for trying to organise one, according to a June 1999 report.

A 1999 report by the standards firm Verité confirms this situation still exists and that workers cannot freely form unions. Workers at Formosa were beaten and intimidated and earned subsistence wages, according to October 1998 testimony by Julia Pleites, a recent employee at Formosa. The report confirmed that the situation reported last year continues. Most workers interviewed had experienced, witnessed, or heard of incidents of verbal, physical, or sexual harassment of workers by supervisors. Workers reported (and were observed) being subject to systematic verbal abuse if they don't work fast enough. The workers who spoke to Verite made it clear that they were taking a risk in talking to the auditor and were afraid of the consequences.
Failure to uphold the right to form unions: violates local law (Article 204 of the El Salvador labour code, which stipulates freedom of association); international standards (ILO Convention 87); and the FLA standards, to which Nike is "committed."

===Abandoned====

Back to Homepage [[Nike]]

==Reference==
[http://spot.colorado.edu/~shortk/nike.html

Nike & Corporate Social Responsibility

2006-04-26T22:16:32Z

Ifu03592: /* Refused Unions */

Back to Home Page: [[Nike]]

Corporate social responsibility (CSR) is a concept that has blossomed over the last fifteen years. Rather than being narrowly focused on the pursuit of profit at the expense of all else, businesses practicing CSR, should at least in theory, be behaving responsibly in the course of their profit-making, taking into account their economic, environmental and social impacts on society.

However, there is a lot of debate surrounding CSR practice, regarding both to what extent certain companies are living up to their responsible promises and regarding some of the possible ulterior motives involved in practicing CSR.

Reasons leveled at Nike for why they might be practicing CSR, other than just on basic moral grounds include:
* Defending their important public image
* Differentiating themselves from their competitors
* Helping to prevent financially damaging boycotts, strikes, lawsuits, etc
* Appealing to the ethical consumer
* Appealing to the ethical investor
* Appealing to the ethical employee
* Pressure to do so from NGO's, Government or to combat public relations disasters
* Using CSR policies as evidence that they do not need to be regulated any further than they already are at present

== Nikes CSR Policy ==
Nike maintain that their business is built on trust, teamwork, honesty and mutual respect. [http://www.nike.com/nikebiz/nikebiz.jhtml?page=7&item=responsibility] In order for this to be achieved, the company has put in place a set of corporate governance policies and practices and this has been extended in recent times to attempt to include corporate responsibility issues as a central part of their governance system. Nike's codes and policies are outlined below:

===Our Codes and Policies===
Our code of ethics is called Inside the Lines; it defines the standards of conduct we expect of our employees. Every year, all employees are required to verify that they have read and understand Inside the Lines.

We operate a global toll-free Alertline for employees to report in confidence any suspected violations of the law or our code of ethics. Any reported concerns around accounting, auditing or internal control are communicated to the Audit Committee of the Board.

We expect our suppliers to share our standards and to operate in a legal and ethical manner. While Inside the Lines covers the behavior of Nike employees, our Nike Code of Conduct covers contractors who manufacture Nike-branded products. It directs them to respect the rights of their employees, and to provide them with a safe and healthy work environment.

Taken from: [http://www.nike.com/nikebiz/nikebiz.jhtml?page=7&item=responsibility Nike Website]

===Corporate Responsibility Committee===

Jill Ker Conway, Non-Executive Director, Committee Chair

Douglas G. Houser, Non-Executive Director

Jeanne P. Jackson, Non-Executive Director

John R. Thompson, Jr., Non-Executive Director

Established in 2001, the CR Committee of the Board was set up to review significant policies and activities and make recommendations to the Board of Directors regarding labor and environmental practices, community affairs, charitable and foundation activities, diversity and equal opportunity, and environmental and sustainability initiatives. Meetings are held regularly where the Committee meet to discuss these issues. In addition, close to 150 Nike employees work on CR issues as their main function or have CR work included in their workload.

Taken from: [http://www.nike.com/nikebiz/nikebiz.jhtml?page=7&item=responsibility Nike Website]

== CSR in Practice ==

'''Nike’s approach to labour conditions in there contract factories is evolving.'''

The following is taken from Nike's website reflecting how they feel they are performing.

Nike has transformed from a focus on the Code of Conduct to advocating common standards across the industry. They have evolved from outsourcing labour monitoring to relying on a trained team of internal monitors and support for common monitoring platforms such as the “Fair Labour Association.” Furthermore they are growing from a focus on monitoring to a focus on capacity building. From an exclusive focus on factory floor impact to an exploration of ways to help change the industry through transparency and multi-stakeholder collaborations.

These changes are driven by awareness that structural issues, common to the global footwear, apparel and equipment industries affect an individual company’s ability to change conditions in particular factories.

There monitoring processes provide clear issues arising inside factories. What they do not tell us, however, is how those issues are affected by events of external factors. For example, in trying to reduce excessive overtime, we can focus on more effective policing of factories to achieve compliance. But simply focusing on policing does not address the root cause and might take resources away from engaging in broader discussions about why workers in some cases want extra hours. Those are the discussions that may lead to greater and more lasting changes. This kind of root cause analysis requires active listening and engagement in the broader dialogue with civil society, institutions and businesses around supply chain working conditions.
In recent years, we have focused on refining our skills at (a) identifying risk of code compliance (b) uncovering issues and (c) implementing strategies that can be used to drive performance and enable change within Nike internally and on a broader level.
They have become more systematic in identifying non-compliance risk, and they have become increasingly adept at uncovering issues, but despite anecdotal instances of success, they remain deeply challenged – challenged to understand how to measure systematically the impact of there own interventions and challenged by how they play a role in enabling widespread change within the industry, which they now know is critical to facilitating change within there contract supply chain.

One step in responding to this challenge is to reveal there contract factory base. While no one can say with certainty what greater levels of factory disclosure will unleash, they do know the current system of addressing factory compliance has to be fundamentally transformed to create sustainable change. They believe that disclosure of supply chains is a step toward greater efficiencies in monitoring and remediation and in shared knowledge and capacity building that will elevate overall conditions in the industry. No one company can solve these issues that are endemic to the industry.

Transparency also should increase the incentive of brands to work with factories that demonstrate CR excellence. A more thorough description and assessment of Nike’s approach in this area can be found in the FY04 Corporate Responsibility Report.[http://www.nike.com/nikebiz/nikebiz.jhtml?page=29&item=fy04]

Taken from: [http://www.nike.com/nikebiz/nikebiz.jhtml;bsessionid=R12NPVSQU0E3GCQFTBFCF5AKAWMB2IZB?page=25&cat=approach&subcat=compliance Nike Website]

'''Giving voice to workers: The Global Alliance’s legacy'''

One of our most important partners in understanding factory worker concerns, and in training for both workers and managers, has been the Global Alliance for Workers and Communities (GA). After five years of operations, its partners collectively chose to end the initiative in December 2004.

The Global Alliance was a partnership of Nike, Gap, the World Bank, the International Youth Foundation (IYF), and other organisations aimed at worker and workplace development. Since its launch in 1999, Global Alliance facilitated interviews with more than 16,000 workers, and launched a number of development projects focused primarily around building better management practices, and worker awareness of health issues.

The Global Alliance interviews and focus groups helped us uncover the kinds of compliance issues that are difficult to bring out in typical audits. For example, a series of worker interviews conducted in Indonesia in 2000-2001 made our compliance teams much more aware of verbal, physical and sexual harassment issues – of particular importance with a workforce that is predominantly young and female. They also helped us gauge overall satisfaction with the work environment.

Their revelations led us to specifically direct factories to institute confidential grievance systems, which do not exist broadly in the industry. The grievance system standard is beginning to take hold, though nearly a third of Nike contract factories audited in fiscal years 2003 and 2004 still have no confidential grievance process in place for workers.
They also led to training as well: During our 2004 fiscal year, Global Alliance trained more than 25,000 managers and workers in more than 60 factories in China, India, Indonesia, Thailand and Vietnam.

The Global Alliance was criticized in some quarters as, at best, irrelevant when compliance issues abound, and, at worst, an end-run around trade unions. We believe this dismissal of the Global Alliance misses a larger point: Though not a perfect effort, the five-year experience with the Global Alliance taught its partners a great deal about worker issues and aspirations, and highlighted some core compliance issues as well (as is clear from the example of harassment issues). We know now that to gain a deeper understanding of a workplace, we must go beyond M-Audit scores and probe under the surface to try to measure worker satisfaction with the workplace. The evolution of our own monitoring tool to now include a strong emphasis on worker interviews is one reflection of Global Alliance’s influence.

Although we were able to gather anecdotal information about some of the positive impacts of the Global Alliance on the workplace, particularly the management training and worker health training, a measurement of actual impacts is still to come. Global Alliance’s ability to expand programming and attract other corporate partners proved limited, which led to the decision to end the initiative.

For more information about the Global Alliance, see [http://www.theglobalalliance.org their Website]. You can also download the 2003 Indonesia reassessment report outlining workers’ views of workplace improvements in Nike contract facilities.

In addition to the Global Alliance training, Nike continues to sponsor a program of worker after-hours education generally aimed at securing a high school equivalency for workers in footwear factories in Thailand, Vietnam, Indonesia and China. In the 2003/2004 school year, 984 workers graduated from one of those programs. Our commitment to worker and workplace development remains. At this point in time we are exploring different ways in which the remaining funds can be utilized in the spirit of the GA – we will report on this in our fiscal year 2005 report.

Taken from websites: [http://www.nike.com/nikebiz/nikebiz.jhtml;bsessionid=R12NPVSQU0E3GCQFTBFCF5AKAWMB2IZB?page=25&cat=approach&subcat=compliance Nike Website Nike.com] & [http://www.theglobalalliance.org Global Alliance]

== The alternative viewpoints ==
http://perso.wanadoo.fr/jerome.lafourcade/Documents/Detente/Images/Anti-mondialiste/nike.jpg

Nike might see themselves as a victim of their own sucess. As one of the biggest manufacturers of sportswear, they are under considerably more scrutiny than many of their competitors, targeted by a broad range of campaigning NGOs and journalists as a symbol of the "Typical Multinational". In Nikes 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 and even publicly apologised for its past wrongdoings last year. However, some criticism continues.

===A Parody for Nike===
The results of an internet search regarding Nike will usually bring up a clever and thought provoking parody by a man called Atul, at http://www.toolness.com/nike high on the list. It ridicules Nike for some of their approaches to manufacturing in the third-world. While the parody, titled: "Nike SweatshopsÃ¢â€žÂ¢ Ã¢â‚¬â€? unlocking the power of poverty", provides no evidence of malpractice, it's sarcastic tone sums-up and reinforces what many people believe goes on.

Atul writes:

<center>"The theme of this parody is the idea that, from the perspective of our current economic system, poverty is a very good thing. Because it increases profit margins, its existence is beneficial to a global economy. In fact, it is in the best interests of multinational corporations and their shareholders to prolong poverty for as long as possible."</center>

The following is a list of accucations made in the parody, which highlight many respected NGO and activist opinions on third-world sweatshops:

* Nike actively seek to keep their sweatshop communities in poverty by
** Setting up schools that purposely provide a low level of education to keep the community low-skilled
** Paying a wage that employees can only just survive off to make sure that they can not save to start their own business, thus keeping a stranglehold on the economy.

* Nike build factories in areas with such high unemployment so employees have no choice but to work for Nike.
** They provide basic facilities for the factory community to further increase the communities dependence on them, so the community will be crippled if Nike leave

* Nike look after investors interests by keeping profit margins high, at the expense of their third-world employees
** Maintaining low third-world wages and poor working conditions to keep profit margins high
** If salaries become to high in the area they're operating in, they pull out, spelling high unemployment and deprivation for the community.

'''So, what truth is there in this parody? The following looks at five accucations regularly levelled at Nike.'''

'''Third world employees are:'''

===Overworked===
Ms. Lap Nguyen was a section leader with three years experience at the Sam Yang factory in Vietnam and had received awards for her skill and commitment. She was required to work over 100 hours of overtime during February and March 1998

In February and March 1998 several workers from the factory, including Ms. Lap, were interviewed by the US sports channel ESPN. They described problems at the factory, including use of violence by security guards towards workers. While working overtime on Sunday March 29 Ms. Lap became sick (feverish) and put her hands on her head to rest. Her manager hit her on the arm. She went home, obtained a doctors' certificate for her fever and took one and a half days sick leave. On her return to the factory her manager shouted at her and demoted her from team leader to sewer on the grounds that "section leaders can't take sick days." In the next few days, the supervisor continued to switch her from one job to another and deliberately humiliated her in front of other workers. During this time, the factory manager interrogated her about her interview with ESPN three times, using words like "we know what you have been doing behind our back," "confess now and you will be able to keep your job." The factory manager demoted her to cleaning the toilets and continued to harass her. Eventually she was asked to sign a letter of resignation and decided that she could no longer take the harassment and intimidation and signed.
Overtime must be voluntary, should not exceed 12 hours per week, must not be demanded on a regular basis, and must be compensated at a premium rate.

Taken from: [http://www.cleanclothes.org/companies/nike99-9-22.htm CleanClothes Website] Set up to improve working conditions in the global garment industry

===Underpaid===
At number 46 on the Forbes World Rich List 2005 [www.Forbes.com Forbes.com], Nike founder and chairman Philip Knight has made $8.2 Billion since setting up the company 42 years ago. It is no secret that much of the apparel his company sells is made by some of the poorest people in the world.

Much attention has been paid to Nike's exploitation of workers in economically strugglingcountries like Indonesia, Vietnam and China. Although Nike claims they are not responsible for much of what goes on in these sweatshops because they work through subcontractors and thus are not directly involved, the corporation has shown great irresponsibility and ignorance in dealing with the matter. In fact, Nike CEO Philip Knight's admitted as much in early 2005 when he launched the 2005 Nike Coarporate Social Responsibility report [http://www.nike.com Nike]

Nike has recently released a big advertising campaign in an effort to counter its negative image as a human rights violator. One ad proclaims "It's True. We routinely ignore the minimum age requirements at our factories." While it may now be true that Nike hires workers only 18 years or older, what the ad doesn't say is that Nike used to hire workers less than 18 AND that they only introduced this new policy under intense public demand. (This "responsible act" costs Nike nothing--there's plenty of workers over 18 who need jobs in economically depressed countries.) Another full-page ad announces "Good Morning Vietnam!" and congratulates Nike for its micro-loan program. Here Nike will match $75 contributions from private individuals to provide "serious venutre capital" to Vietnamese citizens. Nike claims they've issues 3200 such loans as of Nov. 1999. Nice try, Nike, but that's only $2400 in loans. How much did you spend on the ads trumpeting them? Clearly, Nike is worried about its public image. If it worried as much about its workers, industry-wide change might really happen. [http://spot.colorado.edu/~shortk/nike.html Colorado University]

Reports show the overseas workers to be underpaid, malnourished, and often physically and emotionally abused. Although Nike contends that they are paying above Indonesian minimum wage, the $2.36 a day workers earn is not even enough to buy three simple meals, estimated at $2.10. That's not even considering the minimum $6.00 a month rent, clothing, and hygienic products every worker needs. While many Nike factories provide subsidized meals, workers could afford their own meals if they were paid a living wage. Jeff Keaty, a U.S. coach who was fired for refusing to wear a uniform with the Nike logo, is in Jakarta, Indonesia trying to live on Nike factory wages. To learn more about working conditions there, see his report at www.nikewages.org. [http://spot.colorado.edu/~shortk/nike.html Colorado University]

According to the Coalition of Labor Union Women, the 20-million dollars which Nike paid Michael Jordan to endorse products for one year is equal to the amount they paid Indonesian workers to produce 19 million pairs of shoes, many valued at as much as $120 a pair.[http://www.cluw.org/ Coalition of Labor Union Women]

===Abused===
At a plant in Vietnam, a supervisor hit fifteen workers in a row in retaliation for poor sewing. The incident left two women hospitalized, and great emotional scars on every worker involved. The supervisor, Madame Baeck, was allowed to leave the country after the incident, despite conviction. Other incidents of abuse have since arisen: a woman's mouth taped shut for talking during working hours; 45 women forced to kneel on the ground with their hands in the air for 25 minutes straight; workers forced to stand in the sun for long periods of time as part of a heat punishment; and a Korean supervisor found guilty of molesting female workers. When a reporter from 48 Hours questioned a Nike spokesperson about this incident, he said he'd never heard of it, despite the fact it headlined Vietnamese newspapers.
[http://spot.colorado.edu/~shortk/nike.html Colorado University]
[http://wsws.org/public_html/iwb5-5/nike.htm socialequality.com's workers bulletin]
[http://christianaid.com Christian Aid]

===Refused Unions===
Recently, factories producing for Nike in Thailand have been shifting production to subcontractors and non-union facilities and to the provinces where wages and benefits are even lower. For example, unionized workers formerly producing for Nike at the Thai Iryo Garment factory in Rangsit were laid off while Nike production shifted to the Garment Tech factory in Bangkok and VT Garment in Sathupradit. Many workers have been laid off from the unionized Thai Iryo Garment and Par Garment factories just to wind up producing the same products for subcontractors and receiving lower wages without legal protection (Thai Labour Campaign, [http://www.thailabour.org/ Website] Coordinator: Junya Yimprasert, November 14, 2000). [http://cbae.nmsu.edu/~dboje/nike/thailand.html New Mexico State University]

The majority of workers interviewed at the Evergreen/Formosa factory in El Salvador said that they did not have the right to form a union, and many cited incidents in which workers had been dismissed for trying to organise one, according to a June 1999 report.

A 1999 report by the standards firm Verité confirms this situation still exists and that workers cannot freely form unions. Workers at Formosa were beaten and intimidated and earned subsistence wages, according to October 1998 testimony by Julia Pleites, a recent employee at Formosa. The report confirmed that the situation reported last year continues. Most workers interviewed had experienced, witnessed, or heard of incidents of verbal, physical, or sexual harassment of workers by supervisors. Workers reported (and were observed) being subject to systematic verbal abuse if they don't work fast enough. The workers who spoke to Verite made it clear that they were taking a risk in talking to the auditor and were afraid of the consequences.
Failure to uphold the right to form unions: violates local law (Article 204 of the El Salvador labour code, which stipulates freedom of association); international standards (ILO Convention 87); and the FLA standards, to which Nike is "committed."

===Abandoned====

Back to Homepage [[Nike]]

==Reference==
[http://spot.colorado.edu/~shortk/nike.html

Nike & Corporate Social Responsibility

2006-04-26T22:16:22Z

Ifu03592: /* Overworked */

Back to Home Page: [[Nike]]

Corporate social responsibility (CSR) is a concept that has blossomed over the last fifteen years. Rather than being narrowly focused on the pursuit of profit at the expense of all else, businesses practicing CSR, should at least in theory, be behaving responsibly in the course of their profit-making, taking into account their economic, environmental and social impacts on society.

However, there is a lot of debate surrounding CSR practice, regarding both to what extent certain companies are living up to their responsible promises and regarding some of the possible ulterior motives involved in practicing CSR.

Reasons leveled at Nike for why they might be practicing CSR, other than just on basic moral grounds include:
* Defending their important public image
* Differentiating themselves from their competitors
* Helping to prevent financially damaging boycotts, strikes, lawsuits, etc
* Appealing to the ethical consumer
* Appealing to the ethical investor
* Appealing to the ethical employee
* Pressure to do so from NGO's, Government or to combat public relations disasters
* Using CSR policies as evidence that they do not need to be regulated any further than they already are at present

== Nikes CSR Policy ==
Nike maintain that their business is built on trust, teamwork, honesty and mutual respect. [http://www.nike.com/nikebiz/nikebiz.jhtml?page=7&item=responsibility] In order for this to be achieved, the company has put in place a set of corporate governance policies and practices and this has been extended in recent times to attempt to include corporate responsibility issues as a central part of their governance system. Nike's codes and policies are outlined below:

===Our Codes and Policies===
Our code of ethics is called Inside the Lines; it defines the standards of conduct we expect of our employees. Every year, all employees are required to verify that they have read and understand Inside the Lines.

We operate a global toll-free Alertline for employees to report in confidence any suspected violations of the law or our code of ethics. Any reported concerns around accounting, auditing or internal control are communicated to the Audit Committee of the Board.

We expect our suppliers to share our standards and to operate in a legal and ethical manner. While Inside the Lines covers the behavior of Nike employees, our Nike Code of Conduct covers contractors who manufacture Nike-branded products. It directs them to respect the rights of their employees, and to provide them with a safe and healthy work environment.

Taken from: [http://www.nike.com/nikebiz/nikebiz.jhtml?page=7&item=responsibility Nike Website]

===Corporate Responsibility Committee===

Jill Ker Conway, Non-Executive Director, Committee Chair

Douglas G. Houser, Non-Executive Director

Jeanne P. Jackson, Non-Executive Director

John R. Thompson, Jr., Non-Executive Director

Established in 2001, the CR Committee of the Board was set up to review significant policies and activities and make recommendations to the Board of Directors regarding labor and environmental practices, community affairs, charitable and foundation activities, diversity and equal opportunity, and environmental and sustainability initiatives. Meetings are held regularly where the Committee meet to discuss these issues. In addition, close to 150 Nike employees work on CR issues as their main function or have CR work included in their workload.

Taken from: [http://www.nike.com/nikebiz/nikebiz.jhtml?page=7&item=responsibility Nike Website]

== CSR in Practice ==

'''Nike’s approach to labour conditions in there contract factories is evolving.'''

The following is taken from Nike's website reflecting how they feel they are performing.

Nike has transformed from a focus on the Code of Conduct to advocating common standards across the industry. They have evolved from outsourcing labour monitoring to relying on a trained team of internal monitors and support for common monitoring platforms such as the “Fair Labour Association.” Furthermore they are growing from a focus on monitoring to a focus on capacity building. From an exclusive focus on factory floor impact to an exploration of ways to help change the industry through transparency and multi-stakeholder collaborations.

These changes are driven by awareness that structural issues, common to the global footwear, apparel and equipment industries affect an individual company’s ability to change conditions in particular factories.

There monitoring processes provide clear issues arising inside factories. What they do not tell us, however, is how those issues are affected by events of external factors. For example, in trying to reduce excessive overtime, we can focus on more effective policing of factories to achieve compliance. But simply focusing on policing does not address the root cause and might take resources away from engaging in broader discussions about why workers in some cases want extra hours. Those are the discussions that may lead to greater and more lasting changes. This kind of root cause analysis requires active listening and engagement in the broader dialogue with civil society, institutions and businesses around supply chain working conditions.
In recent years, we have focused on refining our skills at (a) identifying risk of code compliance (b) uncovering issues and (c) implementing strategies that can be used to drive performance and enable change within Nike internally and on a broader level.
They have become more systematic in identifying non-compliance risk, and they have become increasingly adept at uncovering issues, but despite anecdotal instances of success, they remain deeply challenged – challenged to understand how to measure systematically the impact of there own interventions and challenged by how they play a role in enabling widespread change within the industry, which they now know is critical to facilitating change within there contract supply chain.

One step in responding to this challenge is to reveal there contract factory base. While no one can say with certainty what greater levels of factory disclosure will unleash, they do know the current system of addressing factory compliance has to be fundamentally transformed to create sustainable change. They believe that disclosure of supply chains is a step toward greater efficiencies in monitoring and remediation and in shared knowledge and capacity building that will elevate overall conditions in the industry. No one company can solve these issues that are endemic to the industry.

Transparency also should increase the incentive of brands to work with factories that demonstrate CR excellence. A more thorough description and assessment of Nike’s approach in this area can be found in the FY04 Corporate Responsibility Report.[http://www.nike.com/nikebiz/nikebiz.jhtml?page=29&item=fy04]

Taken from: [http://www.nike.com/nikebiz/nikebiz.jhtml;bsessionid=R12NPVSQU0E3GCQFTBFCF5AKAWMB2IZB?page=25&cat=approach&subcat=compliance Nike Website]

'''Giving voice to workers: The Global Alliance’s legacy'''

One of our most important partners in understanding factory worker concerns, and in training for both workers and managers, has been the Global Alliance for Workers and Communities (GA). After five years of operations, its partners collectively chose to end the initiative in December 2004.

The Global Alliance was a partnership of Nike, Gap, the World Bank, the International Youth Foundation (IYF), and other organisations aimed at worker and workplace development. Since its launch in 1999, Global Alliance facilitated interviews with more than 16,000 workers, and launched a number of development projects focused primarily around building better management practices, and worker awareness of health issues.

The Global Alliance interviews and focus groups helped us uncover the kinds of compliance issues that are difficult to bring out in typical audits. For example, a series of worker interviews conducted in Indonesia in 2000-2001 made our compliance teams much more aware of verbal, physical and sexual harassment issues – of particular importance with a workforce that is predominantly young and female. They also helped us gauge overall satisfaction with the work environment.

Their revelations led us to specifically direct factories to institute confidential grievance systems, which do not exist broadly in the industry. The grievance system standard is beginning to take hold, though nearly a third of Nike contract factories audited in fiscal years 2003 and 2004 still have no confidential grievance process in place for workers.
They also led to training as well: During our 2004 fiscal year, Global Alliance trained more than 25,000 managers and workers in more than 60 factories in China, India, Indonesia, Thailand and Vietnam.

The Global Alliance was criticized in some quarters as, at best, irrelevant when compliance issues abound, and, at worst, an end-run around trade unions. We believe this dismissal of the Global Alliance misses a larger point: Though not a perfect effort, the five-year experience with the Global Alliance taught its partners a great deal about worker issues and aspirations, and highlighted some core compliance issues as well (as is clear from the example of harassment issues). We know now that to gain a deeper understanding of a workplace, we must go beyond M-Audit scores and probe under the surface to try to measure worker satisfaction with the workplace. The evolution of our own monitoring tool to now include a strong emphasis on worker interviews is one reflection of Global Alliance’s influence.

Although we were able to gather anecdotal information about some of the positive impacts of the Global Alliance on the workplace, particularly the management training and worker health training, a measurement of actual impacts is still to come. Global Alliance’s ability to expand programming and attract other corporate partners proved limited, which led to the decision to end the initiative.

For more information about the Global Alliance, see [http://www.theglobalalliance.org their Website]. You can also download the 2003 Indonesia reassessment report outlining workers’ views of workplace improvements in Nike contract facilities.

In addition to the Global Alliance training, Nike continues to sponsor a program of worker after-hours education generally aimed at securing a high school equivalency for workers in footwear factories in Thailand, Vietnam, Indonesia and China. In the 2003/2004 school year, 984 workers graduated from one of those programs. Our commitment to worker and workplace development remains. At this point in time we are exploring different ways in which the remaining funds can be utilized in the spirit of the GA – we will report on this in our fiscal year 2005 report.

Taken from websites: [http://www.nike.com/nikebiz/nikebiz.jhtml;bsessionid=R12NPVSQU0E3GCQFTBFCF5AKAWMB2IZB?page=25&cat=approach&subcat=compliance Nike Website Nike.com] & [http://www.theglobalalliance.org Global Alliance]

== The alternative viewpoints ==
http://perso.wanadoo.fr/jerome.lafourcade/Documents/Detente/Images/Anti-mondialiste/nike.jpg

Nike might see themselves as a victim of their own sucess. As one of the biggest manufacturers of sportswear, they are under considerably more scrutiny than many of their competitors, targeted by a broad range of campaigning NGOs and journalists as a symbol of the "Typical Multinational". In Nikes 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 and even publicly apologised for its past wrongdoings last year. However, some criticism continues.

===A Parody for Nike===
The results of an internet search regarding Nike will usually bring up a clever and thought provoking parody by a man called Atul, at http://www.toolness.com/nike high on the list. It ridicules Nike for some of their approaches to manufacturing in the third-world. While the parody, titled: "Nike SweatshopsÃ¢â€žÂ¢ Ã¢â‚¬â€? unlocking the power of poverty", provides no evidence of malpractice, it's sarcastic tone sums-up and reinforces what many people believe goes on.

Atul writes:

<center>"The theme of this parody is the idea that, from the perspective of our current economic system, poverty is a very good thing. Because it increases profit margins, its existence is beneficial to a global economy. In fact, it is in the best interests of multinational corporations and their shareholders to prolong poverty for as long as possible."</center>

The following is a list of accucations made in the parody, which highlight many respected NGO and activist opinions on third-world sweatshops:

* Nike actively seek to keep their sweatshop communities in poverty by
** Setting up schools that purposely provide a low level of education to keep the community low-skilled
** Paying a wage that employees can only just survive off to make sure that they can not save to start their own business, thus keeping a stranglehold on the economy.

* Nike build factories in areas with such high unemployment so employees have no choice but to work for Nike.
** They provide basic facilities for the factory community to further increase the communities dependence on them, so the community will be crippled if Nike leave

* Nike look after investors interests by keeping profit margins high, at the expense of their third-world employees
** Maintaining low third-world wages and poor working conditions to keep profit margins high
** If salaries become to high in the area they're operating in, they pull out, spelling high unemployment and deprivation for the community.

'''So, what truth is there in this parody? The following looks at five accucations regularly levelled at Nike.'''

'''Third world employees are:'''

===Overworked===
Ms. Lap Nguyen was a section leader with three years experience at the Sam Yang factory in Vietnam and had received awards for her skill and commitment. She was required to work over 100 hours of overtime during February and March 1998

In February and March 1998 several workers from the factory, including Ms. Lap, were interviewed by the US sports channel ESPN. They described problems at the factory, including use of violence by security guards towards workers. While working overtime on Sunday March 29 Ms. Lap became sick (feverish) and put her hands on her head to rest. Her manager hit her on the arm. She went home, obtained a doctors' certificate for her fever and took one and a half days sick leave. On her return to the factory her manager shouted at her and demoted her from team leader to sewer on the grounds that "section leaders can't take sick days." In the next few days, the supervisor continued to switch her from one job to another and deliberately humiliated her in front of other workers. During this time, the factory manager interrogated her about her interview with ESPN three times, using words like "we know what you have been doing behind our back," "confess now and you will be able to keep your job." The factory manager demoted her to cleaning the toilets and continued to harass her. Eventually she was asked to sign a letter of resignation and decided that she could no longer take the harassment and intimidation and signed.
Overtime must be voluntary, should not exceed 12 hours per week, must not be demanded on a regular basis, and must be compensated at a premium rate.

Taken from: [http://www.cleanclothes.org/companies/nike99-9-22.htm CleanClothes Website] Set up to improve working conditions in the global garment industry

===Underpaid===
At number 46 on the Forbes World Rich List 2005 [www.Forbes.com Forbes.com], Nike founder and chairman Philip Knight has made $8.2 Billion since setting up the company 42 years ago. It is no secret that much of the apparel his company sells is made by some of the poorest people in the world.

Much attention has been paid to Nike's exploitation of workers in economically strugglingcountries like Indonesia, Vietnam and China. Although Nike claims they are not responsible for much of what goes on in these sweatshops because they work through subcontractors and thus are not directly involved, the corporation has shown great irresponsibility and ignorance in dealing with the matter. In fact, Nike CEO Philip Knight's admitted as much in early 2005 when he launched the 2005 Nike Coarporate Social Responsibility report [http://www.nike.com Nike]

Nike has recently released a big advertising campaign in an effort to counter its negative image as a human rights violator. One ad proclaims "It's True. We routinely ignore the minimum age requirements at our factories." While it may now be true that Nike hires workers only 18 years or older, what the ad doesn't say is that Nike used to hire workers less than 18 AND that they only introduced this new policy under intense public demand. (This "responsible act" costs Nike nothing--there's plenty of workers over 18 who need jobs in economically depressed countries.) Another full-page ad announces "Good Morning Vietnam!" and congratulates Nike for its micro-loan program. Here Nike will match $75 contributions from private individuals to provide "serious venutre capital" to Vietnamese citizens. Nike claims they've issues 3200 such loans as of Nov. 1999. Nice try, Nike, but that's only $2400 in loans. How much did you spend on the ads trumpeting them? Clearly, Nike is worried about its public image. If it worried as much about its workers, industry-wide change might really happen. [http://spot.colorado.edu/~shortk/nike.html Colorado University]

Reports show the overseas workers to be underpaid, malnourished, and often physically and emotionally abused. Although Nike contends that they are paying above Indonesian minimum wage, the $2.36 a day workers earn is not even enough to buy three simple meals, estimated at $2.10. That's not even considering the minimum $6.00 a month rent, clothing, and hygienic products every worker needs. While many Nike factories provide subsidized meals, workers could afford their own meals if they were paid a living wage. Jeff Keaty, a U.S. coach who was fired for refusing to wear a uniform with the Nike logo, is in Jakarta, Indonesia trying to live on Nike factory wages. To learn more about working conditions there, see his report at www.nikewages.org. [http://spot.colorado.edu/~shortk/nike.html Colorado University]

According to the Coalition of Labor Union Women, the 20-million dollars which Nike paid Michael Jordan to endorse products for one year is equal to the amount they paid Indonesian workers to produce 19 million pairs of shoes, many valued at as much as $120 a pair.[http://www.cluw.org/ Coalition of Labor Union Women]

===Abused===
At a plant in Vietnam, a supervisor hit fifteen workers in a row in retaliation for poor sewing. The incident left two women hospitalized, and great emotional scars on every worker involved. The supervisor, Madame Baeck, was allowed to leave the country after the incident, despite conviction. Other incidents of abuse have since arisen: a woman's mouth taped shut for talking during working hours; 45 women forced to kneel on the ground with their hands in the air for 25 minutes straight; workers forced to stand in the sun for long periods of time as part of a heat punishment; and a Korean supervisor found guilty of molesting female workers. When a reporter from 48 Hours questioned a Nike spokesperson about this incident, he said he'd never heard of it, despite the fact it headlined Vietnamese newspapers.
[http://spot.colorado.edu/~shortk/nike.html Colorado University]
[http://wsws.org/public_html/iwb5-5/nike.htm socialequality.com's workers bulletin]
[http://christianaid.com Christian Aid]

===Refused Unions===
Recently, factories producing for Nike in Thailand have been shifting production to subcontractors and non-union facilities and to the provinces where wages and benefits are even lower. For example, unionized workers formerly producing for Nike at the Thai Iryo Garment factory in Rangsit were laid off while Nike production shifted to the Garment Tech factory in Bangkok and VT Garment in Sathupradit. Many workers have been laid off from the unionized Thai Iryo Garment and Par Garment factories just to wind up producing the same products for subcontractors and receiving lower wages without legal protection (Thai Labour Campaign, [http://www.thailabour.org/ Website] Coordinator: Junya Yimprasert, November 14, 2000). [http://cbae.nmsu.edu/~dboje/nike/thailand.html New Mexico State University]

===Abandoned====

Back to Homepage [[Nike]]

==Reference==
[http://spot.colorado.edu/~shortk/nike.html

Nike & Corporate Social Responsibility

2006-04-26T22:11:51Z

Ifu03592: /* Refused Unions */

Back to Home Page: [[Nike]]

Corporate social responsibility (CSR) is a concept that has blossomed over the last fifteen years. Rather than being narrowly focused on the pursuit of profit at the expense of all else, businesses practicing CSR, should at least in theory, be behaving responsibly in the course of their profit-making, taking into account their economic, environmental and social impacts on society.

However, there is a lot of debate surrounding CSR practice, regarding both to what extent certain companies are living up to their responsible promises and regarding some of the possible ulterior motives involved in practicing CSR.

Reasons leveled at Nike for why they might be practicing CSR, other than just on basic moral grounds include:
* Defending their important public image
* Differentiating themselves from their competitors
* Helping to prevent financially damaging boycotts, strikes, lawsuits, etc
* Appealing to the ethical consumer
* Appealing to the ethical investor
* Appealing to the ethical employee
* Pressure to do so from NGO's, Government or to combat public relations disasters
* Using CSR policies as evidence that they do not need to be regulated any further than they already are at present

== Nikes CSR Policy ==
Nike maintain that their business is built on trust, teamwork, honesty and mutual respect. [http://www.nike.com/nikebiz/nikebiz.jhtml?page=7&item=responsibility] In order for this to be achieved, the company has put in place a set of corporate governance policies and practices and this has been extended in recent times to attempt to include corporate responsibility issues as a central part of their governance system. Nike's codes and policies are outlined below:

===Our Codes and Policies===
Our code of ethics is called Inside the Lines; it defines the standards of conduct we expect of our employees. Every year, all employees are required to verify that they have read and understand Inside the Lines.

We operate a global toll-free Alertline for employees to report in confidence any suspected violations of the law or our code of ethics. Any reported concerns around accounting, auditing or internal control are communicated to the Audit Committee of the Board.

We expect our suppliers to share our standards and to operate in a legal and ethical manner. While Inside the Lines covers the behavior of Nike employees, our Nike Code of Conduct covers contractors who manufacture Nike-branded products. It directs them to respect the rights of their employees, and to provide them with a safe and healthy work environment.

Taken from: [http://www.nike.com/nikebiz/nikebiz.jhtml?page=7&item=responsibility Nike Website]

===Corporate Responsibility Committee===

Jill Ker Conway, Non-Executive Director, Committee Chair

Douglas G. Houser, Non-Executive Director

Jeanne P. Jackson, Non-Executive Director

John R. Thompson, Jr., Non-Executive Director

Established in 2001, the CR Committee of the Board was set up to review significant policies and activities and make recommendations to the Board of Directors regarding labor and environmental practices, community affairs, charitable and foundation activities, diversity and equal opportunity, and environmental and sustainability initiatives. Meetings are held regularly where the Committee meet to discuss these issues. In addition, close to 150 Nike employees work on CR issues as their main function or have CR work included in their workload.

Taken from: [http://www.nike.com/nikebiz/nikebiz.jhtml?page=7&item=responsibility Nike Website]

== CSR in Practice ==

'''Nike’s approach to labour conditions in there contract factories is evolving.'''

The following is taken from Nike's website reflecting how they feel they are performing.

Nike has transformed from a focus on the Code of Conduct to advocating common standards across the industry. They have evolved from outsourcing labour monitoring to relying on a trained team of internal monitors and support for common monitoring platforms such as the “Fair Labour Association.” Furthermore they are growing from a focus on monitoring to a focus on capacity building. From an exclusive focus on factory floor impact to an exploration of ways to help change the industry through transparency and multi-stakeholder collaborations.

These changes are driven by awareness that structural issues, common to the global footwear, apparel and equipment industries affect an individual company’s ability to change conditions in particular factories.

There monitoring processes provide clear issues arising inside factories. What they do not tell us, however, is how those issues are affected by events of external factors. For example, in trying to reduce excessive overtime, we can focus on more effective policing of factories to achieve compliance. But simply focusing on policing does not address the root cause and might take resources away from engaging in broader discussions about why workers in some cases want extra hours. Those are the discussions that may lead to greater and more lasting changes. This kind of root cause analysis requires active listening and engagement in the broader dialogue with civil society, institutions and businesses around supply chain working conditions.
In recent years, we have focused on refining our skills at (a) identifying risk of code compliance (b) uncovering issues and (c) implementing strategies that can be used to drive performance and enable change within Nike internally and on a broader level.
They have become more systematic in identifying non-compliance risk, and they have become increasingly adept at uncovering issues, but despite anecdotal instances of success, they remain deeply challenged – challenged to understand how to measure systematically the impact of there own interventions and challenged by how they play a role in enabling widespread change within the industry, which they now know is critical to facilitating change within there contract supply chain.

One step in responding to this challenge is to reveal there contract factory base. While no one can say with certainty what greater levels of factory disclosure will unleash, they do know the current system of addressing factory compliance has to be fundamentally transformed to create sustainable change. They believe that disclosure of supply chains is a step toward greater efficiencies in monitoring and remediation and in shared knowledge and capacity building that will elevate overall conditions in the industry. No one company can solve these issues that are endemic to the industry.

Transparency also should increase the incentive of brands to work with factories that demonstrate CR excellence. A more thorough description and assessment of Nike’s approach in this area can be found in the FY04 Corporate Responsibility Report.[http://www.nike.com/nikebiz/nikebiz.jhtml?page=29&item=fy04]

Taken from: [http://www.nike.com/nikebiz/nikebiz.jhtml;bsessionid=R12NPVSQU0E3GCQFTBFCF5AKAWMB2IZB?page=25&cat=approach&subcat=compliance Nike Website]

'''Giving voice to workers: The Global Alliance’s legacy'''

One of our most important partners in understanding factory worker concerns, and in training for both workers and managers, has been the Global Alliance for Workers and Communities (GA). After five years of operations, its partners collectively chose to end the initiative in December 2004.

The Global Alliance was a partnership of Nike, Gap, the World Bank, the International Youth Foundation (IYF), and other organisations aimed at worker and workplace development. Since its launch in 1999, Global Alliance facilitated interviews with more than 16,000 workers, and launched a number of development projects focused primarily around building better management practices, and worker awareness of health issues.

The Global Alliance interviews and focus groups helped us uncover the kinds of compliance issues that are difficult to bring out in typical audits. For example, a series of worker interviews conducted in Indonesia in 2000-2001 made our compliance teams much more aware of verbal, physical and sexual harassment issues – of particular importance with a workforce that is predominantly young and female. They also helped us gauge overall satisfaction with the work environment.

Their revelations led us to specifically direct factories to institute confidential grievance systems, which do not exist broadly in the industry. The grievance system standard is beginning to take hold, though nearly a third of Nike contract factories audited in fiscal years 2003 and 2004 still have no confidential grievance process in place for workers.
They also led to training as well: During our 2004 fiscal year, Global Alliance trained more than 25,000 managers and workers in more than 60 factories in China, India, Indonesia, Thailand and Vietnam.

The Global Alliance was criticized in some quarters as, at best, irrelevant when compliance issues abound, and, at worst, an end-run around trade unions. We believe this dismissal of the Global Alliance misses a larger point: Though not a perfect effort, the five-year experience with the Global Alliance taught its partners a great deal about worker issues and aspirations, and highlighted some core compliance issues as well (as is clear from the example of harassment issues). We know now that to gain a deeper understanding of a workplace, we must go beyond M-Audit scores and probe under the surface to try to measure worker satisfaction with the workplace. The evolution of our own monitoring tool to now include a strong emphasis on worker interviews is one reflection of Global Alliance’s influence.

Although we were able to gather anecdotal information about some of the positive impacts of the Global Alliance on the workplace, particularly the management training and worker health training, a measurement of actual impacts is still to come. Global Alliance’s ability to expand programming and attract other corporate partners proved limited, which led to the decision to end the initiative.

For more information about the Global Alliance, see [http://www.theglobalalliance.org their Website]. You can also download the 2003 Indonesia reassessment report outlining workers’ views of workplace improvements in Nike contract facilities.

In addition to the Global Alliance training, Nike continues to sponsor a program of worker after-hours education generally aimed at securing a high school equivalency for workers in footwear factories in Thailand, Vietnam, Indonesia and China. In the 2003/2004 school year, 984 workers graduated from one of those programs. Our commitment to worker and workplace development remains. At this point in time we are exploring different ways in which the remaining funds can be utilized in the spirit of the GA – we will report on this in our fiscal year 2005 report.

Taken from websites: [http://www.nike.com/nikebiz/nikebiz.jhtml;bsessionid=R12NPVSQU0E3GCQFTBFCF5AKAWMB2IZB?page=25&cat=approach&subcat=compliance Nike Website Nike.com] & [http://www.theglobalalliance.org Global Alliance]

== The alternative viewpoints ==
http://perso.wanadoo.fr/jerome.lafourcade/Documents/Detente/Images/Anti-mondialiste/nike.jpg

Nike might see themselves as a victim of their own sucess. As one of the biggest manufacturers of sportswear, they are under considerably more scrutiny than many of their competitors, targeted by a broad range of campaigning NGOs and journalists as a symbol of the "Typical Multinational". In Nikes 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 and even publicly apologised for its past wrongdoings last year. However, some criticism continues.

===A Parody for Nike===
The results of an internet search regarding Nike will usually bring up a clever and thought provoking parody by a man called Atul, at http://www.toolness.com/nike high on the list. It ridicules Nike for some of their approaches to manufacturing in the third-world. While the parody, titled: "Nike SweatshopsÃ¢â€žÂ¢ Ã¢â‚¬â€? unlocking the power of poverty", provides no evidence of malpractice, it's sarcastic tone sums-up and reinforces what many people believe goes on.

Atul writes:

<center>"The theme of this parody is the idea that, from the perspective of our current economic system, poverty is a very good thing. Because it increases profit margins, its existence is beneficial to a global economy. In fact, it is in the best interests of multinational corporations and their shareholders to prolong poverty for as long as possible."</center>

The following is a list of accucations made in the parody, which highlight many respected NGO and activist opinions on third-world sweatshops:

* Nike actively seek to keep their sweatshop communities in poverty by
** Setting up schools that purposely provide a low level of education to keep the community low-skilled
** Paying a wage that employees can only just survive off to make sure that they can not save to start their own business, thus keeping a stranglehold on the economy.

* Nike build factories in areas with such high unemployment so employees have no choice but to work for Nike.
** They provide basic facilities for the factory community to further increase the communities dependence on them, so the community will be crippled if Nike leave

* Nike look after investors interests by keeping profit margins high, at the expense of their third-world employees
** Maintaining low third-world wages and poor working conditions to keep profit margins high
** If salaries become to high in the area they're operating in, they pull out, spelling high unemployment and deprivation for the community.

'''So, what truth is there in this parody? The following looks at five accucations regularly levelled at Nike.'''

'''Third world employees are:'''

===Overworked===

===Underpaid===
At number 46 on the Forbes World Rich List 2005 [www.Forbes.com Forbes.com], Nike founder and chairman Philip Knight has made $8.2 Billion since setting up the company 42 years ago. It is no secret that much of the apparel his company sells is made by some of the poorest people in the world.

Much attention has been paid to Nike's exploitation of workers in economically strugglingcountries like Indonesia, Vietnam and China. Although Nike claims they are not responsible for much of what goes on in these sweatshops because they work through subcontractors and thus are not directly involved, the corporation has shown great irresponsibility and ignorance in dealing with the matter. In fact, Nike CEO Philip Knight's admitted as much in early 2005 when he launched the 2005 Nike Coarporate Social Responsibility report [http://www.nike.com Nike]

Nike has recently released a big advertising campaign in an effort to counter its negative image as a human rights violator. One ad proclaims "It's True. We routinely ignore the minimum age requirements at our factories." While it may now be true that Nike hires workers only 18 years or older, what the ad doesn't say is that Nike used to hire workers less than 18 AND that they only introduced this new policy under intense public demand. (This "responsible act" costs Nike nothing--there's plenty of workers over 18 who need jobs in economically depressed countries.) Another full-page ad announces "Good Morning Vietnam!" and congratulates Nike for its micro-loan program. Here Nike will match $75 contributions from private individuals to provide "serious venutre capital" to Vietnamese citizens. Nike claims they've issues 3200 such loans as of Nov. 1999. Nice try, Nike, but that's only $2400 in loans. How much did you spend on the ads trumpeting them? Clearly, Nike is worried about its public image. If it worried as much about its workers, industry-wide change might really happen. [http://spot.colorado.edu/~shortk/nike.html Colorado University]

Reports show the overseas workers to be underpaid, malnourished, and often physically and emotionally abused. Although Nike contends that they are paying above Indonesian minimum wage, the $2.36 a day workers earn is not even enough to buy three simple meals, estimated at $2.10. That's not even considering the minimum $6.00 a month rent, clothing, and hygienic products every worker needs. While many Nike factories provide subsidized meals, workers could afford their own meals if they were paid a living wage. Jeff Keaty, a U.S. coach who was fired for refusing to wear a uniform with the Nike logo, is in Jakarta, Indonesia trying to live on Nike factory wages. To learn more about working conditions there, see his report at www.nikewages.org. [http://spot.colorado.edu/~shortk/nike.html Colorado University]

According to the Coalition of Labor Union Women, the 20-million dollars which Nike paid Michael Jordan to endorse products for one year is equal to the amount they paid Indonesian workers to produce 19 million pairs of shoes, many valued at as much as $120 a pair.[http://www.cluw.org/ Coalition of Labor Union Women]

===Abused===
At a plant in Vietnam, a supervisor hit fifteen workers in a row in retaliation for poor sewing. The incident left two women hospitalized, and great emotional scars on every worker involved. The supervisor, Madame Baeck, was allowed to leave the country after the incident, despite conviction. Other incidents of abuse have since arisen: a woman's mouth taped shut for talking during working hours; 45 women forced to kneel on the ground with their hands in the air for 25 minutes straight; workers forced to stand in the sun for long periods of time as part of a heat punishment; and a Korean supervisor found guilty of molesting female workers. When a reporter from 48 Hours questioned a Nike spokesperson about this incident, he said he'd never heard of it, despite the fact it headlined Vietnamese newspapers.
[http://spot.colorado.edu/~shortk/nike.html Colorado University]
[http://wsws.org/public_html/iwb5-5/nike.htm socialequality.com's workers bulletin]
[http://christianaid.com Christian Aid]

===Refused Unions===
Recently, factories producing for Nike in Thailand have been shifting production to subcontractors and non-union facilities and to the provinces where wages and benefits are even lower. For example, unionized workers formerly producing for Nike at the Thai Iryo Garment factory in Rangsit were laid off while Nike production shifted to the Garment Tech factory in Bangkok and VT Garment in Sathupradit. Many workers have been laid off from the unionized Thai Iryo Garment and Par Garment factories just to wind up producing the same products for subcontractors and receiving lower wages without legal protection (Thai Labour Campaign, [http://www.thailabour.org/ Website] Coordinator: Junya Yimprasert, November 14, 2000). [http://cbae.nmsu.edu/~dboje/nike/thailand.html New Mexico State University]

===Abandoned====

Back to Homepage [[Nike]]

==Reference==
[http://spot.colorado.edu/~shortk/nike.html

Nike & Corporate Social Responsibility

2006-04-26T22:04:47Z

Ifu03592: /* Refused Unions */

Back to Home Page: [[Nike]]

Corporate social responsibility (CSR) is a concept that has blossomed over the last fifteen years. Rather than being narrowly focused on the pursuit of profit at the expense of all else, businesses practicing CSR, should at least in theory, be behaving responsibly in the course of their profit-making, taking into account their economic, environmental and social impacts on society.

However, there is a lot of debate surrounding CSR practice, regarding both to what extent certain companies are living up to their responsible promises and regarding some of the possible ulterior motives involved in practicing CSR.

Reasons leveled at Nike for why they might be practicing CSR, other than just on basic moral grounds include:
* Defending their important public image
* Differentiating themselves from their competitors
* Helping to prevent financially damaging boycotts, strikes, lawsuits, etc
* Appealing to the ethical consumer
* Appealing to the ethical investor
* Appealing to the ethical employee
* Pressure to do so from NGO's, Government or to combat public relations disasters
* Using CSR policies as evidence that they do not need to be regulated any further than they already are at present

== Nikes CSR Policy ==
Nike maintain that their business is built on trust, teamwork, honesty and mutual respect. [http://www.nike.com/nikebiz/nikebiz.jhtml?page=7&item=responsibility] In order for this to be achieved, the company has put in place a set of corporate governance policies and practices and this has been extended in recent times to attempt to include corporate responsibility issues as a central part of their governance system. Nike's codes and policies are outlined below:

===Our Codes and Policies===
Our code of ethics is called Inside the Lines; it defines the standards of conduct we expect of our employees. Every year, all employees are required to verify that they have read and understand Inside the Lines.

We operate a global toll-free Alertline for employees to report in confidence any suspected violations of the law or our code of ethics. Any reported concerns around accounting, auditing or internal control are communicated to the Audit Committee of the Board.

We expect our suppliers to share our standards and to operate in a legal and ethical manner. While Inside the Lines covers the behavior of Nike employees, our Nike Code of Conduct covers contractors who manufacture Nike-branded products. It directs them to respect the rights of their employees, and to provide them with a safe and healthy work environment.

Taken from: [http://www.nike.com/nikebiz/nikebiz.jhtml?page=7&item=responsibility Nike Website]

===Corporate Responsibility Committee===

Jill Ker Conway, Non-Executive Director, Committee Chair

Douglas G. Houser, Non-Executive Director

Jeanne P. Jackson, Non-Executive Director

John R. Thompson, Jr., Non-Executive Director

Established in 2001, the CR Committee of the Board was set up to review significant policies and activities and make recommendations to the Board of Directors regarding labor and environmental practices, community affairs, charitable and foundation activities, diversity and equal opportunity, and environmental and sustainability initiatives. Meetings are held regularly where the Committee meet to discuss these issues. In addition, close to 150 Nike employees work on CR issues as their main function or have CR work included in their workload.

Taken from: [http://www.nike.com/nikebiz/nikebiz.jhtml?page=7&item=responsibility Nike Website]

== CSR in Practice ==

'''Nike’s approach to labour conditions in there contract factories is evolving.'''

The following is taken from Nike's website reflecting how they feel they are performing.

Nike has transformed from a focus on the Code of Conduct to advocating common standards across the industry. They have evolved from outsourcing labour monitoring to relying on a trained team of internal monitors and support for common monitoring platforms such as the “Fair Labour Association.” Furthermore they are growing from a focus on monitoring to a focus on capacity building. From an exclusive focus on factory floor impact to an exploration of ways to help change the industry through transparency and multi-stakeholder collaborations.

These changes are driven by awareness that structural issues, common to the global footwear, apparel and equipment industries affect an individual company’s ability to change conditions in particular factories.

There monitoring processes provide clear issues arising inside factories. What they do not tell us, however, is how those issues are affected by events of external factors. For example, in trying to reduce excessive overtime, we can focus on more effective policing of factories to achieve compliance. But simply focusing on policing does not address the root cause and might take resources away from engaging in broader discussions about why workers in some cases want extra hours. Those are the discussions that may lead to greater and more lasting changes. This kind of root cause analysis requires active listening and engagement in the broader dialogue with civil society, institutions and businesses around supply chain working conditions.
In recent years, we have focused on refining our skills at (a) identifying risk of code compliance (b) uncovering issues and (c) implementing strategies that can be used to drive performance and enable change within Nike internally and on a broader level.
They have become more systematic in identifying non-compliance risk, and they have become increasingly adept at uncovering issues, but despite anecdotal instances of success, they remain deeply challenged – challenged to understand how to measure systematically the impact of there own interventions and challenged by how they play a role in enabling widespread change within the industry, which they now know is critical to facilitating change within there contract supply chain.

One step in responding to this challenge is to reveal there contract factory base. While no one can say with certainty what greater levels of factory disclosure will unleash, they do know the current system of addressing factory compliance has to be fundamentally transformed to create sustainable change. They believe that disclosure of supply chains is a step toward greater efficiencies in monitoring and remediation and in shared knowledge and capacity building that will elevate overall conditions in the industry. No one company can solve these issues that are endemic to the industry.

Transparency also should increase the incentive of brands to work with factories that demonstrate CR excellence. A more thorough description and assessment of Nike’s approach in this area can be found in the FY04 Corporate Responsibility Report.[http://www.nike.com/nikebiz/nikebiz.jhtml?page=29&item=fy04]

Taken from: [http://www.nike.com/nikebiz/nikebiz.jhtml;bsessionid=R12NPVSQU0E3GCQFTBFCF5AKAWMB2IZB?page=25&cat=approach&subcat=compliance Nike Website]

'''Giving voice to workers: The Global Alliance’s legacy'''

One of our most important partners in understanding factory worker concerns, and in training for both workers and managers, has been the Global Alliance for Workers and Communities (GA). After five years of operations, its partners collectively chose to end the initiative in December 2004.

The Global Alliance was a partnership of Nike, Gap, the World Bank, the International Youth Foundation (IYF), and other organisations aimed at worker and workplace development. Since its launch in 1999, Global Alliance facilitated interviews with more than 16,000 workers, and launched a number of development projects focused primarily around building better management practices, and worker awareness of health issues.

The Global Alliance interviews and focus groups helped us uncover the kinds of compliance issues that are difficult to bring out in typical audits. For example, a series of worker interviews conducted in Indonesia in 2000-2001 made our compliance teams much more aware of verbal, physical and sexual harassment issues – of particular importance with a workforce that is predominantly young and female. They also helped us gauge overall satisfaction with the work environment.

Their revelations led us to specifically direct factories to institute confidential grievance systems, which do not exist broadly in the industry. The grievance system standard is beginning to take hold, though nearly a third of Nike contract factories audited in fiscal years 2003 and 2004 still have no confidential grievance process in place for workers.
They also led to training as well: During our 2004 fiscal year, Global Alliance trained more than 25,000 managers and workers in more than 60 factories in China, India, Indonesia, Thailand and Vietnam.

The Global Alliance was criticized in some quarters as, at best, irrelevant when compliance issues abound, and, at worst, an end-run around trade unions. We believe this dismissal of the Global Alliance misses a larger point: Though not a perfect effort, the five-year experience with the Global Alliance taught its partners a great deal about worker issues and aspirations, and highlighted some core compliance issues as well (as is clear from the example of harassment issues). We know now that to gain a deeper understanding of a workplace, we must go beyond M-Audit scores and probe under the surface to try to measure worker satisfaction with the workplace. The evolution of our own monitoring tool to now include a strong emphasis on worker interviews is one reflection of Global Alliance’s influence.

Although we were able to gather anecdotal information about some of the positive impacts of the Global Alliance on the workplace, particularly the management training and worker health training, a measurement of actual impacts is still to come. Global Alliance’s ability to expand programming and attract other corporate partners proved limited, which led to the decision to end the initiative.

For more information about the Global Alliance, see [http://www.theglobalalliance.org their Website]. You can also download the 2003 Indonesia reassessment report outlining workers’ views of workplace improvements in Nike contract facilities.

In addition to the Global Alliance training, Nike continues to sponsor a program of worker after-hours education generally aimed at securing a high school equivalency for workers in footwear factories in Thailand, Vietnam, Indonesia and China. In the 2003/2004 school year, 984 workers graduated from one of those programs. Our commitment to worker and workplace development remains. At this point in time we are exploring different ways in which the remaining funds can be utilized in the spirit of the GA – we will report on this in our fiscal year 2005 report.

Taken from websites: [http://www.nike.com/nikebiz/nikebiz.jhtml;bsessionid=R12NPVSQU0E3GCQFTBFCF5AKAWMB2IZB?page=25&cat=approach&subcat=compliance Nike Website Nike.com] & [http://www.theglobalalliance.org Global Alliance]

== The alternative viewpoints ==
http://perso.wanadoo.fr/jerome.lafourcade/Documents/Detente/Images/Anti-mondialiste/nike.jpg

Nike might see themselves as a victim of their own sucess. As one of the biggest manufacturers of sportswear, they are under considerably more scrutiny than many of their competitors, targeted by a broad range of campaigning NGOs and journalists as a symbol of the "Typical Multinational". In Nikes 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 and even publicly apologised for its past wrongdoings last year. However, some criticism continues.

===A Parody for Nike===
The results of an internet search regarding Nike will usually bring up a clever and thought provoking parody by a man called Atul, at http://www.toolness.com/nike high on the list. It ridicules Nike for some of their approaches to manufacturing in the third-world. While the parody, titled: "Nike SweatshopsÃ¢â€žÂ¢ Ã¢â‚¬â€? unlocking the power of poverty", provides no evidence of malpractice, it's sarcastic tone sums-up and reinforces what many people believe goes on.

Atul writes:

<center>"The theme of this parody is the idea that, from the perspective of our current economic system, poverty is a very good thing. Because it increases profit margins, its existence is beneficial to a global economy. In fact, it is in the best interests of multinational corporations and their shareholders to prolong poverty for as long as possible."</center>

The following is a list of accucations made in the parody, which highlight many respected NGO and activist opinions on third-world sweatshops:

* Nike actively seek to keep their sweatshop communities in poverty by
** Setting up schools that purposely provide a low level of education to keep the community low-skilled
** Paying a wage that employees can only just survive off to make sure that they can not save to start their own business, thus keeping a stranglehold on the economy.

* Nike build factories in areas with such high unemployment so employees have no choice but to work for Nike.
** They provide basic facilities for the factory community to further increase the communities dependence on them, so the community will be crippled if Nike leave

* Nike look after investors interests by keeping profit margins high, at the expense of their third-world employees
** Maintaining low third-world wages and poor working conditions to keep profit margins high
** If salaries become to high in the area they're operating in, they pull out, spelling high unemployment and deprivation for the community.

'''So, what truth is there in this parody? The following looks at five accucations regularly levelled at Nike.'''

'''Third world employees are:'''

===Overworked===

===Underpaid===
At number 46 on the Forbes World Rich List 2005 [www.Forbes.com Forbes.com], Nike founder and chairman Philip Knight has made $8.2 Billion since setting up the company 42 years ago. It is no secret that much of the apparel his company sells is made by some of the poorest people in the world.

Much attention has been paid to Nike's exploitation of workers in economically strugglingcountries like Indonesia, Vietnam and China. Although Nike claims they are not responsible for much of what goes on in these sweatshops because they work through subcontractors and thus are not directly involved, the corporation has shown great irresponsibility and ignorance in dealing with the matter. In fact, Nike CEO Philip Knight's admitted as much in early 2005 when he launched the 2005 Nike Coarporate Social Responsibility report [http://www.nike.com Nike]

Nike has recently released a big advertising campaign in an effort to counter its negative image as a human rights violator. One ad proclaims "It's True. We routinely ignore the minimum age requirements at our factories." While it may now be true that Nike hires workers only 18 years or older, what the ad doesn't say is that Nike used to hire workers less than 18 AND that they only introduced this new policy under intense public demand. (This "responsible act" costs Nike nothing--there's plenty of workers over 18 who need jobs in economically depressed countries.) Another full-page ad announces "Good Morning Vietnam!" and congratulates Nike for its micro-loan program. Here Nike will match $75 contributions from private individuals to provide "serious venutre capital" to Vietnamese citizens. Nike claims they've issues 3200 such loans as of Nov. 1999. Nice try, Nike, but that's only $2400 in loans. How much did you spend on the ads trumpeting them? Clearly, Nike is worried about its public image. If it worried as much about its workers, industry-wide change might really happen. [http://spot.colorado.edu/~shortk/nike.html Colorado University]

Reports show the overseas workers to be underpaid, malnourished, and often physically and emotionally abused. Although Nike contends that they are paying above Indonesian minimum wage, the $2.36 a day workers earn is not even enough to buy three simple meals, estimated at $2.10. That's not even considering the minimum $6.00 a month rent, clothing, and hygienic products every worker needs. While many Nike factories provide subsidized meals, workers could afford their own meals if they were paid a living wage. Jeff Keaty, a U.S. coach who was fired for refusing to wear a uniform with the Nike logo, is in Jakarta, Indonesia trying to live on Nike factory wages. To learn more about working conditions there, see his report at www.nikewages.org. [http://spot.colorado.edu/~shortk/nike.html Colorado University]

According to the Coalition of Labor Union Women, the 20-million dollars which Nike paid Michael Jordan to endorse products for one year is equal to the amount they paid Indonesian workers to produce 19 million pairs of shoes, many valued at as much as $120 a pair.[http://www.cluw.org/ Coalition of Labor Union Women]

===Abused===
At a plant in Vietnam, a supervisor hit fifteen workers in a row in retaliation for poor sewing. The incident left two women hospitalized, and great emotional scars on every worker involved. The supervisor, Madame Baeck, was allowed to leave the country after the incident, despite conviction. Other incidents of abuse have since arisen: a woman's mouth taped shut for talking during working hours; 45 women forced to kneel on the ground with their hands in the air for 25 minutes straight; workers forced to stand in the sun for long periods of time as part of a heat punishment; and a Korean supervisor found guilty of molesting female workers. When a reporter from 48 Hours questioned a Nike spokesperson about this incident, he said he'd never heard of it, despite the fact it headlined Vietnamese newspapers.
[http://spot.colorado.edu/~shortk/nike.html Colorado University]
[http://wsws.org/public_html/iwb5-5/nike.htm socialequality.com's workers bulletin]
[http://christianaid.com Christian Aid]

===Refused Unions===
Recently, factories producing for Nike in Thailand have been shifting production to subcontractors and non-union facilities and to the provinces where wages and benefits are even lower. For example, unionized workers formerly producing for Nike at the Thai Iryo Garment factory in Rangsit were laid off while Nike production shifted to the Garment Tech factory in Bangkok and VT Garment in Sathupradit. Many workers have been laid off from the unionized Thai Iryo Garment and Par Garment factories just to wind up producing the same products for subcontractors and receiving lower wages without legal protection (Thai Labour Campaign, Coordinator: Junya Yimprasert, November 14, 2000). [http://cbae.nmsu.edu/~dboje/nike/thailand.html New Mexico State University]

===Abandoned====

Back to Homepage [[Nike]]

==Reference==
[http://spot.colorado.edu/~shortk/nike.html

Nike & Corporate Social Responsibility

2006-04-26T22:00:01Z

Ifu03592: /* Refused Unions */

Back to Home Page: [[Nike]]

Corporate social responsibility (CSR) is a concept that has blossomed over the last fifteen years. Rather than being narrowly focused on the pursuit of profit at the expense of all else, businesses practicing CSR, should at least in theory, be behaving responsibly in the course of their profit-making, taking into account their economic, environmental and social impacts on society.

However, there is a lot of debate surrounding CSR practice, regarding both to what extent certain companies are living up to their responsible promises and regarding some of the possible ulterior motives involved in practicing CSR.

Reasons leveled at Nike for why they might be practicing CSR, other than just on basic moral grounds include:
* Defending their important public image
* Differentiating themselves from their competitors
* Helping to prevent financially damaging boycotts, strikes, lawsuits, etc
* Appealing to the ethical consumer
* Appealing to the ethical investor
* Appealing to the ethical employee
* Pressure to do so from NGO's, Government or to combat public relations disasters
* Using CSR policies as evidence that they do not need to be regulated any further than they already are at present

== Nikes CSR Policy ==
Nike maintain that their business is built on trust, teamwork, honesty and mutual respect. [http://www.nike.com/nikebiz/nikebiz.jhtml?page=7&item=responsibility] In order for this to be achieved, the company has put in place a set of corporate governance policies and practices and this has been extended in recent times to attempt to include corporate responsibility issues as a central part of their governance system. Nike's codes and policies are outlined below:

===Our Codes and Policies===
Our code of ethics is called Inside the Lines; it defines the standards of conduct we expect of our employees. Every year, all employees are required to verify that they have read and understand Inside the Lines.

We operate a global toll-free Alertline for employees to report in confidence any suspected violations of the law or our code of ethics. Any reported concerns around accounting, auditing or internal control are communicated to the Audit Committee of the Board.

We expect our suppliers to share our standards and to operate in a legal and ethical manner. While Inside the Lines covers the behavior of Nike employees, our Nike Code of Conduct covers contractors who manufacture Nike-branded products. It directs them to respect the rights of their employees, and to provide them with a safe and healthy work environment.

Taken from: [http://www.nike.com/nikebiz/nikebiz.jhtml?page=7&item=responsibility Nike Website]

===Corporate Responsibility Committee===

Jill Ker Conway, Non-Executive Director, Committee Chair

Douglas G. Houser, Non-Executive Director

Jeanne P. Jackson, Non-Executive Director

John R. Thompson, Jr., Non-Executive Director

Established in 2001, the CR Committee of the Board was set up to review significant policies and activities and make recommendations to the Board of Directors regarding labor and environmental practices, community affairs, charitable and foundation activities, diversity and equal opportunity, and environmental and sustainability initiatives. Meetings are held regularly where the Committee meet to discuss these issues. In addition, close to 150 Nike employees work on CR issues as their main function or have CR work included in their workload.

Taken from: [http://www.nike.com/nikebiz/nikebiz.jhtml?page=7&item=responsibility Nike Website]

== CSR in Practice ==

'''Nike’s approach to labour conditions in there contract factories is evolving.'''

The following is taken from Nike's website reflecting how they feel they are performing.

Nike has transformed from a focus on the Code of Conduct to advocating common standards across the industry. They have evolved from outsourcing labour monitoring to relying on a trained team of internal monitors and support for common monitoring platforms such as the “Fair Labour Association.” Furthermore they are growing from a focus on monitoring to a focus on capacity building. From an exclusive focus on factory floor impact to an exploration of ways to help change the industry through transparency and multi-stakeholder collaborations.

These changes are driven by awareness that structural issues, common to the global footwear, apparel and equipment industries affect an individual company’s ability to change conditions in particular factories.

There monitoring processes provide clear issues arising inside factories. What they do not tell us, however, is how those issues are affected by events of external factors. For example, in trying to reduce excessive overtime, we can focus on more effective policing of factories to achieve compliance. But simply focusing on policing does not address the root cause and might take resources away from engaging in broader discussions about why workers in some cases want extra hours. Those are the discussions that may lead to greater and more lasting changes. This kind of root cause analysis requires active listening and engagement in the broader dialogue with civil society, institutions and businesses around supply chain working conditions.
In recent years, we have focused on refining our skills at (a) identifying risk of code compliance (b) uncovering issues and (c) implementing strategies that can be used to drive performance and enable change within Nike internally and on a broader level.
They have become more systematic in identifying non-compliance risk, and they have become increasingly adept at uncovering issues, but despite anecdotal instances of success, they remain deeply challenged – challenged to understand how to measure systematically the impact of there own interventions and challenged by how they play a role in enabling widespread change within the industry, which they now know is critical to facilitating change within there contract supply chain.

One step in responding to this challenge is to reveal there contract factory base. While no one can say with certainty what greater levels of factory disclosure will unleash, they do know the current system of addressing factory compliance has to be fundamentally transformed to create sustainable change. They believe that disclosure of supply chains is a step toward greater efficiencies in monitoring and remediation and in shared knowledge and capacity building that will elevate overall conditions in the industry. No one company can solve these issues that are endemic to the industry.

Transparency also should increase the incentive of brands to work with factories that demonstrate CR excellence. A more thorough description and assessment of Nike’s approach in this area can be found in the FY04 Corporate Responsibility Report.[http://www.nike.com/nikebiz/nikebiz.jhtml?page=29&item=fy04]

Taken from: [http://www.nike.com/nikebiz/nikebiz.jhtml;bsessionid=R12NPVSQU0E3GCQFTBFCF5AKAWMB2IZB?page=25&cat=approach&subcat=compliance Nike Website]

'''Giving voice to workers: The Global Alliance’s legacy'''

One of our most important partners in understanding factory worker concerns, and in training for both workers and managers, has been the Global Alliance for Workers and Communities (GA). After five years of operations, its partners collectively chose to end the initiative in December 2004.

The Global Alliance was a partnership of Nike, Gap, the World Bank, the International Youth Foundation (IYF), and other organisations aimed at worker and workplace development. Since its launch in 1999, Global Alliance facilitated interviews with more than 16,000 workers, and launched a number of development projects focused primarily around building better management practices, and worker awareness of health issues.

The Global Alliance interviews and focus groups helped us uncover the kinds of compliance issues that are difficult to bring out in typical audits. For example, a series of worker interviews conducted in Indonesia in 2000-2001 made our compliance teams much more aware of verbal, physical and sexual harassment issues – of particular importance with a workforce that is predominantly young and female. They also helped us gauge overall satisfaction with the work environment.

Their revelations led us to specifically direct factories to institute confidential grievance systems, which do not exist broadly in the industry. The grievance system standard is beginning to take hold, though nearly a third of Nike contract factories audited in fiscal years 2003 and 2004 still have no confidential grievance process in place for workers.
They also led to training as well: During our 2004 fiscal year, Global Alliance trained more than 25,000 managers and workers in more than 60 factories in China, India, Indonesia, Thailand and Vietnam.

The Global Alliance was criticized in some quarters as, at best, irrelevant when compliance issues abound, and, at worst, an end-run around trade unions. We believe this dismissal of the Global Alliance misses a larger point: Though not a perfect effort, the five-year experience with the Global Alliance taught its partners a great deal about worker issues and aspirations, and highlighted some core compliance issues as well (as is clear from the example of harassment issues). We know now that to gain a deeper understanding of a workplace, we must go beyond M-Audit scores and probe under the surface to try to measure worker satisfaction with the workplace. The evolution of our own monitoring tool to now include a strong emphasis on worker interviews is one reflection of Global Alliance’s influence.

Although we were able to gather anecdotal information about some of the positive impacts of the Global Alliance on the workplace, particularly the management training and worker health training, a measurement of actual impacts is still to come. Global Alliance’s ability to expand programming and attract other corporate partners proved limited, which led to the decision to end the initiative.

For more information about the Global Alliance, see [http://www.theglobalalliance.org their Website]. You can also download the 2003 Indonesia reassessment report outlining workers’ views of workplace improvements in Nike contract facilities.

In addition to the Global Alliance training, Nike continues to sponsor a program of worker after-hours education generally aimed at securing a high school equivalency for workers in footwear factories in Thailand, Vietnam, Indonesia and China. In the 2003/2004 school year, 984 workers graduated from one of those programs. Our commitment to worker and workplace development remains. At this point in time we are exploring different ways in which the remaining funds can be utilized in the spirit of the GA – we will report on this in our fiscal year 2005 report.

Taken from websites: [http://www.nike.com/nikebiz/nikebiz.jhtml;bsessionid=R12NPVSQU0E3GCQFTBFCF5AKAWMB2IZB?page=25&cat=approach&subcat=compliance Nike Website Nike.com] & [http://www.theglobalalliance.org Global Alliance]

== The alternative viewpoints ==
http://perso.wanadoo.fr/jerome.lafourcade/Documents/Detente/Images/Anti-mondialiste/nike.jpg

Nike might see themselves as a victim of their own sucess. As one of the biggest manufacturers of sportswear, they are under considerably more scrutiny than many of their competitors, targeted by a broad range of campaigning NGOs and journalists as a symbol of the "Typical Multinational". In Nikes 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 and even publicly apologised for its past wrongdoings last year. However, some criticism continues.

===A Parody for Nike===
The results of an internet search regarding Nike will usually bring up a clever and thought provoking parody by a man called Atul, at http://www.toolness.com/nike high on the list. It ridicules Nike for some of their approaches to manufacturing in the third-world. While the parody, titled: "Nike SweatshopsÃ¢â€žÂ¢ Ã¢â‚¬â€? unlocking the power of poverty", provides no evidence of malpractice, it's sarcastic tone sums-up and reinforces what many people believe goes on.

Atul writes:

<center>"The theme of this parody is the idea that, from the perspective of our current economic system, poverty is a very good thing. Because it increases profit margins, its existence is beneficial to a global economy. In fact, it is in the best interests of multinational corporations and their shareholders to prolong poverty for as long as possible."</center>

The following is a list of accucations made in the parody, which highlight many respected NGO and activist opinions on third-world sweatshops:

* Nike actively seek to keep their sweatshop communities in poverty by
** Setting up schools that purposely provide a low level of education to keep the community low-skilled
** Paying a wage that employees can only just survive off to make sure that they can not save to start their own business, thus keeping a stranglehold on the economy.

* Nike build factories in areas with such high unemployment so employees have no choice but to work for Nike.
** They provide basic facilities for the factory community to further increase the communities dependence on them, so the community will be crippled if Nike leave

* Nike look after investors interests by keeping profit margins high, at the expense of their third-world employees
** Maintaining low third-world wages and poor working conditions to keep profit margins high
** If salaries become to high in the area they're operating in, they pull out, spelling high unemployment and deprivation for the community.

'''So, what truth is there in this parody? The following looks at five accucations regularly levelled at Nike.'''

'''Third world employees are:'''

===Overworked===

===Underpaid===
At number 46 on the Forbes World Rich List 2005 [www.Forbes.com Forbes.com], Nike founder and chairman Philip Knight has made $8.2 Billion since setting up the company 42 years ago. It is no secret that much of the apparel his company sells is made by some of the poorest people in the world.

Much attention has been paid to Nike's exploitation of workers in economically strugglingcountries like Indonesia, Vietnam and China. Although Nike claims they are not responsible for much of what goes on in these sweatshops because they work through subcontractors and thus are not directly involved, the corporation has shown great irresponsibility and ignorance in dealing with the matter. In fact, Nike CEO Philip Knight's admitted as much in early 2005 when he launched the 2005 Nike Coarporate Social Responsibility report [http://www.nike.com Nike]

Nike has recently released a big advertising campaign in an effort to counter its negative image as a human rights violator. One ad proclaims "It's True. We routinely ignore the minimum age requirements at our factories." While it may now be true that Nike hires workers only 18 years or older, what the ad doesn't say is that Nike used to hire workers less than 18 AND that they only introduced this new policy under intense public demand. (This "responsible act" costs Nike nothing--there's plenty of workers over 18 who need jobs in economically depressed countries.) Another full-page ad announces "Good Morning Vietnam!" and congratulates Nike for its micro-loan program. Here Nike will match $75 contributions from private individuals to provide "serious venutre capital" to Vietnamese citizens. Nike claims they've issues 3200 such loans as of Nov. 1999. Nice try, Nike, but that's only $2400 in loans. How much did you spend on the ads trumpeting them? Clearly, Nike is worried about its public image. If it worried as much about its workers, industry-wide change might really happen. [http://spot.colorado.edu/~shortk/nike.html Colorado University]

Reports show the overseas workers to be underpaid, malnourished, and often physically and emotionally abused. Although Nike contends that they are paying above Indonesian minimum wage, the $2.36 a day workers earn is not even enough to buy three simple meals, estimated at $2.10. That's not even considering the minimum $6.00 a month rent, clothing, and hygienic products every worker needs. While many Nike factories provide subsidized meals, workers could afford their own meals if they were paid a living wage. Jeff Keaty, a U.S. coach who was fired for refusing to wear a uniform with the Nike logo, is in Jakarta, Indonesia trying to live on Nike factory wages. To learn more about working conditions there, see his report at www.nikewages.org. [http://spot.colorado.edu/~shortk/nike.html Colorado University]

According to the Coalition of Labor Union Women, the 20-million dollars which Nike paid Michael Jordan to endorse products for one year is equal to the amount they paid Indonesian workers to produce 19 million pairs of shoes, many valued at as much as $120 a pair.[http://www.cluw.org/ Coalition of Labor Union Women]

===Abused===
At a plant in Vietnam, a supervisor hit fifteen workers in a row in retaliation for poor sewing. The incident left two women hospitalized, and great emotional scars on every worker involved. The supervisor, Madame Baeck, was allowed to leave the country after the incident, despite conviction. Other incidents of abuse have since arisen: a woman's mouth taped shut for talking during working hours; 45 women forced to kneel on the ground with their hands in the air for 25 minutes straight; workers forced to stand in the sun for long periods of time as part of a heat punishment; and a Korean supervisor found guilty of molesting female workers. When a reporter from 48 Hours questioned a Nike spokesperson about this incident, he said he'd never heard of it, despite the fact it headlined Vietnamese newspapers.
[http://spot.colorado.edu/~shortk/nike.html Colorado University]
[http://wsws.org/public_html/iwb5-5/nike.htm socialequality.com's workers bulletin]
[http://christianaid.com Christian Aid]

===Refused Unions===
Recently, factories producing for Nike in Thailand have been shifting production to subcontractors and non-union facilities and to the provinces where wages and benefits are even lower. For example, unionized workers formerly producing for Nike at the Thai Iryo Garment factory in Rangsit were laid off while Nike production shifted to the Garment Tech factory in Bangkok and VT Garment in Sathupradit. Many workers have been laid off from the unionized Thai Iryo Garment and Par Garment factories just to wind up producing the same products for subcontractors and receiving lower wages without legal protection (Thai Labour Campaign, Coordinator: Junya Yimprasert, November 14, 2000). [New Mexico State University http://cbae.nmsu.edu/~dboje/nike/thailand.html]

===Abandoned====

Back to Homepage [[Nike]]

==Reference==
[http://spot.colorado.edu/~shortk/nike.html

Nike

2006-04-26T21:56:14Z

Ifu03592: /* External Links */

=== Introduction ===
Company: Nike, Inc

Founded: 1971

Formally: Blue Ribbon Sports, founded 1964

Brand: Swoosh

Slogan: "Just Do It"

Location: Washingtown County, Oregon
Beaverton, Oregon

Key People: [[Philip Knight]] - Chairman and Co-founder ~
[[Mark Parker]] - CEO ~
[[Bill Bowerman]] - Co-founder

Industry: Sporting Goods

Products: Sports Equipment, shoes, apparel, assessories

Revenue: $13 Billion (FY 2005) {{ref|revenue}}

Employees: 26,500 {{ref|revenue2}}

Website: www.Nike.com[http://www.nike.com]

NIKE, Inc. (NYSE: NKE[http://www.nyse.com/about/listed/lcddata.html?ticker=NKE]) and its subsidiaries are involved in the design, development and marketing of products such as footwear, apparel, equipment and accessories worldwide. Its mission is "to bring innovation and inspiration to every athlete in the world*. *If you have a body, you are an athlete" (Bowerman,B)[http://www.nike.com/nikebiz/nikebiz.jhtml?page=4] The corporation caters for all types of sport and lifestyles, designing various forms of footwear from athletic footwear for running, to shoes designed for hiking and outdoor activities. In addition, it sells a line of performance equipment, including golf clubs, sport balls, timepieces, electronic media devices, skates, bats, gloves, swimwear, cycling apparel, children's clothing, school supplies, and eyewear. The company sells its products to retail accounts, through its owned retail stores, and through a mix of independent distributors and licensees.

The company takes its name from the Greek goddess of victory, Nike.

Above information from [http://www.nike.com Nike.com]

==Background/History==
Nike is the world's number one manufacturer and marketer of athletic footwear and apparel. It was founded in 1964 when it was firstly called Blue Ribbon Sports and its headquarters are situated in Beaverton, Oregon. It was co-founded by [[Bill Bowerman]], who was the track and field coach for the University of Oregan and [[Philip H. Knight]], a student from the University and a middle-distance runner under Bowerman. Nike was established as one of the world's most familiar brands during the 1980s and 1990s and has propelled to the extent that it now operates 184 stores in the United States and 190 stores globally. It owns facilities in Oregon, Tennessee, North Carolina and The Netherlands, and operates leased facilities for 14 Niketowns, over 200 Nike Factory Stores, a dozen NikeWomen stores and over 100 sales and administrative offices. The company now reaches out to most of the planet, operating in regions of the world such as the US, the Americas, Europe, the Middle East, the Asia Pacific region and Africa. This significant growth in recent years is shown by the fact that the company provides 26,000 full-time jobs. Nike has also expanded financially and has reported net revenues of $13.7 billion, a 12 percent increase from FY'04.[http://finance.yahoo.com/q/pr?s=nke]

Nike, Inc now markets its products under its own brand signified by [[The Nike Swoosh]] as well as under Air Jordan, Nike Golf and Team Starter among others, and under brands from wholly owned subsidiaries including Bauer, Cole Haan, Converse, and Hurley International.

===Nike Timeline===

The following timeline is taken directly from [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nike%2C_Inc. Wikipedia]

===The 1960s===
1962
*[[Phil Knight]] drafts a thesis paper at Stanford University in which he asserts that low-priced athletic shoes made in Japan could compete with more expensive footwear made in Germany. After earning his MBA, Knight travels to Japan, where he meets with executives from Onitsuka Tiger and persuades them to make Knight's company, '''Blue Ribbon Sports''', the distributor of Tiger brand footwear for the western United States.

1964
*Knight sends samples of Tiger footwear to University of Oregon track coach [[Bill Bowerman]], for whom Knight ran middle distances while an undergraduate. Bowerman suggests that he and Knight become partners, with Bowerman to provide endorsement clout as well as footwear design ideas. The two shake hands and each pledge $500 to start the new venture.

1965
*Jeff Johnson, a former track rival of Knight's, joins as the company's first full-time salesman. He sells shoes out of the back of his van to high schoolers at track meets.

1966
*Johnson opens the company's first retail outlet in Santa Monica, California. Knight and Bowerman convert their handshake agreement into a formal, written agreement.

1967
*Knight and Bowerman incorporate Blue Ribbon Sports, creating BRS, Inc.

1969
*With annual sales approaching $300,000, Knight resigns as a professor at Portland State University to devote himself full-time to BRS, Inc.

===The 1970s===
1970
*Bowerman experiments with rubber spikes, pouring a liquid rubber compound into his wife's waffle iron, which led to the creation of the 'waffle' sole.

1971
*Knight begins development of a new athletic footwear brand. A graphic design student at Portland State University named [[Carolyn Davidson]] is hired by Knight to design the new brand, which is referred to as a [[Swoosh]].
*Along with the new brand, BRS, Inc. needs a name for its new line of footwear. Dozens of suggestions, including Knight's favorite "Dimension Six," are rejected until Jeff Johnson dreams up the name Nike, the Greek goddess of victory.

1972
*The first Nike products, adorned with the Swoosh, are delivered to athletes competing in Eugene, Oregon for the US Olympic Track & Field trials.

1973
*American record-holder Steve Prefontaine becomes the first major track athlete to wear Nike shoes.

1974
*The Waffle Trainer is introduced, quickly becoming the best-selling training shoe in the U.S.

1977
*Nike print ad with the tag "There is no finish line" is introduced.

1978
*Tennis 'bad boy' John McEnroe is signed by Nike to an endorsement contract.

1979
* Nike's ''Air'' technology patented by inventor M. Frank Rudy is introduced in the Tailwind running shoe. Gas-filled plastic membranes are inserted into the sole of running shoes to provide cushioning.

===The 1980s===
1980
* Nike completes an initial public offering of 2,377,000 shares of Class B common stock on December 2.

1981
* BRS, Inc. merges into Nike, Inc. on December 31, and the company officially becomes known as Nike, Inc.

1982
*Dan Wieden and Dave Kennedy start their own advertising agency, Wieden+Kennedy, taking with them the Nike account on April 1. In October, Nike airs its first national television ad during the New York Marathon.

1982
* The Air Force 1 Shoe|Air Force 1 basketball shoe becomes the first Nike court shoe to make use of the Air technology.

1984
* Nike signs Michael Jordan to an endorsement contract. The first model of his signature shoe, the Air Jordan, originally is banned by the NBA, drawing a tremendous amount of publicity. The introduction of the Air Jordan shoe was a key event in Nike's successful development.

1986
* Corporate revenues surpass $1 billion for the first time.

1987
* The Nike Air Max shoe is introduced, which uses a much larger Air cushioning unit, and for the first time is visible at the side of the midsole. This was the first of many generations of Air Max-branded technologies. A television ad featuring the Beatles' song "Revolution" was the first time that a song performed by the Beatles was used in a TV ad.

1988
* Nike introduces its "Just Do It" slogan, a phrase from Zen philosophy.

1989
* Nike begins its Bo Knows ad campaign, which becomes a part of the national culture for the next few years.

===The 1990s===
1990
* The first Niketown store opens in downtown Portland.
* Nike opens its world headquarters in unincorporated Washington County, just west of Portland, on 74 acres (0.3 km²) of land.

1993
* Nike introduces Reuse-A-Shoe, which collects athletic shoes, separates and grinds them up into Nike Grind, used in the making of athletic courts, tracks and fields.

1994
* Nike signs a long-term partnership with the Brazil national football team|Brazilian national football (soccer) team.
* Nike wins Advertiser of the Year at the Cannes Advertising Festival

1996
* Nike signs Tiger Woods soon after he gives up his amateur golf status.
* Nike causes controversy with its advertising campaign during the Olympic Games|Summer Olympics in Atlanta, Georgia|Atlanta which features the slogan, "You Don't Win Silver — You Lose Gold." Nike's use of this slogan draws harsh criticism from many sources, including several former Olympic silver and bronze medalists.

1998
* After pressure from lobbying groups Nike and other companies publicly disclose their worldwide factory locations, a first for the garment industry.
** Phil Knight formally commits Nike to strict standards for manufacturing facilities used by Nike, including: minimum age; air quality; mandatory education programs; expansion of microloan program; factory monitoring; and enhanced transparency of Nike's [[corporate social responsibility]] practices.

1999
* [[Bill Bowerman]], co-founder of Nike, dies on Dec. 24 at age 88.

===The 2000s===
2000
*Nike Shox|Nike Shox cushioning/support system is introduced, initially worn by Vince Carter and others on the US Olympic basketball team.

2002
*NikeGO launches, a grassroots initiative to increase physical activity among youths aged 9-15.
*Rap star Nelly releases a chart topping song about Air Force Ones, a brand of Nike shoes.

2003
*Nike acquires once-bankrupt rival Converse (company)|Converse for $305 million on July 9.
*For the first time in the company's history, international sales exceed USA sales, as Nike continues to develop into a global company.
*Nike is named "Advertiser of the Year" by the Cannes Advertising Festival, the first company to earn that honor twice (also 1994) in the festival's 50-year history.

2004
*Phil Knight steps down as CEO and President of Nike, but continues as chairman. Knight is replaced by [[William D. Perez]] as CEO of Nike, effective Dec. 28.
*Nike creates the Exeter Brands Group, a wholly owned subsidiary for athletic footwear and apparel brands for lower price points. Brands include Starter, Team Starter, Asphalt, Shaq and Dunkman.
*Annual revenues exceed $12.3 billion.
*In June, Chinese animator Zhu Zhiqianq, of Xiao Xiao fame, files a lawsuit against Nike for plagiarizing his cartoon stickmen in their commercials. Nike representatives deny the accusations, claiming that the stickman figure lacks originality, and is public domain. Zhu eventually wins the lawsuit, and Nike is ordered to pay $36,000 to the cartoonist.

2005
*Nike reports annual revenue for fiscal year 2005 (ending May 31) of $13.7 billion, a 12% increase over the previous fiscal year.
* Nike comes under fire from independent music fans and apologizes for their use of an easily identifiable Minor Threat album cover slightly modified into a promotional tool for their line of skateboarding shoes.

2006
* William Perez left Nike voluntarily on January 23, 2006. Perez said in the statement that he and Knight "weren't entirely aligned on some aspects of how to best lead the company's long-term growth. It became obvious to me that the long-term interests of the company would be best served by my resignation."
*Mark Parker replaces Perez as CEO. Parker, joined Nike in 1979 and is considered the visionary behind the Nike Air franchise and many other innovations, Nike said, and one of the key executives leading the company's long-term strategic planning.
*Nike Inc. filed a patent infringement lawsuit against Adidas-Salomon AG on February 16 2006, claiming its archrival makes shoes using elements of Nike's SHOX cushioning technology.

==People/Staff==
[[Philip H. Knight]], Chairman of the Board of Directors

[[Mark Parker]], President & Chief Executive Officer, Nike, Inc.

[[Charlie Denson]], President, Nike Brand

===Board of Directors===

John G. Connors

Timothy D. Cook

Jill K. Conway

Ralph D. DeNunzio

Alan B. Graf, Jr.

Douglas G. Houser

Jeanne P. Jackson

Orin C. Smith

John R. Thompson, Jr.

==A Closer Examination of Nike==

[[Nike & Corporate Social Responsibility]]

[[Nike make u-turn on free statement promise]]

[[Nike praised by Oxfam]]

[[Global Exchange: Still waiting for Nike to do it]]

==External Links==
* [http://www.nikebiz.com/ NikeBiz] Nike's corporate / investor website
* [http://niketown.nike.com/ Nike Town] Nike's Full Range of Products.
* [http://www.caa.org.au/campaigns/nike/ The NikeWatch Campaign] Oxfam campaign to pressure Nike for better workers rights
* [http://www.studentsagainstsweatshops.org/about/history.php Anti-sweatshop movement] Anti-Sweatshop student movement begins by focusing on Nike
* [http://pitchforkmedia.com/news/05-06/23.shtml Pitchfork Media News - 6/23/05 Logo Controversy] Indie music review site reporting on the Nike/Minor Threat logo controversy
* [http://www.fairlabor.org/2004report/ FairLabor.org annual report] Fair Labour annaul report looking at how 25 top companies including Nike are performing
* [http://www.ReclaimDemocracy.org/nike/ Information on Kasky v. Nike ] High profile court case
* [http://www.new-academy.ac.uk/publications/keypublications/documents/nikereport.pdf Case study for New Academy of Business] A case study outlining Nikes experience in developing and implementing various labour practices

==Notes==

1 {{Note|Revenue}}[http://www.nike.com/nikebiz/nikebiz.jhtml?page=3&item=facts Company overview on nike.com]

2 {{Note|Revenue2}}[http://www.nike.com/nikebiz/nikebiz.jhtml?page=3&item=facts Company overview on nike.com]

Nike & Corporate Social Responsibility

2006-04-26T21:52:02Z

Ifu03592: /* A Parody for Nike */

Back to Home Page: [[Nike]]

Corporate social responsibility (CSR) is a concept that has blossomed over the last fifteen years. Rather than being narrowly focused on the pursuit of profit at the expense of all else, businesses practicing CSR, should at least in theory, be behaving responsibly in the course of their profit-making, taking into account their economic, environmental and social impacts on society.

However, there is a lot of debate surrounding CSR practice, regarding both to what extent certain companies are living up to their responsible promises and regarding some of the possible ulterior motives involved in practicing CSR.

Reasons leveled at Nike for why they might be practicing CSR, other than just on basic moral grounds include:
* Defending their important public image
* Differentiating themselves from their competitors
* Helping to prevent financially damaging boycotts, strikes, lawsuits, etc
* Appealing to the ethical consumer
* Appealing to the ethical investor
* Appealing to the ethical employee
* Pressure to do so from NGO's, Government or to combat public relations disasters
* Using CSR policies as evidence that they do not need to be regulated any further than they already are at present

== Nikes CSR Policy ==
Nike maintain that their business is built on trust, teamwork, honesty and mutual respect. [http://www.nike.com/nikebiz/nikebiz.jhtml?page=7&item=responsibility] In order for this to be achieved, the company has put in place a set of corporate governance policies and practices and this has been extended in recent times to attempt to include corporate responsibility issues as a central part of their governance system. Nike's codes and policies are outlined below:

===Our Codes and Policies===
Our code of ethics is called Inside the Lines; it defines the standards of conduct we expect of our employees. Every year, all employees are required to verify that they have read and understand Inside the Lines.

We operate a global toll-free Alertline for employees to report in confidence any suspected violations of the law or our code of ethics. Any reported concerns around accounting, auditing or internal control are communicated to the Audit Committee of the Board.

We expect our suppliers to share our standards and to operate in a legal and ethical manner. While Inside the Lines covers the behavior of Nike employees, our Nike Code of Conduct covers contractors who manufacture Nike-branded products. It directs them to respect the rights of their employees, and to provide them with a safe and healthy work environment.

Taken from: [http://www.nike.com/nikebiz/nikebiz.jhtml?page=7&item=responsibility Nike Website]

===Corporate Responsibility Committee===

Jill Ker Conway, Non-Executive Director, Committee Chair

Douglas G. Houser, Non-Executive Director

Jeanne P. Jackson, Non-Executive Director

John R. Thompson, Jr., Non-Executive Director

Established in 2001, the CR Committee of the Board was set up to review significant policies and activities and make recommendations to the Board of Directors regarding labor and environmental practices, community affairs, charitable and foundation activities, diversity and equal opportunity, and environmental and sustainability initiatives. Meetings are held regularly where the Committee meet to discuss these issues. In addition, close to 150 Nike employees work on CR issues as their main function or have CR work included in their workload.

Taken from: [http://www.nike.com/nikebiz/nikebiz.jhtml?page=7&item=responsibility Nike Website]

== CSR in Practice ==

'''Nike’s approach to labour conditions in there contract factories is evolving.'''

The following is taken from Nike's website reflecting how they feel they are performing.

Nike has transformed from a focus on the Code of Conduct to advocating common standards across the industry. They have evolved from outsourcing labour monitoring to relying on a trained team of internal monitors and support for common monitoring platforms such as the “Fair Labour Association.” Furthermore they are growing from a focus on monitoring to a focus on capacity building. From an exclusive focus on factory floor impact to an exploration of ways to help change the industry through transparency and multi-stakeholder collaborations.

These changes are driven by awareness that structural issues, common to the global footwear, apparel and equipment industries affect an individual company’s ability to change conditions in particular factories.

There monitoring processes provide clear issues arising inside factories. What they do not tell us, however, is how those issues are affected by events of external factors. For example, in trying to reduce excessive overtime, we can focus on more effective policing of factories to achieve compliance. But simply focusing on policing does not address the root cause and might take resources away from engaging in broader discussions about why workers in some cases want extra hours. Those are the discussions that may lead to greater and more lasting changes. This kind of root cause analysis requires active listening and engagement in the broader dialogue with civil society, institutions and businesses around supply chain working conditions.
In recent years, we have focused on refining our skills at (a) identifying risk of code compliance (b) uncovering issues and (c) implementing strategies that can be used to drive performance and enable change within Nike internally and on a broader level.
They have become more systematic in identifying non-compliance risk, and they have become increasingly adept at uncovering issues, but despite anecdotal instances of success, they remain deeply challenged – challenged to understand how to measure systematically the impact of there own interventions and challenged by how they play a role in enabling widespread change within the industry, which they now know is critical to facilitating change within there contract supply chain.

One step in responding to this challenge is to reveal there contract factory base. While no one can say with certainty what greater levels of factory disclosure will unleash, they do know the current system of addressing factory compliance has to be fundamentally transformed to create sustainable change. They believe that disclosure of supply chains is a step toward greater efficiencies in monitoring and remediation and in shared knowledge and capacity building that will elevate overall conditions in the industry. No one company can solve these issues that are endemic to the industry.

Transparency also should increase the incentive of brands to work with factories that demonstrate CR excellence. A more thorough description and assessment of Nike’s approach in this area can be found in the FY04 Corporate Responsibility Report.[http://www.nike.com/nikebiz/nikebiz.jhtml?page=29&item=fy04]

Taken from: [http://www.nike.com/nikebiz/nikebiz.jhtml;bsessionid=R12NPVSQU0E3GCQFTBFCF5AKAWMB2IZB?page=25&cat=approach&subcat=compliance Nike Website]

'''Giving voice to workers: The Global Alliance’s legacy'''

One of our most important partners in understanding factory worker concerns, and in training for both workers and managers, has been the Global Alliance for Workers and Communities (GA). After five years of operations, its partners collectively chose to end the initiative in December 2004.

The Global Alliance was a partnership of Nike, Gap, the World Bank, the International Youth Foundation (IYF), and other organisations aimed at worker and workplace development. Since its launch in 1999, Global Alliance facilitated interviews with more than 16,000 workers, and launched a number of development projects focused primarily around building better management practices, and worker awareness of health issues.

The Global Alliance interviews and focus groups helped us uncover the kinds of compliance issues that are difficult to bring out in typical audits. For example, a series of worker interviews conducted in Indonesia in 2000-2001 made our compliance teams much more aware of verbal, physical and sexual harassment issues – of particular importance with a workforce that is predominantly young and female. They also helped us gauge overall satisfaction with the work environment.

Their revelations led us to specifically direct factories to institute confidential grievance systems, which do not exist broadly in the industry. The grievance system standard is beginning to take hold, though nearly a third of Nike contract factories audited in fiscal years 2003 and 2004 still have no confidential grievance process in place for workers.
They also led to training as well: During our 2004 fiscal year, Global Alliance trained more than 25,000 managers and workers in more than 60 factories in China, India, Indonesia, Thailand and Vietnam.

The Global Alliance was criticized in some quarters as, at best, irrelevant when compliance issues abound, and, at worst, an end-run around trade unions. We believe this dismissal of the Global Alliance misses a larger point: Though not a perfect effort, the five-year experience with the Global Alliance taught its partners a great deal about worker issues and aspirations, and highlighted some core compliance issues as well (as is clear from the example of harassment issues). We know now that to gain a deeper understanding of a workplace, we must go beyond M-Audit scores and probe under the surface to try to measure worker satisfaction with the workplace. The evolution of our own monitoring tool to now include a strong emphasis on worker interviews is one reflection of Global Alliance’s influence.

Although we were able to gather anecdotal information about some of the positive impacts of the Global Alliance on the workplace, particularly the management training and worker health training, a measurement of actual impacts is still to come. Global Alliance’s ability to expand programming and attract other corporate partners proved limited, which led to the decision to end the initiative.

For more information about the Global Alliance, see [http://www.theglobalalliance.org their Website]. You can also download the 2003 Indonesia reassessment report outlining workers’ views of workplace improvements in Nike contract facilities.

In addition to the Global Alliance training, Nike continues to sponsor a program of worker after-hours education generally aimed at securing a high school equivalency for workers in footwear factories in Thailand, Vietnam, Indonesia and China. In the 2003/2004 school year, 984 workers graduated from one of those programs. Our commitment to worker and workplace development remains. At this point in time we are exploring different ways in which the remaining funds can be utilized in the spirit of the GA – we will report on this in our fiscal year 2005 report.

Taken from websites: [http://www.nike.com/nikebiz/nikebiz.jhtml;bsessionid=R12NPVSQU0E3GCQFTBFCF5AKAWMB2IZB?page=25&cat=approach&subcat=compliance Nike Website Nike.com] & [http://www.theglobalalliance.org Global Alliance]

== The alternative viewpoints ==
http://perso.wanadoo.fr/jerome.lafourcade/Documents/Detente/Images/Anti-mondialiste/nike.jpg

Nike might see themselves as a victim of their own sucess. As one of the biggest manufacturers of sportswear, they are under considerably more scrutiny than many of their competitors, targeted by a broad range of campaigning NGOs and journalists as a symbol of the "Typical Multinational". In Nikes 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 and even publicly apologised for its past wrongdoings last year. However, some criticism continues.

===A Parody for Nike===
The results of an internet search regarding Nike will usually bring up a clever and thought provoking parody by a man called Atul, at http://www.toolness.com/nike high on the list. It ridicules Nike for some of their approaches to manufacturing in the third-world. While the parody, titled: "Nike SweatshopsÃ¢â€žÂ¢ Ã¢â‚¬â€? unlocking the power of poverty", provides no evidence of malpractice, it's sarcastic tone sums-up and reinforces what many people believe goes on.

Atul writes:

<center>"The theme of this parody is the idea that, from the perspective of our current economic system, poverty is a very good thing. Because it increases profit margins, its existence is beneficial to a global economy. In fact, it is in the best interests of multinational corporations and their shareholders to prolong poverty for as long as possible."</center>

The following is a list of accucations made in the parody, which highlight many respected NGO and activist opinions on third-world sweatshops:

* Nike actively seek to keep their sweatshop communities in poverty by
** Setting up schools that purposely provide a low level of education to keep the community low-skilled
** Paying a wage that employees can only just survive off to make sure that they can not save to start their own business, thus keeping a stranglehold on the economy.

* Nike build factories in areas with such high unemployment so employees have no choice but to work for Nike.
** They provide basic facilities for the factory community to further increase the communities dependence on them, so the community will be crippled if Nike leave

* Nike look after investors interests by keeping profit margins high, at the expense of their third-world employees
** Maintaining low third-world wages and poor working conditions to keep profit margins high
** If salaries become to high in the area they're operating in, they pull out, spelling high unemployment and deprivation for the community.

'''So, what truth is there in this parody? The following looks at five accucations regularly levelled at Nike.'''

'''Third world employees are:'''

===Overworked===

===Underpaid===
At number 46 on the Forbes World Rich List 2005 [www.Forbes.com Forbes.com], Nike founder and chairman Philip Knight has made $8.2 Billion since setting up the company 42 years ago. It is no secret that much of the apparel his company sells is made by some of the poorest people in the world.

Much attention has been paid to Nike's exploitation of workers in economically strugglingcountries like Indonesia, Vietnam and China. Although Nike claims they are not responsible for much of what goes on in these sweatshops because they work through subcontractors and thus are not directly involved, the corporation has shown great irresponsibility and ignorance in dealing with the matter. In fact, Nike CEO Philip Knight's admitted as much in early 2005 when he launched the 2005 Nike Coarporate Social Responsibility report [http://www.nike.com Nike]

Nike has recently released a big advertising campaign in an effort to counter its negative image as a human rights violator. One ad proclaims "It's True. We routinely ignore the minimum age requirements at our factories." While it may now be true that Nike hires workers only 18 years or older, what the ad doesn't say is that Nike used to hire workers less than 18 AND that they only introduced this new policy under intense public demand. (This "responsible act" costs Nike nothing--there's plenty of workers over 18 who need jobs in economically depressed countries.) Another full-page ad announces "Good Morning Vietnam!" and congratulates Nike for its micro-loan program. Here Nike will match $75 contributions from private individuals to provide "serious venutre capital" to Vietnamese citizens. Nike claims they've issues 3200 such loans as of Nov. 1999. Nice try, Nike, but that's only $2400 in loans. How much did you spend on the ads trumpeting them? Clearly, Nike is worried about its public image. If it worried as much about its workers, industry-wide change might really happen. [http://spot.colorado.edu/~shortk/nike.html Colorado University]

Reports show the overseas workers to be underpaid, malnourished, and often physically and emotionally abused. Although Nike contends that they are paying above Indonesian minimum wage, the $2.36 a day workers earn is not even enough to buy three simple meals, estimated at $2.10. That's not even considering the minimum $6.00 a month rent, clothing, and hygienic products every worker needs. While many Nike factories provide subsidized meals, workers could afford their own meals if they were paid a living wage. Jeff Keaty, a U.S. coach who was fired for refusing to wear a uniform with the Nike logo, is in Jakarta, Indonesia trying to live on Nike factory wages. To learn more about working conditions there, see his report at www.nikewages.org. [http://spot.colorado.edu/~shortk/nike.html Colorado University]

According to the Coalition of Labor Union Women, the 20-million dollars which Nike paid Michael Jordan to endorse products for one year is equal to the amount they paid Indonesian workers to produce 19 million pairs of shoes, many valued at as much as $120 a pair.[http://www.cluw.org/ Coalition of Labor Union Women]

===Abused===
At a plant in Vietnam, a supervisor hit fifteen workers in a row in retaliation for poor sewing. The incident left two women hospitalized, and great emotional scars on every worker involved. The supervisor, Madame Baeck, was allowed to leave the country after the incident, despite conviction. Other incidents of abuse have since arisen: a woman's mouth taped shut for talking during working hours; 45 women forced to kneel on the ground with their hands in the air for 25 minutes straight; workers forced to stand in the sun for long periods of time as part of a heat punishment; and a Korean supervisor found guilty of molesting female workers. When a reporter from 48 Hours questioned a Nike spokesperson about this incident, he said he'd never heard of it, despite the fact it headlined Vietnamese newspapers.
[http://spot.colorado.edu/~shortk/nike.html Colorado University]
[http://wsws.org/public_html/iwb5-5/nike.htm socialequality.com's workers bulletin]
[http://christianaid.com Christian Aid]

===Refused Unions===

===Abandoned====

Back to Homepage [[Nike]]

==Reference==
[http://spot.colorado.edu/~shortk/nike.html

Nike & Corporate Social Responsibility

2006-04-26T21:51:02Z

Ifu03592: /* A Parody for Nike */

Back to Home Page: [[Nike]]

Corporate social responsibility (CSR) is a concept that has blossomed over the last fifteen years. Rather than being narrowly focused on the pursuit of profit at the expense of all else, businesses practicing CSR, should at least in theory, be behaving responsibly in the course of their profit-making, taking into account their economic, environmental and social impacts on society.

However, there is a lot of debate surrounding CSR practice, regarding both to what extent certain companies are living up to their responsible promises and regarding some of the possible ulterior motives involved in practicing CSR.

Reasons leveled at Nike for why they might be practicing CSR, other than just on basic moral grounds include:
* Defending their important public image
* Differentiating themselves from their competitors
* Helping to prevent financially damaging boycotts, strikes, lawsuits, etc
* Appealing to the ethical consumer
* Appealing to the ethical investor
* Appealing to the ethical employee
* Pressure to do so from NGO's, Government or to combat public relations disasters
* Using CSR policies as evidence that they do not need to be regulated any further than they already are at present

== Nikes CSR Policy ==
Nike maintain that their business is built on trust, teamwork, honesty and mutual respect. [http://www.nike.com/nikebiz/nikebiz.jhtml?page=7&item=responsibility] In order for this to be achieved, the company has put in place a set of corporate governance policies and practices and this has been extended in recent times to attempt to include corporate responsibility issues as a central part of their governance system. Nike's codes and policies are outlined below:

===Our Codes and Policies===
Our code of ethics is called Inside the Lines; it defines the standards of conduct we expect of our employees. Every year, all employees are required to verify that they have read and understand Inside the Lines.

We operate a global toll-free Alertline for employees to report in confidence any suspected violations of the law or our code of ethics. Any reported concerns around accounting, auditing or internal control are communicated to the Audit Committee of the Board.

We expect our suppliers to share our standards and to operate in a legal and ethical manner. While Inside the Lines covers the behavior of Nike employees, our Nike Code of Conduct covers contractors who manufacture Nike-branded products. It directs them to respect the rights of their employees, and to provide them with a safe and healthy work environment.

Taken from: [http://www.nike.com/nikebiz/nikebiz.jhtml?page=7&item=responsibility Nike Website]

===Corporate Responsibility Committee===

Jill Ker Conway, Non-Executive Director, Committee Chair

Douglas G. Houser, Non-Executive Director

Jeanne P. Jackson, Non-Executive Director

John R. Thompson, Jr., Non-Executive Director

Established in 2001, the CR Committee of the Board was set up to review significant policies and activities and make recommendations to the Board of Directors regarding labor and environmental practices, community affairs, charitable and foundation activities, diversity and equal opportunity, and environmental and sustainability initiatives. Meetings are held regularly where the Committee meet to discuss these issues. In addition, close to 150 Nike employees work on CR issues as their main function or have CR work included in their workload.

Taken from: [http://www.nike.com/nikebiz/nikebiz.jhtml?page=7&item=responsibility Nike Website]

== CSR in Practice ==

'''Nike’s approach to labour conditions in there contract factories is evolving.'''

The following is taken from Nike's website reflecting how they feel they are performing.

Nike has transformed from a focus on the Code of Conduct to advocating common standards across the industry. They have evolved from outsourcing labour monitoring to relying on a trained team of internal monitors and support for common monitoring platforms such as the “Fair Labour Association.” Furthermore they are growing from a focus on monitoring to a focus on capacity building. From an exclusive focus on factory floor impact to an exploration of ways to help change the industry through transparency and multi-stakeholder collaborations.

These changes are driven by awareness that structural issues, common to the global footwear, apparel and equipment industries affect an individual company’s ability to change conditions in particular factories.

There monitoring processes provide clear issues arising inside factories. What they do not tell us, however, is how those issues are affected by events of external factors. For example, in trying to reduce excessive overtime, we can focus on more effective policing of factories to achieve compliance. But simply focusing on policing does not address the root cause and might take resources away from engaging in broader discussions about why workers in some cases want extra hours. Those are the discussions that may lead to greater and more lasting changes. This kind of root cause analysis requires active listening and engagement in the broader dialogue with civil society, institutions and businesses around supply chain working conditions.
In recent years, we have focused on refining our skills at (a) identifying risk of code compliance (b) uncovering issues and (c) implementing strategies that can be used to drive performance and enable change within Nike internally and on a broader level.
They have become more systematic in identifying non-compliance risk, and they have become increasingly adept at uncovering issues, but despite anecdotal instances of success, they remain deeply challenged – challenged to understand how to measure systematically the impact of there own interventions and challenged by how they play a role in enabling widespread change within the industry, which they now know is critical to facilitating change within there contract supply chain.

One step in responding to this challenge is to reveal there contract factory base. While no one can say with certainty what greater levels of factory disclosure will unleash, they do know the current system of addressing factory compliance has to be fundamentally transformed to create sustainable change. They believe that disclosure of supply chains is a step toward greater efficiencies in monitoring and remediation and in shared knowledge and capacity building that will elevate overall conditions in the industry. No one company can solve these issues that are endemic to the industry.

Transparency also should increase the incentive of brands to work with factories that demonstrate CR excellence. A more thorough description and assessment of Nike’s approach in this area can be found in the FY04 Corporate Responsibility Report.[http://www.nike.com/nikebiz/nikebiz.jhtml?page=29&item=fy04]

Taken from: [http://www.nike.com/nikebiz/nikebiz.jhtml;bsessionid=R12NPVSQU0E3GCQFTBFCF5AKAWMB2IZB?page=25&cat=approach&subcat=compliance Nike Website]

'''Giving voice to workers: The Global Alliance’s legacy'''

One of our most important partners in understanding factory worker concerns, and in training for both workers and managers, has been the Global Alliance for Workers and Communities (GA). After five years of operations, its partners collectively chose to end the initiative in December 2004.

The Global Alliance was a partnership of Nike, Gap, the World Bank, the International Youth Foundation (IYF), and other organisations aimed at worker and workplace development. Since its launch in 1999, Global Alliance facilitated interviews with more than 16,000 workers, and launched a number of development projects focused primarily around building better management practices, and worker awareness of health issues.

The Global Alliance interviews and focus groups helped us uncover the kinds of compliance issues that are difficult to bring out in typical audits. For example, a series of worker interviews conducted in Indonesia in 2000-2001 made our compliance teams much more aware of verbal, physical and sexual harassment issues – of particular importance with a workforce that is predominantly young and female. They also helped us gauge overall satisfaction with the work environment.

Their revelations led us to specifically direct factories to institute confidential grievance systems, which do not exist broadly in the industry. The grievance system standard is beginning to take hold, though nearly a third of Nike contract factories audited in fiscal years 2003 and 2004 still have no confidential grievance process in place for workers.
They also led to training as well: During our 2004 fiscal year, Global Alliance trained more than 25,000 managers and workers in more than 60 factories in China, India, Indonesia, Thailand and Vietnam.

The Global Alliance was criticized in some quarters as, at best, irrelevant when compliance issues abound, and, at worst, an end-run around trade unions. We believe this dismissal of the Global Alliance misses a larger point: Though not a perfect effort, the five-year experience with the Global Alliance taught its partners a great deal about worker issues and aspirations, and highlighted some core compliance issues as well (as is clear from the example of harassment issues). We know now that to gain a deeper understanding of a workplace, we must go beyond M-Audit scores and probe under the surface to try to measure worker satisfaction with the workplace. The evolution of our own monitoring tool to now include a strong emphasis on worker interviews is one reflection of Global Alliance’s influence.

Although we were able to gather anecdotal information about some of the positive impacts of the Global Alliance on the workplace, particularly the management training and worker health training, a measurement of actual impacts is still to come. Global Alliance’s ability to expand programming and attract other corporate partners proved limited, which led to the decision to end the initiative.

For more information about the Global Alliance, see [http://www.theglobalalliance.org their Website]. You can also download the 2003 Indonesia reassessment report outlining workers’ views of workplace improvements in Nike contract facilities.

In addition to the Global Alliance training, Nike continues to sponsor a program of worker after-hours education generally aimed at securing a high school equivalency for workers in footwear factories in Thailand, Vietnam, Indonesia and China. In the 2003/2004 school year, 984 workers graduated from one of those programs. Our commitment to worker and workplace development remains. At this point in time we are exploring different ways in which the remaining funds can be utilized in the spirit of the GA – we will report on this in our fiscal year 2005 report.

Taken from websites: [http://www.nike.com/nikebiz/nikebiz.jhtml;bsessionid=R12NPVSQU0E3GCQFTBFCF5AKAWMB2IZB?page=25&cat=approach&subcat=compliance Nike Website Nike.com] & [http://www.theglobalalliance.org Global Alliance]

== The alternative viewpoints ==
http://perso.wanadoo.fr/jerome.lafourcade/Documents/Detente/Images/Anti-mondialiste/nike.jpg

Nike might see themselves as a victim of their own sucess. As one of the biggest manufacturers of sportswear, they are under considerably more scrutiny than many of their competitors, targeted by a broad range of campaigning NGOs and journalists as a symbol of the "Typical Multinational". In Nikes 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 and even publicly apologised for its past wrongdoings last year. However, some criticism continues.

===A Parody for Nike===
The results of an internet search regarding Nike will usually bring up a clever and thought provoking parody by a man called Atul, at http://www.toolness.com/nike high on the list. It ridicules Nike for some of their approaches to manufacturing in the third-world. While the parody, titled: "Nike SweatshopsÃ¢â€žÂ¢ Ã¢â‚¬â€? unlocking the power of poverty", provides no evidence of malpractice, it's sarcastic tone sums-up and reinforces what many people believe goes on.

Atul writes:

<center>"The theme of this parody is the idea that, from the perspective of our current economic system, poverty is a very good thing. Because it increases profit margins, its existence is beneficial to a global economy. In fact, it is in the best interests of multinational corporations and their shareholders to prolong poverty for as long as possible."</center>

The following is a list of accucations made in the parody, which highlight many respected NGO and activist opinions on third-world sweatshops:

* Nike actively seek to keep their sweatshop communities in poverty by
** Setting up schools that purposely provide a low level of education to keep the community low-skilled
** Paying a wage that employees can only just survive off to make sure that they can not save to start their own business, thus keeping a stranglehold on the economy.

* Nike build factories in areas with such high unemployment so employees have no choice but to work for Nike.
** They provide basic facilities for the factory community to further increase the communities dependence on them, so the community will be crippled if Nike leave

* Nike look after investors interests by keeping profit margins high, at the expense of their third-world employees
** Maintaining low third-world wages and poor working conditions to keep profit margins high
** If salaries become to high in the area they're operating in, they pull out, spelling high unemployment and deprivation for the community.

'''So, what truth is there in this parody? The following looks at five regular accucations leveled at Nike.'''

'''The third world employees are:'''

===Overworked===

===Underpaid===
At number 46 on the Forbes World Rich List 2005 [www.Forbes.com Forbes.com], Nike founder and chairman Philip Knight has made $8.2 Billion since setting up the company 42 years ago. It is no secret that much of the apparel his company sells is made by some of the poorest people in the world.

Much attention has been paid to Nike's exploitation of workers in economically strugglingcountries like Indonesia, Vietnam and China. Although Nike claims they are not responsible for much of what goes on in these sweatshops because they work through subcontractors and thus are not directly involved, the corporation has shown great irresponsibility and ignorance in dealing with the matter. In fact, Nike CEO Philip Knight's admitted as much in early 2005 when he launched the 2005 Nike Coarporate Social Responsibility report [http://www.nike.com Nike]

Nike has recently released a big advertising campaign in an effort to counter its negative image as a human rights violator. One ad proclaims "It's True. We routinely ignore the minimum age requirements at our factories." While it may now be true that Nike hires workers only 18 years or older, what the ad doesn't say is that Nike used to hire workers less than 18 AND that they only introduced this new policy under intense public demand. (This "responsible act" costs Nike nothing--there's plenty of workers over 18 who need jobs in economically depressed countries.) Another full-page ad announces "Good Morning Vietnam!" and congratulates Nike for its micro-loan program. Here Nike will match $75 contributions from private individuals to provide "serious venutre capital" to Vietnamese citizens. Nike claims they've issues 3200 such loans as of Nov. 1999. Nice try, Nike, but that's only $2400 in loans. How much did you spend on the ads trumpeting them? Clearly, Nike is worried about its public image. If it worried as much about its workers, industry-wide change might really happen. [http://spot.colorado.edu/~shortk/nike.html Colorado University]

Reports show the overseas workers to be underpaid, malnourished, and often physically and emotionally abused. Although Nike contends that they are paying above Indonesian minimum wage, the $2.36 a day workers earn is not even enough to buy three simple meals, estimated at $2.10. That's not even considering the minimum $6.00 a month rent, clothing, and hygienic products every worker needs. While many Nike factories provide subsidized meals, workers could afford their own meals if they were paid a living wage. Jeff Keaty, a U.S. coach who was fired for refusing to wear a uniform with the Nike logo, is in Jakarta, Indonesia trying to live on Nike factory wages. To learn more about working conditions there, see his report at www.nikewages.org. [http://spot.colorado.edu/~shortk/nike.html Colorado University]

According to the Coalition of Labor Union Women, the 20-million dollars which Nike paid Michael Jordan to endorse products for one year is equal to the amount they paid Indonesian workers to produce 19 million pairs of shoes, many valued at as much as $120 a pair.[http://www.cluw.org/ Coalition of Labor Union Women]

===Abused===
At a plant in Vietnam, a supervisor hit fifteen workers in a row in retaliation for poor sewing. The incident left two women hospitalized, and great emotional scars on every worker involved. The supervisor, Madame Baeck, was allowed to leave the country after the incident, despite conviction. Other incidents of abuse have since arisen: a woman's mouth taped shut for talking during working hours; 45 women forced to kneel on the ground with their hands in the air for 25 minutes straight; workers forced to stand in the sun for long periods of time as part of a heat punishment; and a Korean supervisor found guilty of molesting female workers. When a reporter from 48 Hours questioned a Nike spokesperson about this incident, he said he'd never heard of it, despite the fact it headlined Vietnamese newspapers.
[http://spot.colorado.edu/~shortk/nike.html Colorado University]
[http://wsws.org/public_html/iwb5-5/nike.htm socialequality.com's workers bulletin]
[http://christianaid.com Christian Aid]

===Refused Unions===

===Abandoned====

Back to Homepage [[Nike]]

==Reference==
[http://spot.colorado.edu/~shortk/nike.html

Nike & Corporate Social Responsibility

2006-04-26T21:50:34Z

Ifu03592: /* A Parody for Nike */

Back to Home Page: [[Nike]]

Corporate social responsibility (CSR) is a concept that has blossomed over the last fifteen years. Rather than being narrowly focused on the pursuit of profit at the expense of all else, businesses practicing CSR, should at least in theory, be behaving responsibly in the course of their profit-making, taking into account their economic, environmental and social impacts on society.

However, there is a lot of debate surrounding CSR practice, regarding both to what extent certain companies are living up to their responsible promises and regarding some of the possible ulterior motives involved in practicing CSR.

Reasons leveled at Nike for why they might be practicing CSR, other than just on basic moral grounds include:
* Defending their important public image
* Differentiating themselves from their competitors
* Helping to prevent financially damaging boycotts, strikes, lawsuits, etc
* Appealing to the ethical consumer
* Appealing to the ethical investor
* Appealing to the ethical employee
* Pressure to do so from NGO's, Government or to combat public relations disasters
* Using CSR policies as evidence that they do not need to be regulated any further than they already are at present

== Nikes CSR Policy ==
Nike maintain that their business is built on trust, teamwork, honesty and mutual respect. [http://www.nike.com/nikebiz/nikebiz.jhtml?page=7&item=responsibility] In order for this to be achieved, the company has put in place a set of corporate governance policies and practices and this has been extended in recent times to attempt to include corporate responsibility issues as a central part of their governance system. Nike's codes and policies are outlined below:

===Our Codes and Policies===
Our code of ethics is called Inside the Lines; it defines the standards of conduct we expect of our employees. Every year, all employees are required to verify that they have read and understand Inside the Lines.

We operate a global toll-free Alertline for employees to report in confidence any suspected violations of the law or our code of ethics. Any reported concerns around accounting, auditing or internal control are communicated to the Audit Committee of the Board.

We expect our suppliers to share our standards and to operate in a legal and ethical manner. While Inside the Lines covers the behavior of Nike employees, our Nike Code of Conduct covers contractors who manufacture Nike-branded products. It directs them to respect the rights of their employees, and to provide them with a safe and healthy work environment.

Taken from: [http://www.nike.com/nikebiz/nikebiz.jhtml?page=7&item=responsibility Nike Website]

===Corporate Responsibility Committee===

Jill Ker Conway, Non-Executive Director, Committee Chair

Douglas G. Houser, Non-Executive Director

Jeanne P. Jackson, Non-Executive Director

John R. Thompson, Jr., Non-Executive Director

Established in 2001, the CR Committee of the Board was set up to review significant policies and activities and make recommendations to the Board of Directors regarding labor and environmental practices, community affairs, charitable and foundation activities, diversity and equal opportunity, and environmental and sustainability initiatives. Meetings are held regularly where the Committee meet to discuss these issues. In addition, close to 150 Nike employees work on CR issues as their main function or have CR work included in their workload.

Taken from: [http://www.nike.com/nikebiz/nikebiz.jhtml?page=7&item=responsibility Nike Website]

== CSR in Practice ==

'''Nike’s approach to labour conditions in there contract factories is evolving.'''

The following is taken from Nike's website reflecting how they feel they are performing.

Nike has transformed from a focus on the Code of Conduct to advocating common standards across the industry. They have evolved from outsourcing labour monitoring to relying on a trained team of internal monitors and support for common monitoring platforms such as the “Fair Labour Association.” Furthermore they are growing from a focus on monitoring to a focus on capacity building. From an exclusive focus on factory floor impact to an exploration of ways to help change the industry through transparency and multi-stakeholder collaborations.

These changes are driven by awareness that structural issues, common to the global footwear, apparel and equipment industries affect an individual company’s ability to change conditions in particular factories.

There monitoring processes provide clear issues arising inside factories. What they do not tell us, however, is how those issues are affected by events of external factors. For example, in trying to reduce excessive overtime, we can focus on more effective policing of factories to achieve compliance. But simply focusing on policing does not address the root cause and might take resources away from engaging in broader discussions about why workers in some cases want extra hours. Those are the discussions that may lead to greater and more lasting changes. This kind of root cause analysis requires active listening and engagement in the broader dialogue with civil society, institutions and businesses around supply chain working conditions.
In recent years, we have focused on refining our skills at (a) identifying risk of code compliance (b) uncovering issues and (c) implementing strategies that can be used to drive performance and enable change within Nike internally and on a broader level.
They have become more systematic in identifying non-compliance risk, and they have become increasingly adept at uncovering issues, but despite anecdotal instances of success, they remain deeply challenged – challenged to understand how to measure systematically the impact of there own interventions and challenged by how they play a role in enabling widespread change within the industry, which they now know is critical to facilitating change within there contract supply chain.

One step in responding to this challenge is to reveal there contract factory base. While no one can say with certainty what greater levels of factory disclosure will unleash, they do know the current system of addressing factory compliance has to be fundamentally transformed to create sustainable change. They believe that disclosure of supply chains is a step toward greater efficiencies in monitoring and remediation and in shared knowledge and capacity building that will elevate overall conditions in the industry. No one company can solve these issues that are endemic to the industry.

Transparency also should increase the incentive of brands to work with factories that demonstrate CR excellence. A more thorough description and assessment of Nike’s approach in this area can be found in the FY04 Corporate Responsibility Report.[http://www.nike.com/nikebiz/nikebiz.jhtml?page=29&item=fy04]

Taken from: [http://www.nike.com/nikebiz/nikebiz.jhtml;bsessionid=R12NPVSQU0E3GCQFTBFCF5AKAWMB2IZB?page=25&cat=approach&subcat=compliance Nike Website]

'''Giving voice to workers: The Global Alliance’s legacy'''

One of our most important partners in understanding factory worker concerns, and in training for both workers and managers, has been the Global Alliance for Workers and Communities (GA). After five years of operations, its partners collectively chose to end the initiative in December 2004.

The Global Alliance was a partnership of Nike, Gap, the World Bank, the International Youth Foundation (IYF), and other organisations aimed at worker and workplace development. Since its launch in 1999, Global Alliance facilitated interviews with more than 16,000 workers, and launched a number of development projects focused primarily around building better management practices, and worker awareness of health issues.

The Global Alliance interviews and focus groups helped us uncover the kinds of compliance issues that are difficult to bring out in typical audits. For example, a series of worker interviews conducted in Indonesia in 2000-2001 made our compliance teams much more aware of verbal, physical and sexual harassment issues – of particular importance with a workforce that is predominantly young and female. They also helped us gauge overall satisfaction with the work environment.

Their revelations led us to specifically direct factories to institute confidential grievance systems, which do not exist broadly in the industry. The grievance system standard is beginning to take hold, though nearly a third of Nike contract factories audited in fiscal years 2003 and 2004 still have no confidential grievance process in place for workers.
They also led to training as well: During our 2004 fiscal year, Global Alliance trained more than 25,000 managers and workers in more than 60 factories in China, India, Indonesia, Thailand and Vietnam.

The Global Alliance was criticized in some quarters as, at best, irrelevant when compliance issues abound, and, at worst, an end-run around trade unions. We believe this dismissal of the Global Alliance misses a larger point: Though not a perfect effort, the five-year experience with the Global Alliance taught its partners a great deal about worker issues and aspirations, and highlighted some core compliance issues as well (as is clear from the example of harassment issues). We know now that to gain a deeper understanding of a workplace, we must go beyond M-Audit scores and probe under the surface to try to measure worker satisfaction with the workplace. The evolution of our own monitoring tool to now include a strong emphasis on worker interviews is one reflection of Global Alliance’s influence.

Although we were able to gather anecdotal information about some of the positive impacts of the Global Alliance on the workplace, particularly the management training and worker health training, a measurement of actual impacts is still to come. Global Alliance’s ability to expand programming and attract other corporate partners proved limited, which led to the decision to end the initiative.

For more information about the Global Alliance, see [http://www.theglobalalliance.org their Website]. You can also download the 2003 Indonesia reassessment report outlining workers’ views of workplace improvements in Nike contract facilities.

In addition to the Global Alliance training, Nike continues to sponsor a program of worker after-hours education generally aimed at securing a high school equivalency for workers in footwear factories in Thailand, Vietnam, Indonesia and China. In the 2003/2004 school year, 984 workers graduated from one of those programs. Our commitment to worker and workplace development remains. At this point in time we are exploring different ways in which the remaining funds can be utilized in the spirit of the GA – we will report on this in our fiscal year 2005 report.

Taken from websites: [http://www.nike.com/nikebiz/nikebiz.jhtml;bsessionid=R12NPVSQU0E3GCQFTBFCF5AKAWMB2IZB?page=25&cat=approach&subcat=compliance Nike Website Nike.com] & [http://www.theglobalalliance.org Global Alliance]

== The alternative viewpoints ==
http://perso.wanadoo.fr/jerome.lafourcade/Documents/Detente/Images/Anti-mondialiste/nike.jpg

Nike might see themselves as a victim of their own sucess. As one of the biggest manufacturers of sportswear, they are under considerably more scrutiny than many of their competitors, targeted by a broad range of campaigning NGOs and journalists as a symbol of the "Typical Multinational". In Nikes 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 and even publicly apologised for its past wrongdoings last year. However, some criticism continues.

===A Parody for Nike===
The results of an internet search regarding Nike will usually bring up a clever and thought provoking parody by a man called Atul, at http://www.toolness.com/nike high on the list. It ridicules Nike for some of their approaches to manufacturing in the third-world. While the parody, titled: "Nike SweatshopsÃ¢â€žÂ¢ Ã¢â‚¬â€? unlocking the power of poverty", provides no evidence of malpractice, it's sarcastic tone sums-up and reinforces what many people believe goes on.

Atul writes:

<center>"The theme of this parody is the idea that, from the perspective of our current economic system, poverty is a very good thing. Because it increases profit margins, its existence is beneficial to a global economy. In fact, it is in the best interests of multinational corporations and their shareholders to prolong poverty for as long as possible."</center>

The following is a list of accucations made in the parody, which highlight many respected NGO and activist opinions on third-world sweatshops:

* Nike actively seek to keep their sweatshop communities in poverty by
** Setting up schools that purposely provide a low level of education to keep the community low-skilled
** Paying a wage that employees can only just survive off to make sure that they can not save to start their own business, thus keeping a stranglehold on the economy.

* Nike build factories in areas with such high unemployment so employees have no choice but to work for Nike.
** They provide basic facilities for the factory community to further increase the communities dependence on them, so the community will be crippled if Nike leave

* Nike look after investors interests by keeping profit margins high, at the expense of their third-world employees
** Maintaining low third-world wages and poor working conditions to keep profit margins high
** If salaries become to high in the area they're operating in, they pull out, spelling high unemployment and deprivation for the community.

So, what truth is there in this parody? The following looks at five regular accucations leveled at Nike.

These are that the third world employees are:

===Overworked===

===Underpaid===
At number 46 on the Forbes World Rich List 2005 [www.Forbes.com Forbes.com], Nike founder and chairman Philip Knight has made $8.2 Billion since setting up the company 42 years ago. It is no secret that much of the apparel his company sells is made by some of the poorest people in the world.

Much attention has been paid to Nike's exploitation of workers in economically strugglingcountries like Indonesia, Vietnam and China. Although Nike claims they are not responsible for much of what goes on in these sweatshops because they work through subcontractors and thus are not directly involved, the corporation has shown great irresponsibility and ignorance in dealing with the matter. In fact, Nike CEO Philip Knight's admitted as much in early 2005 when he launched the 2005 Nike Coarporate Social Responsibility report [http://www.nike.com Nike]

Nike has recently released a big advertising campaign in an effort to counter its negative image as a human rights violator. One ad proclaims "It's True. We routinely ignore the minimum age requirements at our factories." While it may now be true that Nike hires workers only 18 years or older, what the ad doesn't say is that Nike used to hire workers less than 18 AND that they only introduced this new policy under intense public demand. (This "responsible act" costs Nike nothing--there's plenty of workers over 18 who need jobs in economically depressed countries.) Another full-page ad announces "Good Morning Vietnam!" and congratulates Nike for its micro-loan program. Here Nike will match $75 contributions from private individuals to provide "serious venutre capital" to Vietnamese citizens. Nike claims they've issues 3200 such loans as of Nov. 1999. Nice try, Nike, but that's only $2400 in loans. How much did you spend on the ads trumpeting them? Clearly, Nike is worried about its public image. If it worried as much about its workers, industry-wide change might really happen. [http://spot.colorado.edu/~shortk/nike.html Colorado University]

Reports show the overseas workers to be underpaid, malnourished, and often physically and emotionally abused. Although Nike contends that they are paying above Indonesian minimum wage, the $2.36 a day workers earn is not even enough to buy three simple meals, estimated at $2.10. That's not even considering the minimum $6.00 a month rent, clothing, and hygienic products every worker needs. While many Nike factories provide subsidized meals, workers could afford their own meals if they were paid a living wage. Jeff Keaty, a U.S. coach who was fired for refusing to wear a uniform with the Nike logo, is in Jakarta, Indonesia trying to live on Nike factory wages. To learn more about working conditions there, see his report at www.nikewages.org. [http://spot.colorado.edu/~shortk/nike.html Colorado University]

According to the Coalition of Labor Union Women, the 20-million dollars which Nike paid Michael Jordan to endorse products for one year is equal to the amount they paid Indonesian workers to produce 19 million pairs of shoes, many valued at as much as $120 a pair.[http://www.cluw.org/ Coalition of Labor Union Women]

===Abused===
At a plant in Vietnam, a supervisor hit fifteen workers in a row in retaliation for poor sewing. The incident left two women hospitalized, and great emotional scars on every worker involved. The supervisor, Madame Baeck, was allowed to leave the country after the incident, despite conviction. Other incidents of abuse have since arisen: a woman's mouth taped shut for talking during working hours; 45 women forced to kneel on the ground with their hands in the air for 25 minutes straight; workers forced to stand in the sun for long periods of time as part of a heat punishment; and a Korean supervisor found guilty of molesting female workers. When a reporter from 48 Hours questioned a Nike spokesperson about this incident, he said he'd never heard of it, despite the fact it headlined Vietnamese newspapers.
[http://spot.colorado.edu/~shortk/nike.html Colorado University]
[http://wsws.org/public_html/iwb5-5/nike.htm socialequality.com's workers bulletin]
[http://christianaid.com Christian Aid]

===Refused Unions===

===Abandoned====

Back to Homepage [[Nike]]

==Reference==
[http://spot.colorado.edu/~shortk/nike.html

Nike & Corporate Social Responsibility

2006-04-26T21:49:57Z

Ifu03592: /* A Parody for Nike */

Back to Home Page: [[Nike]]

Corporate social responsibility (CSR) is a concept that has blossomed over the last fifteen years. Rather than being narrowly focused on the pursuit of profit at the expense of all else, businesses practicing CSR, should at least in theory, be behaving responsibly in the course of their profit-making, taking into account their economic, environmental and social impacts on society.

However, there is a lot of debate surrounding CSR practice, regarding both to what extent certain companies are living up to their responsible promises and regarding some of the possible ulterior motives involved in practicing CSR.

Reasons leveled at Nike for why they might be practicing CSR, other than just on basic moral grounds include:
* Defending their important public image
* Differentiating themselves from their competitors
* Helping to prevent financially damaging boycotts, strikes, lawsuits, etc
* Appealing to the ethical consumer
* Appealing to the ethical investor
* Appealing to the ethical employee
* Pressure to do so from NGO's, Government or to combat public relations disasters
* Using CSR policies as evidence that they do not need to be regulated any further than they already are at present

== Nikes CSR Policy ==
Nike maintain that their business is built on trust, teamwork, honesty and mutual respect. [http://www.nike.com/nikebiz/nikebiz.jhtml?page=7&item=responsibility] In order for this to be achieved, the company has put in place a set of corporate governance policies and practices and this has been extended in recent times to attempt to include corporate responsibility issues as a central part of their governance system. Nike's codes and policies are outlined below:

===Our Codes and Policies===
Our code of ethics is called Inside the Lines; it defines the standards of conduct we expect of our employees. Every year, all employees are required to verify that they have read and understand Inside the Lines.

We operate a global toll-free Alertline for employees to report in confidence any suspected violations of the law or our code of ethics. Any reported concerns around accounting, auditing or internal control are communicated to the Audit Committee of the Board.

We expect our suppliers to share our standards and to operate in a legal and ethical manner. While Inside the Lines covers the behavior of Nike employees, our Nike Code of Conduct covers contractors who manufacture Nike-branded products. It directs them to respect the rights of their employees, and to provide them with a safe and healthy work environment.

Taken from: [http://www.nike.com/nikebiz/nikebiz.jhtml?page=7&item=responsibility Nike Website]

===Corporate Responsibility Committee===

Jill Ker Conway, Non-Executive Director, Committee Chair

Douglas G. Houser, Non-Executive Director

Jeanne P. Jackson, Non-Executive Director

John R. Thompson, Jr., Non-Executive Director

Established in 2001, the CR Committee of the Board was set up to review significant policies and activities and make recommendations to the Board of Directors regarding labor and environmental practices, community affairs, charitable and foundation activities, diversity and equal opportunity, and environmental and sustainability initiatives. Meetings are held regularly where the Committee meet to discuss these issues. In addition, close to 150 Nike employees work on CR issues as their main function or have CR work included in their workload.

Taken from: [http://www.nike.com/nikebiz/nikebiz.jhtml?page=7&item=responsibility Nike Website]

== CSR in Practice ==

'''Nike’s approach to labour conditions in there contract factories is evolving.'''

The following is taken from Nike's website reflecting how they feel they are performing.

Nike has transformed from a focus on the Code of Conduct to advocating common standards across the industry. They have evolved from outsourcing labour monitoring to relying on a trained team of internal monitors and support for common monitoring platforms such as the “Fair Labour Association.” Furthermore they are growing from a focus on monitoring to a focus on capacity building. From an exclusive focus on factory floor impact to an exploration of ways to help change the industry through transparency and multi-stakeholder collaborations.

These changes are driven by awareness that structural issues, common to the global footwear, apparel and equipment industries affect an individual company’s ability to change conditions in particular factories.

There monitoring processes provide clear issues arising inside factories. What they do not tell us, however, is how those issues are affected by events of external factors. For example, in trying to reduce excessive overtime, we can focus on more effective policing of factories to achieve compliance. But simply focusing on policing does not address the root cause and might take resources away from engaging in broader discussions about why workers in some cases want extra hours. Those are the discussions that may lead to greater and more lasting changes. This kind of root cause analysis requires active listening and engagement in the broader dialogue with civil society, institutions and businesses around supply chain working conditions.
In recent years, we have focused on refining our skills at (a) identifying risk of code compliance (b) uncovering issues and (c) implementing strategies that can be used to drive performance and enable change within Nike internally and on a broader level.
They have become more systematic in identifying non-compliance risk, and they have become increasingly adept at uncovering issues, but despite anecdotal instances of success, they remain deeply challenged – challenged to understand how to measure systematically the impact of there own interventions and challenged by how they play a role in enabling widespread change within the industry, which they now know is critical to facilitating change within there contract supply chain.

One step in responding to this challenge is to reveal there contract factory base. While no one can say with certainty what greater levels of factory disclosure will unleash, they do know the current system of addressing factory compliance has to be fundamentally transformed to create sustainable change. They believe that disclosure of supply chains is a step toward greater efficiencies in monitoring and remediation and in shared knowledge and capacity building that will elevate overall conditions in the industry. No one company can solve these issues that are endemic to the industry.

Transparency also should increase the incentive of brands to work with factories that demonstrate CR excellence. A more thorough description and assessment of Nike’s approach in this area can be found in the FY04 Corporate Responsibility Report.[http://www.nike.com/nikebiz/nikebiz.jhtml?page=29&item=fy04]

Taken from: [http://www.nike.com/nikebiz/nikebiz.jhtml;bsessionid=R12NPVSQU0E3GCQFTBFCF5AKAWMB2IZB?page=25&cat=approach&subcat=compliance Nike Website]

'''Giving voice to workers: The Global Alliance’s legacy'''

One of our most important partners in understanding factory worker concerns, and in training for both workers and managers, has been the Global Alliance for Workers and Communities (GA). After five years of operations, its partners collectively chose to end the initiative in December 2004.

The Global Alliance was a partnership of Nike, Gap, the World Bank, the International Youth Foundation (IYF), and other organisations aimed at worker and workplace development. Since its launch in 1999, Global Alliance facilitated interviews with more than 16,000 workers, and launched a number of development projects focused primarily around building better management practices, and worker awareness of health issues.

The Global Alliance interviews and focus groups helped us uncover the kinds of compliance issues that are difficult to bring out in typical audits. For example, a series of worker interviews conducted in Indonesia in 2000-2001 made our compliance teams much more aware of verbal, physical and sexual harassment issues – of particular importance with a workforce that is predominantly young and female. They also helped us gauge overall satisfaction with the work environment.

Their revelations led us to specifically direct factories to institute confidential grievance systems, which do not exist broadly in the industry. The grievance system standard is beginning to take hold, though nearly a third of Nike contract factories audited in fiscal years 2003 and 2004 still have no confidential grievance process in place for workers.
They also led to training as well: During our 2004 fiscal year, Global Alliance trained more than 25,000 managers and workers in more than 60 factories in China, India, Indonesia, Thailand and Vietnam.

The Global Alliance was criticized in some quarters as, at best, irrelevant when compliance issues abound, and, at worst, an end-run around trade unions. We believe this dismissal of the Global Alliance misses a larger point: Though not a perfect effort, the five-year experience with the Global Alliance taught its partners a great deal about worker issues and aspirations, and highlighted some core compliance issues as well (as is clear from the example of harassment issues). We know now that to gain a deeper understanding of a workplace, we must go beyond M-Audit scores and probe under the surface to try to measure worker satisfaction with the workplace. The evolution of our own monitoring tool to now include a strong emphasis on worker interviews is one reflection of Global Alliance’s influence.

Although we were able to gather anecdotal information about some of the positive impacts of the Global Alliance on the workplace, particularly the management training and worker health training, a measurement of actual impacts is still to come. Global Alliance’s ability to expand programming and attract other corporate partners proved limited, which led to the decision to end the initiative.

For more information about the Global Alliance, see [http://www.theglobalalliance.org their Website]. You can also download the 2003 Indonesia reassessment report outlining workers’ views of workplace improvements in Nike contract facilities.

In addition to the Global Alliance training, Nike continues to sponsor a program of worker after-hours education generally aimed at securing a high school equivalency for workers in footwear factories in Thailand, Vietnam, Indonesia and China. In the 2003/2004 school year, 984 workers graduated from one of those programs. Our commitment to worker and workplace development remains. At this point in time we are exploring different ways in which the remaining funds can be utilized in the spirit of the GA – we will report on this in our fiscal year 2005 report.

Taken from websites: [http://www.nike.com/nikebiz/nikebiz.jhtml;bsessionid=R12NPVSQU0E3GCQFTBFCF5AKAWMB2IZB?page=25&cat=approach&subcat=compliance Nike Website Nike.com] & [http://www.theglobalalliance.org Global Alliance]

== The alternative viewpoints ==
http://perso.wanadoo.fr/jerome.lafourcade/Documents/Detente/Images/Anti-mondialiste/nike.jpg

Nike might see themselves as a victim of their own sucess. As one of the biggest manufacturers of sportswear, they are under considerably more scrutiny than many of their competitors, targeted by a broad range of campaigning NGOs and journalists as a symbol of the "Typical Multinational". In Nikes 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 and even publicly apologised for its past wrongdoings last year. However, some criticism continues.

===A Parody for Nike===
The results of an internet search regarding Nike will usually bring up a clever and thought provoking parody by a man called Atul, at http://www.toolness.com/nike high on the list. It ridicules Nike for some of their approaches to manufacturing in the third-world. While the parody, titled: "Nike SweatshopsÃ¢â€žÂ¢ Ã¢â‚¬â€? unlocking the power of poverty", provides no evidence of malpractice, it's sarcastic tone sums-up and reinforces what many people believe goes on.

Atul writes:

<center>"The theme of this parody is the idea that, from the perspective of our current economic system, poverty is a very good thing. Because it increases profit margins, its existence is beneficial to a global economy. In fact, it is in the best interests of multinational corporations and their shareholders to prolong poverty for as long as possible."</center>

The following is a list of accucations made in the parody, which highlight many respected NGO and activist opinions on third-world sweatshops:

* Nike actively seek to keep their sweatshop communities in poverty by
** Setting up schools that purposely provide a low level of education to keep the community low-skilled
** Paying a wage that employees can only just survive off to make sure that they can not save to start their own business, thus keeping a stranglehold on the economy.

* Nike build factories in areas with such high unemployment so employees have no choice but to work for Nike.
** They provide basic facilities for the factory community to further increase the communities dependence on them, so the community will be crippled if Nike leave

* Nike look after investors interests by keeping profit margins high, at the expense of their third-world employees
** Maintaining low third-world wages and poor working conditions to keep profit margins high
** If salaries become to high in the area they're operating in, they pull out, spelling high unemployment and deprivation for the community.

So, what truth is there in this parody? The following looks at five regular accucations leveled at Nike

===Overworked===

===Underpaid===
At number 46 on the Forbes World Rich List 2005 [www.Forbes.com Forbes.com], Nike founder and chairman Philip Knight has made $8.2 Billion since setting up the company 42 years ago. It is no secret that much of the apparel his company sells is made by some of the poorest people in the world.

Much attention has been paid to Nike's exploitation of workers in economically strugglingcountries like Indonesia, Vietnam and China. Although Nike claims they are not responsible for much of what goes on in these sweatshops because they work through subcontractors and thus are not directly involved, the corporation has shown great irresponsibility and ignorance in dealing with the matter. In fact, Nike CEO Philip Knight's admitted as much in early 2005 when he launched the 2005 Nike Coarporate Social Responsibility report [http://www.nike.com Nike]

Nike has recently released a big advertising campaign in an effort to counter its negative image as a human rights violator. One ad proclaims "It's True. We routinely ignore the minimum age requirements at our factories." While it may now be true that Nike hires workers only 18 years or older, what the ad doesn't say is that Nike used to hire workers less than 18 AND that they only introduced this new policy under intense public demand. (This "responsible act" costs Nike nothing--there's plenty of workers over 18 who need jobs in economically depressed countries.) Another full-page ad announces "Good Morning Vietnam!" and congratulates Nike for its micro-loan program. Here Nike will match $75 contributions from private individuals to provide "serious venutre capital" to Vietnamese citizens. Nike claims they've issues 3200 such loans as of Nov. 1999. Nice try, Nike, but that's only $2400 in loans. How much did you spend on the ads trumpeting them? Clearly, Nike is worried about its public image. If it worried as much about its workers, industry-wide change might really happen. [http://spot.colorado.edu/~shortk/nike.html Colorado University]

Reports show the overseas workers to be underpaid, malnourished, and often physically and emotionally abused. Although Nike contends that they are paying above Indonesian minimum wage, the $2.36 a day workers earn is not even enough to buy three simple meals, estimated at $2.10. That's not even considering the minimum $6.00 a month rent, clothing, and hygienic products every worker needs. While many Nike factories provide subsidized meals, workers could afford their own meals if they were paid a living wage. Jeff Keaty, a U.S. coach who was fired for refusing to wear a uniform with the Nike logo, is in Jakarta, Indonesia trying to live on Nike factory wages. To learn more about working conditions there, see his report at www.nikewages.org. [http://spot.colorado.edu/~shortk/nike.html Colorado University]

According to the Coalition of Labor Union Women, the 20-million dollars which Nike paid Michael Jordan to endorse products for one year is equal to the amount they paid Indonesian workers to produce 19 million pairs of shoes, many valued at as much as $120 a pair.[http://www.cluw.org/ Coalition of Labor Union Women]

===Abused===
At a plant in Vietnam, a supervisor hit fifteen workers in a row in retaliation for poor sewing. The incident left two women hospitalized, and great emotional scars on every worker involved. The supervisor, Madame Baeck, was allowed to leave the country after the incident, despite conviction. Other incidents of abuse have since arisen: a woman's mouth taped shut for talking during working hours; 45 women forced to kneel on the ground with their hands in the air for 25 minutes straight; workers forced to stand in the sun for long periods of time as part of a heat punishment; and a Korean supervisor found guilty of molesting female workers. When a reporter from 48 Hours questioned a Nike spokesperson about this incident, he said he'd never heard of it, despite the fact it headlined Vietnamese newspapers.
[http://spot.colorado.edu/~shortk/nike.html Colorado University]
[http://wsws.org/public_html/iwb5-5/nike.htm socialequality.com's workers bulletin]
[http://christianaid.com Christian Aid]

===Refused Unions===

===Abandoned====

Back to Homepage [[Nike]]

==Reference==
[http://spot.colorado.edu/~shortk/nike.html

Nike

2006-04-26T21:33:20Z

Ifu03592: /* A Closer Examination of Nike */

=== Introduction ===
Company: Nike, Inc

Founded: 1971

Formally: Blue Ribbon Sports, founded 1964

Brand: Swoosh

Slogan: "Just Do It"

Location: Washingtown County, Oregon
Beaverton, Oregon

Key People: [[Philip Knight]] - Chairman and Co-founder ~
[[Mark Parker]] - CEO ~
[[Bill Bowerman]] - Co-founder

Industry: Sporting Goods

Products: Sports Equipment, shoes, apparel, assessories

Revenue: $13 Billion (FY 2005) {{ref|revenue}}

Employees: 26,500 {{ref|revenue2}}

Website: www.Nike.com[http://www.nike.com]

NIKE, Inc. (NYSE: NKE[http://www.nyse.com/about/listed/lcddata.html?ticker=NKE]) and its subsidiaries are involved in the design, development and marketing of products such as footwear, apparel, equipment and accessories worldwide. Its mission is "to bring innovation and inspiration to every athlete in the world*. *If you have a body, you are an athlete" (Bowerman,B)[http://www.nike.com/nikebiz/nikebiz.jhtml?page=4] The corporation caters for all types of sport and lifestyles, designing various forms of footwear from athletic footwear for running, to shoes designed for hiking and outdoor activities. In addition, it sells a line of performance equipment, including golf clubs, sport balls, timepieces, electronic media devices, skates, bats, gloves, swimwear, cycling apparel, children's clothing, school supplies, and eyewear. The company sells its products to retail accounts, through its owned retail stores, and through a mix of independent distributors and licensees.

The company takes its name from the Greek goddess of victory, Nike.

Above information from [http://www.nike.com Nike.com]

==Background/History==
Nike is the world's number one manufacturer and marketer of athletic footwear and apparel. It was founded in 1964 when it was firstly called Blue Ribbon Sports and its headquarters are situated in Beaverton, Oregon. It was co-founded by [[Bill Bowerman]], who was the track and field coach for the University of Oregan and [[Philip H. Knight]], a student from the University and a middle-distance runner under Bowerman. Nike was established as one of the world's most familiar brands during the 1980s and 1990s and has propelled to the extent that it now operates 184 stores in the United States and 190 stores globally. It owns facilities in Oregon, Tennessee, North Carolina and The Netherlands, and operates leased facilities for 14 Niketowns, over 200 Nike Factory Stores, a dozen NikeWomen stores and over 100 sales and administrative offices. The company now reaches out to most of the planet, operating in regions of the world such as the US, the Americas, Europe, the Middle East, the Asia Pacific region and Africa. This significant growth in recent years is shown by the fact that the company provides 26,000 full-time jobs. Nike has also expanded financially and has reported net revenues of $13.7 billion, a 12 percent increase from FY'04.[http://finance.yahoo.com/q/pr?s=nke]

Nike, Inc now markets its products under its own brand signified by [[The Nike Swoosh]] as well as under Air Jordan, Nike Golf and Team Starter among others, and under brands from wholly owned subsidiaries including Bauer, Cole Haan, Converse, and Hurley International.

===Nike Timeline===

The following timeline is taken directly from [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nike%2C_Inc. Wikipedia]

===The 1960s===
1962
*[[Phil Knight]] drafts a thesis paper at Stanford University in which he asserts that low-priced athletic shoes made in Japan could compete with more expensive footwear made in Germany. After earning his MBA, Knight travels to Japan, where he meets with executives from Onitsuka Tiger and persuades them to make Knight's company, '''Blue Ribbon Sports''', the distributor of Tiger brand footwear for the western United States.

1964
*Knight sends samples of Tiger footwear to University of Oregon track coach [[Bill Bowerman]], for whom Knight ran middle distances while an undergraduate. Bowerman suggests that he and Knight become partners, with Bowerman to provide endorsement clout as well as footwear design ideas. The two shake hands and each pledge $500 to start the new venture.

1965
*Jeff Johnson, a former track rival of Knight's, joins as the company's first full-time salesman. He sells shoes out of the back of his van to high schoolers at track meets.

1966
*Johnson opens the company's first retail outlet in Santa Monica, California. Knight and Bowerman convert their handshake agreement into a formal, written agreement.

1967
*Knight and Bowerman incorporate Blue Ribbon Sports, creating BRS, Inc.

1969
*With annual sales approaching $300,000, Knight resigns as a professor at Portland State University to devote himself full-time to BRS, Inc.

===The 1970s===
1970
*Bowerman experiments with rubber spikes, pouring a liquid rubber compound into his wife's waffle iron, which led to the creation of the 'waffle' sole.

1971
*Knight begins development of a new athletic footwear brand. A graphic design student at Portland State University named [[Carolyn Davidson]] is hired by Knight to design the new brand, which is referred to as a [[Swoosh]].
*Along with the new brand, BRS, Inc. needs a name for its new line of footwear. Dozens of suggestions, including Knight's favorite "Dimension Six," are rejected until Jeff Johnson dreams up the name Nike, the Greek goddess of victory.

1972
*The first Nike products, adorned with the Swoosh, are delivered to athletes competing in Eugene, Oregon for the US Olympic Track & Field trials.

1973
*American record-holder Steve Prefontaine becomes the first major track athlete to wear Nike shoes.

1974
*The Waffle Trainer is introduced, quickly becoming the best-selling training shoe in the U.S.

1977
*Nike print ad with the tag "There is no finish line" is introduced.

1978
*Tennis 'bad boy' John McEnroe is signed by Nike to an endorsement contract.

1979
* Nike's ''Air'' technology patented by inventor M. Frank Rudy is introduced in the Tailwind running shoe. Gas-filled plastic membranes are inserted into the sole of running shoes to provide cushioning.

===The 1980s===
1980
* Nike completes an initial public offering of 2,377,000 shares of Class B common stock on December 2.

1981
* BRS, Inc. merges into Nike, Inc. on December 31, and the company officially becomes known as Nike, Inc.

1982
*Dan Wieden and Dave Kennedy start their own advertising agency, Wieden+Kennedy, taking with them the Nike account on April 1. In October, Nike airs its first national television ad during the New York Marathon.

1982
* The Air Force 1 Shoe|Air Force 1 basketball shoe becomes the first Nike court shoe to make use of the Air technology.

1984
* Nike signs Michael Jordan to an endorsement contract. The first model of his signature shoe, the Air Jordan, originally is banned by the NBA, drawing a tremendous amount of publicity. The introduction of the Air Jordan shoe was a key event in Nike's successful development.

1986
* Corporate revenues surpass $1 billion for the first time.

1987
* The Nike Air Max shoe is introduced, which uses a much larger Air cushioning unit, and for the first time is visible at the side of the midsole. This was the first of many generations of Air Max-branded technologies. A television ad featuring the Beatles' song "Revolution" was the first time that a song performed by the Beatles was used in a TV ad.

1988
* Nike introduces its "Just Do It" slogan, a phrase from Zen philosophy.

1989
* Nike begins its Bo Knows ad campaign, which becomes a part of the national culture for the next few years.

===The 1990s===
1990
* The first Niketown store opens in downtown Portland.
* Nike opens its world headquarters in unincorporated Washington County, just west of Portland, on 74 acres (0.3 km²) of land.

1993
* Nike introduces Reuse-A-Shoe, which collects athletic shoes, separates and grinds them up into Nike Grind, used in the making of athletic courts, tracks and fields.

1994
* Nike signs a long-term partnership with the Brazil national football team|Brazilian national football (soccer) team.
* Nike wins Advertiser of the Year at the Cannes Advertising Festival

1996
* Nike signs Tiger Woods soon after he gives up his amateur golf status.
* Nike causes controversy with its advertising campaign during the Olympic Games|Summer Olympics in Atlanta, Georgia|Atlanta which features the slogan, "You Don't Win Silver — You Lose Gold." Nike's use of this slogan draws harsh criticism from many sources, including several former Olympic silver and bronze medalists.

1998
* After pressure from lobbying groups Nike and other companies publicly disclose their worldwide factory locations, a first for the garment industry.
** Phil Knight formally commits Nike to strict standards for manufacturing facilities used by Nike, including: minimum age; air quality; mandatory education programs; expansion of microloan program; factory monitoring; and enhanced transparency of Nike's [[corporate social responsibility]] practices.

1999
* [[Bill Bowerman]], co-founder of Nike, dies on Dec. 24 at age 88.

===The 2000s===
2000
*Nike Shox|Nike Shox cushioning/support system is introduced, initially worn by Vince Carter and others on the US Olympic basketball team.

2002
*NikeGO launches, a grassroots initiative to increase physical activity among youths aged 9-15.
*Rap star Nelly releases a chart topping song about Air Force Ones, a brand of Nike shoes.

2003
*Nike acquires once-bankrupt rival Converse (company)|Converse for $305 million on July 9.
*For the first time in the company's history, international sales exceed USA sales, as Nike continues to develop into a global company.
*Nike is named "Advertiser of the Year" by the Cannes Advertising Festival, the first company to earn that honor twice (also 1994) in the festival's 50-year history.

2004
*Phil Knight steps down as CEO and President of Nike, but continues as chairman. Knight is replaced by [[William D. Perez]] as CEO of Nike, effective Dec. 28.
*Nike creates the Exeter Brands Group, a wholly owned subsidiary for athletic footwear and apparel brands for lower price points. Brands include Starter, Team Starter, Asphalt, Shaq and Dunkman.
*Annual revenues exceed $12.3 billion.
*In June, Chinese animator Zhu Zhiqianq, of Xiao Xiao fame, files a lawsuit against Nike for plagiarizing his cartoon stickmen in their commercials. Nike representatives deny the accusations, claiming that the stickman figure lacks originality, and is public domain. Zhu eventually wins the lawsuit, and Nike is ordered to pay $36,000 to the cartoonist.

2005
*Nike reports annual revenue for fiscal year 2005 (ending May 31) of $13.7 billion, a 12% increase over the previous fiscal year.
* Nike comes under fire from independent music fans and apologizes for their use of an easily identifiable Minor Threat album cover slightly modified into a promotional tool for their line of skateboarding shoes.

2006
* William Perez left Nike voluntarily on January 23, 2006. Perez said in the statement that he and Knight "weren't entirely aligned on some aspects of how to best lead the company's long-term growth. It became obvious to me that the long-term interests of the company would be best served by my resignation."
*Mark Parker replaces Perez as CEO. Parker, joined Nike in 1979 and is considered the visionary behind the Nike Air franchise and many other innovations, Nike said, and one of the key executives leading the company's long-term strategic planning.
*Nike Inc. filed a patent infringement lawsuit against Adidas-Salomon AG on February 16 2006, claiming its archrival makes shoes using elements of Nike's SHOX cushioning technology.

==People/Staff==
[[Philip H. Knight]], Chairman of the Board of Directors

[[Mark Parker]], President & Chief Executive Officer, Nike, Inc.

[[Charlie Denson]], President, Nike Brand

===Board of Directors===

John G. Connors

Timothy D. Cook

Jill K. Conway

Ralph D. DeNunzio

Alan B. Graf, Jr.

Douglas G. Houser

Jeanne P. Jackson

Orin C. Smith

John R. Thompson, Jr.

==A Closer Examination of Nike==

[[Nike & Corporate Social Responsibility]]

[[Nike make u-turn on free statement promise]]

[[Nike praised by Oxfam]]

[[Global Exchange: Still waiting for Nike to do it]]

==External Links==
* [http://www.nikebiz.com/ NikeBiz] Nike's corporate / investor website
* [http://niketown.nike.com/ Nike Town] Nike's Full Range of Products.
* [http://www.caa.org.au/campaigns/nike/ The NikeWatch Campaign] Oxfam campaign to pressure Nike for better workers rights
* [http://www.studentsagainstsweatshops.org/about/history.php Anti-sweatshop movement] Anti-Sweatshop student movement begins by focusing on Nike
* [http://pitchforkmedia.com/news/05-06/23.shtml Pitchfork Media News - 6/23/05 Logo Controversy] Indie music review site reporting on the Nike/Minor Threat logo controversy
* [http://www.fairlabor.org/2004report/ FairLabor.org annual report] Fair Labour annaul report looking at how 25 top companies including Nike are performing
* [http://www.ReclaimDemocracy.org/nike/ Information on Kasky v. Nike ] High profile court case

==Notes==

1 {{Note|Revenue}}[http://www.nike.com/nikebiz/nikebiz.jhtml?page=3&item=facts Company overview on nike.com]

2 {{Note|Revenue2}}[http://www.nike.com/nikebiz/nikebiz.jhtml?page=3&item=facts Company overview on nike.com]

Nike & Corporate Social Responsibility

2006-04-26T21:32:27Z

Ifu03592: /* Reference */

Back to Home Page: [[Nike]]

Corporate social responsibility (CSR) is a concept that has blossomed over the last fifteen years. Rather than being narrowly focused on the pursuit of profit at the expense of all else, businesses practicing CSR, should at least in theory, be behaving responsibly in the course of their profit-making, taking into account their economic, environmental and social impacts on society.

However, there is a lot of debate surrounding CSR practice, regarding both to what extent certain companies are living up to their responsible promises and regarding some of the possible ulterior motives involved in practicing CSR.

Reasons leveled at Nike for why they might be practicing CSR, other than just on basic moral grounds include:
* Defending their important public image
* Differentiating themselves from their competitors
* Helping to prevent financially damaging boycotts, strikes, lawsuits, etc
* Appealing to the ethical consumer
* Appealing to the ethical investor
* Appealing to the ethical employee
* Pressure to do so from NGO's, Government or to combat public relations disasters
* Using CSR policies as evidence that they do not need to be regulated any further than they already are at present

== Nikes CSR Policy ==
Nike maintain that their business is built on trust, teamwork, honesty and mutual respect. [http://www.nike.com/nikebiz/nikebiz.jhtml?page=7&item=responsibility] In order for this to be achieved, the company has put in place a set of corporate governance policies and practices and this has been extended in recent times to attempt to include corporate responsibility issues as a central part of their governance system. Nike's codes and policies are outlined below:

===Our Codes and Policies===
Our code of ethics is called Inside the Lines; it defines the standards of conduct we expect of our employees. Every year, all employees are required to verify that they have read and understand Inside the Lines.

We operate a global toll-free Alertline for employees to report in confidence any suspected violations of the law or our code of ethics. Any reported concerns around accounting, auditing or internal control are communicated to the Audit Committee of the Board.

We expect our suppliers to share our standards and to operate in a legal and ethical manner. While Inside the Lines covers the behavior of Nike employees, our Nike Code of Conduct covers contractors who manufacture Nike-branded products. It directs them to respect the rights of their employees, and to provide them with a safe and healthy work environment.

Taken from: [http://www.nike.com/nikebiz/nikebiz.jhtml?page=7&item=responsibility Nike Website]

===Corporate Responsibility Committee===

Jill Ker Conway, Non-Executive Director, Committee Chair

Douglas G. Houser, Non-Executive Director

Jeanne P. Jackson, Non-Executive Director

John R. Thompson, Jr., Non-Executive Director

Established in 2001, the CR Committee of the Board was set up to review significant policies and activities and make recommendations to the Board of Directors regarding labor and environmental practices, community affairs, charitable and foundation activities, diversity and equal opportunity, and environmental and sustainability initiatives. Meetings are held regularly where the Committee meet to discuss these issues. In addition, close to 150 Nike employees work on CR issues as their main function or have CR work included in their workload.

Taken from: [http://www.nike.com/nikebiz/nikebiz.jhtml?page=7&item=responsibility Nike Website]

== CSR in Practice ==

'''Nike’s approach to labour conditions in there contract factories is evolving.'''

The following is taken from Nike's website reflecting how they feel they are performing.

Nike has transformed from a focus on the Code of Conduct to advocating common standards across the industry. They have evolved from outsourcing labour monitoring to relying on a trained team of internal monitors and support for common monitoring platforms such as the “Fair Labour Association.” Furthermore they are growing from a focus on monitoring to a focus on capacity building. From an exclusive focus on factory floor impact to an exploration of ways to help change the industry through transparency and multi-stakeholder collaborations.

These changes are driven by awareness that structural issues, common to the global footwear, apparel and equipment industries affect an individual company’s ability to change conditions in particular factories.

There monitoring processes provide clear issues arising inside factories. What they do not tell us, however, is how those issues are affected by events of external factors. For example, in trying to reduce excessive overtime, we can focus on more effective policing of factories to achieve compliance. But simply focusing on policing does not address the root cause and might take resources away from engaging in broader discussions about why workers in some cases want extra hours. Those are the discussions that may lead to greater and more lasting changes. This kind of root cause analysis requires active listening and engagement in the broader dialogue with civil society, institutions and businesses around supply chain working conditions.
In recent years, we have focused on refining our skills at (a) identifying risk of code compliance (b) uncovering issues and (c) implementing strategies that can be used to drive performance and enable change within Nike internally and on a broader level.
They have become more systematic in identifying non-compliance risk, and they have become increasingly adept at uncovering issues, but despite anecdotal instances of success, they remain deeply challenged – challenged to understand how to measure systematically the impact of there own interventions and challenged by how they play a role in enabling widespread change within the industry, which they now know is critical to facilitating change within there contract supply chain.

One step in responding to this challenge is to reveal there contract factory base. While no one can say with certainty what greater levels of factory disclosure will unleash, they do know the current system of addressing factory compliance has to be fundamentally transformed to create sustainable change. They believe that disclosure of supply chains is a step toward greater efficiencies in monitoring and remediation and in shared knowledge and capacity building that will elevate overall conditions in the industry. No one company can solve these issues that are endemic to the industry.

Transparency also should increase the incentive of brands to work with factories that demonstrate CR excellence. A more thorough description and assessment of Nike’s approach in this area can be found in the FY04 Corporate Responsibility Report.[http://www.nike.com/nikebiz/nikebiz.jhtml?page=29&item=fy04]

Taken from: [http://www.nike.com/nikebiz/nikebiz.jhtml;bsessionid=R12NPVSQU0E3GCQFTBFCF5AKAWMB2IZB?page=25&cat=approach&subcat=compliance Nike Website]

'''Giving voice to workers: The Global Alliance’s legacy'''

One of our most important partners in understanding factory worker concerns, and in training for both workers and managers, has been the Global Alliance for Workers and Communities (GA). After five years of operations, its partners collectively chose to end the initiative in December 2004.

The Global Alliance was a partnership of Nike, Gap, the World Bank, the International Youth Foundation (IYF), and other organisations aimed at worker and workplace development. Since its launch in 1999, Global Alliance facilitated interviews with more than 16,000 workers, and launched a number of development projects focused primarily around building better management practices, and worker awareness of health issues.

The Global Alliance interviews and focus groups helped us uncover the kinds of compliance issues that are difficult to bring out in typical audits. For example, a series of worker interviews conducted in Indonesia in 2000-2001 made our compliance teams much more aware of verbal, physical and sexual harassment issues – of particular importance with a workforce that is predominantly young and female. They also helped us gauge overall satisfaction with the work environment.

Their revelations led us to specifically direct factories to institute confidential grievance systems, which do not exist broadly in the industry. The grievance system standard is beginning to take hold, though nearly a third of Nike contract factories audited in fiscal years 2003 and 2004 still have no confidential grievance process in place for workers.
They also led to training as well: During our 2004 fiscal year, Global Alliance trained more than 25,000 managers and workers in more than 60 factories in China, India, Indonesia, Thailand and Vietnam.

The Global Alliance was criticized in some quarters as, at best, irrelevant when compliance issues abound, and, at worst, an end-run around trade unions. We believe this dismissal of the Global Alliance misses a larger point: Though not a perfect effort, the five-year experience with the Global Alliance taught its partners a great deal about worker issues and aspirations, and highlighted some core compliance issues as well (as is clear from the example of harassment issues). We know now that to gain a deeper understanding of a workplace, we must go beyond M-Audit scores and probe under the surface to try to measure worker satisfaction with the workplace. The evolution of our own monitoring tool to now include a strong emphasis on worker interviews is one reflection of Global Alliance’s influence.

Although we were able to gather anecdotal information about some of the positive impacts of the Global Alliance on the workplace, particularly the management training and worker health training, a measurement of actual impacts is still to come. Global Alliance’s ability to expand programming and attract other corporate partners proved limited, which led to the decision to end the initiative.

For more information about the Global Alliance, see [http://www.theglobalalliance.org their Website]. You can also download the 2003 Indonesia reassessment report outlining workers’ views of workplace improvements in Nike contract facilities.

In addition to the Global Alliance training, Nike continues to sponsor a program of worker after-hours education generally aimed at securing a high school equivalency for workers in footwear factories in Thailand, Vietnam, Indonesia and China. In the 2003/2004 school year, 984 workers graduated from one of those programs. Our commitment to worker and workplace development remains. At this point in time we are exploring different ways in which the remaining funds can be utilized in the spirit of the GA – we will report on this in our fiscal year 2005 report.

Taken from websites: [http://www.nike.com/nikebiz/nikebiz.jhtml;bsessionid=R12NPVSQU0E3GCQFTBFCF5AKAWMB2IZB?page=25&cat=approach&subcat=compliance Nike Website Nike.com] & [http://www.theglobalalliance.org Global Alliance]

== The alternative viewpoints ==
http://perso.wanadoo.fr/jerome.lafourcade/Documents/Detente/Images/Anti-mondialiste/nike.jpg

Nike might see themselves as a victim of their own sucess. As one of the biggest manufacturers of sportswear, they are under considerably more scrutiny than many of their competitors, targeted by a broad range of campaigning NGOs and journalists as a symbol of the "Typical Multinational". In Nikes 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 and even publicly apologised for its past wrongdoings last year. However, some criticism continues.

===A Parody for Nike===
The results of an internet search regarding Nike will usually bring up a clever and thought provoking parody by a man called Atul, at http://www.toolness.com/nike high on the list. It ridicules Nike for some of their approaches to manufacturing in the third-world. While the parody, titled: "Nike SweatshopsÃ¢â€žÂ¢ Ã¢â‚¬â€? unlocking the power of poverty", provides no evidence of malpractice, it's sarcastic tone sums-up and reinforces what many people believe goes on.

Atul writes:

<center>"The theme of this parody is the idea that, from the perspective of our current economic system, poverty is a very good thing. Because it increases profit margins, its existence is beneficial to a global economy. In fact, it is in the best interests of multinational corporations and their shareholders to prolong poverty for as long as possible."</center>

The following is a list of accucations made in the parody, which highlight many respected NGO and activist opinions on third-world sweatshops:

* Nike actively seek to keep their sweatshop communities in poverty by
** Setting up schools that purposely provide a low level of education to keep the community low-skilled
** Paying a wage that employees can only just survive off to make sure that they can not save to start their own business, thus keeping a stranglehold on the economy.

* Nike build factories in areas with such high unemployment so employees have no choice but to work for Nike.
** They provide basic facilities for the factory community to further increase the communities dependence on them, so the community will be crippled if Nike leave

* Nike look after investors interests by keeping profit margins high, at the expense of their third-world employees
** Maintaining low third-world wages and poor working conditions to keep profit margins high
** If salaries become to high in the area they're operating in, they pull out, spelling high unemployment and deprivation for the community.

===Overworked===

===Underpaid===
At number 46 on the Forbes World Rich List 2005 [www.Forbes.com Forbes.com], Nike founder and chairman Philip Knight has made $8.2 Billion since setting up the company 42 years ago. It is no secret that much of the apparel his company sells is made by some of the poorest people in the world.

Much attention has been paid to Nike's exploitation of workers in economically strugglingcountries like Indonesia, Vietnam and China. Although Nike claims they are not responsible for much of what goes on in these sweatshops because they work through subcontractors and thus are not directly involved, the corporation has shown great irresponsibility and ignorance in dealing with the matter. In fact, Nike CEO Philip Knight's admitted as much in early 2005 when he launched the 2005 Nike Coarporate Social Responsibility report [http://www.nike.com Nike]

Nike has recently released a big advertising campaign in an effort to counter its negative image as a human rights violator. One ad proclaims "It's True. We routinely ignore the minimum age requirements at our factories." While it may now be true that Nike hires workers only 18 years or older, what the ad doesn't say is that Nike used to hire workers less than 18 AND that they only introduced this new policy under intense public demand. (This "responsible act" costs Nike nothing--there's plenty of workers over 18 who need jobs in economically depressed countries.) Another full-page ad announces "Good Morning Vietnam!" and congratulates Nike for its micro-loan program. Here Nike will match $75 contributions from private individuals to provide "serious venutre capital" to Vietnamese citizens. Nike claims they've issues 3200 such loans as of Nov. 1999. Nice try, Nike, but that's only $2400 in loans. How much did you spend on the ads trumpeting them? Clearly, Nike is worried about its public image. If it worried as much about its workers, industry-wide change might really happen. [http://spot.colorado.edu/~shortk/nike.html Colorado University]

Reports show the overseas workers to be underpaid, malnourished, and often physically and emotionally abused. Although Nike contends that they are paying above Indonesian minimum wage, the $2.36 a day workers earn is not even enough to buy three simple meals, estimated at $2.10. That's not even considering the minimum $6.00 a month rent, clothing, and hygienic products every worker needs. While many Nike factories provide subsidized meals, workers could afford their own meals if they were paid a living wage. Jeff Keaty, a U.S. coach who was fired for refusing to wear a uniform with the Nike logo, is in Jakarta, Indonesia trying to live on Nike factory wages. To learn more about working conditions there, see his report at www.nikewages.org. [http://spot.colorado.edu/~shortk/nike.html Colorado University]

According to the Coalition of Labor Union Women, the 20-million dollars which Nike paid Michael Jordan to endorse products for one year is equal to the amount they paid Indonesian workers to produce 19 million pairs of shoes, many valued at as much as $120 a pair.[http://www.cluw.org/ Coalition of Labor Union Women]

===Abused===
At a plant in Vietnam, a supervisor hit fifteen workers in a row in retaliation for poor sewing. The incident left two women hospitalized, and great emotional scars on every worker involved. The supervisor, Madame Baeck, was allowed to leave the country after the incident, despite conviction. Other incidents of abuse have since arisen: a woman's mouth taped shut for talking during working hours; 45 women forced to kneel on the ground with their hands in the air for 25 minutes straight; workers forced to stand in the sun for long periods of time as part of a heat punishment; and a Korean supervisor found guilty of molesting female workers. When a reporter from 48 Hours questioned a Nike spokesperson about this incident, he said he'd never heard of it, despite the fact it headlined Vietnamese newspapers.
[http://spot.colorado.edu/~shortk/nike.html Colorado University]
[http://wsws.org/public_html/iwb5-5/nike.htm socialequality.com's workers bulletin]
[http://christianaid.com Christian Aid]

===Refused Unions===

===Abandoned====

Back to Homepage [[Nike]]

==Reference==
[http://spot.colorado.edu/~shortk/nike.html

Nike & Corporate Social Responsibility

2006-04-26T21:31:53Z

Ifu03592: /* Poverty */

Back to Home Page: [[Nike]]

Corporate social responsibility (CSR) is a concept that has blossomed over the last fifteen years. Rather than being narrowly focused on the pursuit of profit at the expense of all else, businesses practicing CSR, should at least in theory, be behaving responsibly in the course of their profit-making, taking into account their economic, environmental and social impacts on society.

However, there is a lot of debate surrounding CSR practice, regarding both to what extent certain companies are living up to their responsible promises and regarding some of the possible ulterior motives involved in practicing CSR.

Reasons leveled at Nike for why they might be practicing CSR, other than just on basic moral grounds include:
* Defending their important public image
* Differentiating themselves from their competitors
* Helping to prevent financially damaging boycotts, strikes, lawsuits, etc
* Appealing to the ethical consumer
* Appealing to the ethical investor
* Appealing to the ethical employee
* Pressure to do so from NGO's, Government or to combat public relations disasters
* Using CSR policies as evidence that they do not need to be regulated any further than they already are at present

== Nikes CSR Policy ==
Nike maintain that their business is built on trust, teamwork, honesty and mutual respect. [http://www.nike.com/nikebiz/nikebiz.jhtml?page=7&item=responsibility] In order for this to be achieved, the company has put in place a set of corporate governance policies and practices and this has been extended in recent times to attempt to include corporate responsibility issues as a central part of their governance system. Nike's codes and policies are outlined below:

===Our Codes and Policies===
Our code of ethics is called Inside the Lines; it defines the standards of conduct we expect of our employees. Every year, all employees are required to verify that they have read and understand Inside the Lines.

We operate a global toll-free Alertline for employees to report in confidence any suspected violations of the law or our code of ethics. Any reported concerns around accounting, auditing or internal control are communicated to the Audit Committee of the Board.

We expect our suppliers to share our standards and to operate in a legal and ethical manner. While Inside the Lines covers the behavior of Nike employees, our Nike Code of Conduct covers contractors who manufacture Nike-branded products. It directs them to respect the rights of their employees, and to provide them with a safe and healthy work environment.

Taken from: [http://www.nike.com/nikebiz/nikebiz.jhtml?page=7&item=responsibility Nike Website]

===Corporate Responsibility Committee===

Jill Ker Conway, Non-Executive Director, Committee Chair

Douglas G. Houser, Non-Executive Director

Jeanne P. Jackson, Non-Executive Director

John R. Thompson, Jr., Non-Executive Director

Established in 2001, the CR Committee of the Board was set up to review significant policies and activities and make recommendations to the Board of Directors regarding labor and environmental practices, community affairs, charitable and foundation activities, diversity and equal opportunity, and environmental and sustainability initiatives. Meetings are held regularly where the Committee meet to discuss these issues. In addition, close to 150 Nike employees work on CR issues as their main function or have CR work included in their workload.

Taken from: [http://www.nike.com/nikebiz/nikebiz.jhtml?page=7&item=responsibility Nike Website]

== CSR in Practice ==

'''Nike’s approach to labour conditions in there contract factories is evolving.'''

The following is taken from Nike's website reflecting how they feel they are performing.

Nike has transformed from a focus on the Code of Conduct to advocating common standards across the industry. They have evolved from outsourcing labour monitoring to relying on a trained team of internal monitors and support for common monitoring platforms such as the “Fair Labour Association.” Furthermore they are growing from a focus on monitoring to a focus on capacity building. From an exclusive focus on factory floor impact to an exploration of ways to help change the industry through transparency and multi-stakeholder collaborations.

These changes are driven by awareness that structural issues, common to the global footwear, apparel and equipment industries affect an individual company’s ability to change conditions in particular factories.

There monitoring processes provide clear issues arising inside factories. What they do not tell us, however, is how those issues are affected by events of external factors. For example, in trying to reduce excessive overtime, we can focus on more effective policing of factories to achieve compliance. But simply focusing on policing does not address the root cause and might take resources away from engaging in broader discussions about why workers in some cases want extra hours. Those are the discussions that may lead to greater and more lasting changes. This kind of root cause analysis requires active listening and engagement in the broader dialogue with civil society, institutions and businesses around supply chain working conditions.
In recent years, we have focused on refining our skills at (a) identifying risk of code compliance (b) uncovering issues and (c) implementing strategies that can be used to drive performance and enable change within Nike internally and on a broader level.
They have become more systematic in identifying non-compliance risk, and they have become increasingly adept at uncovering issues, but despite anecdotal instances of success, they remain deeply challenged – challenged to understand how to measure systematically the impact of there own interventions and challenged by how they play a role in enabling widespread change within the industry, which they now know is critical to facilitating change within there contract supply chain.

One step in responding to this challenge is to reveal there contract factory base. While no one can say with certainty what greater levels of factory disclosure will unleash, they do know the current system of addressing factory compliance has to be fundamentally transformed to create sustainable change. They believe that disclosure of supply chains is a step toward greater efficiencies in monitoring and remediation and in shared knowledge and capacity building that will elevate overall conditions in the industry. No one company can solve these issues that are endemic to the industry.

Transparency also should increase the incentive of brands to work with factories that demonstrate CR excellence. A more thorough description and assessment of Nike’s approach in this area can be found in the FY04 Corporate Responsibility Report.[http://www.nike.com/nikebiz/nikebiz.jhtml?page=29&item=fy04]

Taken from: [http://www.nike.com/nikebiz/nikebiz.jhtml;bsessionid=R12NPVSQU0E3GCQFTBFCF5AKAWMB2IZB?page=25&cat=approach&subcat=compliance Nike Website]

'''Giving voice to workers: The Global Alliance’s legacy'''

One of our most important partners in understanding factory worker concerns, and in training for both workers and managers, has been the Global Alliance for Workers and Communities (GA). After five years of operations, its partners collectively chose to end the initiative in December 2004.

The Global Alliance was a partnership of Nike, Gap, the World Bank, the International Youth Foundation (IYF), and other organisations aimed at worker and workplace development. Since its launch in 1999, Global Alliance facilitated interviews with more than 16,000 workers, and launched a number of development projects focused primarily around building better management practices, and worker awareness of health issues.

The Global Alliance interviews and focus groups helped us uncover the kinds of compliance issues that are difficult to bring out in typical audits. For example, a series of worker interviews conducted in Indonesia in 2000-2001 made our compliance teams much more aware of verbal, physical and sexual harassment issues – of particular importance with a workforce that is predominantly young and female. They also helped us gauge overall satisfaction with the work environment.

Their revelations led us to specifically direct factories to institute confidential grievance systems, which do not exist broadly in the industry. The grievance system standard is beginning to take hold, though nearly a third of Nike contract factories audited in fiscal years 2003 and 2004 still have no confidential grievance process in place for workers.
They also led to training as well: During our 2004 fiscal year, Global Alliance trained more than 25,000 managers and workers in more than 60 factories in China, India, Indonesia, Thailand and Vietnam.

The Global Alliance was criticized in some quarters as, at best, irrelevant when compliance issues abound, and, at worst, an end-run around trade unions. We believe this dismissal of the Global Alliance misses a larger point: Though not a perfect effort, the five-year experience with the Global Alliance taught its partners a great deal about worker issues and aspirations, and highlighted some core compliance issues as well (as is clear from the example of harassment issues). We know now that to gain a deeper understanding of a workplace, we must go beyond M-Audit scores and probe under the surface to try to measure worker satisfaction with the workplace. The evolution of our own monitoring tool to now include a strong emphasis on worker interviews is one reflection of Global Alliance’s influence.

Although we were able to gather anecdotal information about some of the positive impacts of the Global Alliance on the workplace, particularly the management training and worker health training, a measurement of actual impacts is still to come. Global Alliance’s ability to expand programming and attract other corporate partners proved limited, which led to the decision to end the initiative.

For more information about the Global Alliance, see [http://www.theglobalalliance.org their Website]. You can also download the 2003 Indonesia reassessment report outlining workers’ views of workplace improvements in Nike contract facilities.

In addition to the Global Alliance training, Nike continues to sponsor a program of worker after-hours education generally aimed at securing a high school equivalency for workers in footwear factories in Thailand, Vietnam, Indonesia and China. In the 2003/2004 school year, 984 workers graduated from one of those programs. Our commitment to worker and workplace development remains. At this point in time we are exploring different ways in which the remaining funds can be utilized in the spirit of the GA – we will report on this in our fiscal year 2005 report.

Taken from websites: [http://www.nike.com/nikebiz/nikebiz.jhtml;bsessionid=R12NPVSQU0E3GCQFTBFCF5AKAWMB2IZB?page=25&cat=approach&subcat=compliance Nike Website Nike.com] & [http://www.theglobalalliance.org Global Alliance]

== The alternative viewpoints ==
http://perso.wanadoo.fr/jerome.lafourcade/Documents/Detente/Images/Anti-mondialiste/nike.jpg

Nike might see themselves as a victim of their own sucess. As one of the biggest manufacturers of sportswear, they are under considerably more scrutiny than many of their competitors, targeted by a broad range of campaigning NGOs and journalists as a symbol of the "Typical Multinational". In Nikes 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 and even publicly apologised for its past wrongdoings last year. However, some criticism continues.

===A Parody for Nike===
The results of an internet search regarding Nike will usually bring up a clever and thought provoking parody by a man called Atul, at http://www.toolness.com/nike high on the list. It ridicules Nike for some of their approaches to manufacturing in the third-world. While the parody, titled: "Nike SweatshopsÃ¢â€žÂ¢ Ã¢â‚¬â€? unlocking the power of poverty", provides no evidence of malpractice, it's sarcastic tone sums-up and reinforces what many people believe goes on.

Atul writes:

<center>"The theme of this parody is the idea that, from the perspective of our current economic system, poverty is a very good thing. Because it increases profit margins, its existence is beneficial to a global economy. In fact, it is in the best interests of multinational corporations and their shareholders to prolong poverty for as long as possible."</center>

The following is a list of accucations made in the parody, which highlight many respected NGO and activist opinions on third-world sweatshops:

* Nike actively seek to keep their sweatshop communities in poverty by
** Setting up schools that purposely provide a low level of education to keep the community low-skilled
** Paying a wage that employees can only just survive off to make sure that they can not save to start their own business, thus keeping a stranglehold on the economy.

* Nike build factories in areas with such high unemployment so employees have no choice but to work for Nike.
** They provide basic facilities for the factory community to further increase the communities dependence on them, so the community will be crippled if Nike leave

* Nike look after investors interests by keeping profit margins high, at the expense of their third-world employees
** Maintaining low third-world wages and poor working conditions to keep profit margins high
** If salaries become to high in the area they're operating in, they pull out, spelling high unemployment and deprivation for the community.

===Overworked===

===Underpaid===
At number 46 on the Forbes World Rich List 2005 [www.Forbes.com Forbes.com], Nike founder and chairman Philip Knight has made $8.2 Billion since setting up the company 42 years ago. It is no secret that much of the apparel his company sells is made by some of the poorest people in the world.

Much attention has been paid to Nike's exploitation of workers in economically strugglingcountries like Indonesia, Vietnam and China. Although Nike claims they are not responsible for much of what goes on in these sweatshops because they work through subcontractors and thus are not directly involved, the corporation has shown great irresponsibility and ignorance in dealing with the matter. In fact, Nike CEO Philip Knight's admitted as much in early 2005 when he launched the 2005 Nike Coarporate Social Responsibility report [http://www.nike.com Nike]

Nike has recently released a big advertising campaign in an effort to counter its negative image as a human rights violator. One ad proclaims "It's True. We routinely ignore the minimum age requirements at our factories." While it may now be true that Nike hires workers only 18 years or older, what the ad doesn't say is that Nike used to hire workers less than 18 AND that they only introduced this new policy under intense public demand. (This "responsible act" costs Nike nothing--there's plenty of workers over 18 who need jobs in economically depressed countries.) Another full-page ad announces "Good Morning Vietnam!" and congratulates Nike for its micro-loan program. Here Nike will match $75 contributions from private individuals to provide "serious venutre capital" to Vietnamese citizens. Nike claims they've issues 3200 such loans as of Nov. 1999. Nice try, Nike, but that's only $2400 in loans. How much did you spend on the ads trumpeting them? Clearly, Nike is worried about its public image. If it worried as much about its workers, industry-wide change might really happen. [http://spot.colorado.edu/~shortk/nike.html Colorado University]

Reports show the overseas workers to be underpaid, malnourished, and often physically and emotionally abused. Although Nike contends that they are paying above Indonesian minimum wage, the $2.36 a day workers earn is not even enough to buy three simple meals, estimated at $2.10. That's not even considering the minimum $6.00 a month rent, clothing, and hygienic products every worker needs. While many Nike factories provide subsidized meals, workers could afford their own meals if they were paid a living wage. Jeff Keaty, a U.S. coach who was fired for refusing to wear a uniform with the Nike logo, is in Jakarta, Indonesia trying to live on Nike factory wages. To learn more about working conditions there, see his report at www.nikewages.org. [http://spot.colorado.edu/~shortk/nike.html Colorado University]

According to the Coalition of Labor Union Women, the 20-million dollars which Nike paid Michael Jordan to endorse products for one year is equal to the amount they paid Indonesian workers to produce 19 million pairs of shoes, many valued at as much as $120 a pair.[http://www.cluw.org/ Coalition of Labor Union Women]

===Abused===
At a plant in Vietnam, a supervisor hit fifteen workers in a row in retaliation for poor sewing. The incident left two women hospitalized, and great emotional scars on every worker involved. The supervisor, Madame Baeck, was allowed to leave the country after the incident, despite conviction. Other incidents of abuse have since arisen: a woman's mouth taped shut for talking during working hours; 45 women forced to kneel on the ground with their hands in the air for 25 minutes straight; workers forced to stand in the sun for long periods of time as part of a heat punishment; and a Korean supervisor found guilty of molesting female workers. When a reporter from 48 Hours questioned a Nike spokesperson about this incident, he said he'd never heard of it, despite the fact it headlined Vietnamese newspapers.
[http://spot.colorado.edu/~shortk/nike.html Colorado University]
[http://wsws.org/public_html/iwb5-5/nike.htm socialequality.com's workers bulletin]
[http://christianaid.com Christian Aid]

===Refused Unions===

===Abandoned====

==Reference==
[http://spot.colorado.edu/~shortk/nike.html

Nike & Corporate Social Responsibility

2006-04-26T21:07:49Z

Ifu03592: /* Find out for Yourself */

Nike & Corporate Social Responsibility

2006-04-26T21:04:50Z

Ifu03592: /* The alternative viewpoints */

Nike & Corporate Social Responsibility

2006-04-26T21:04:28Z

Ifu03592: /* The alternative viewpoints */

Nike & Corporate Social Responsibility

2006-04-26T21:04:07Z

Ifu03592: /* CSR in Practice */

Nike

2006-04-26T20:36:54Z

Ifu03592: /* Nike Timeline */

=== Introduction ===
Company: Nike, Inc

Founded: 1971

Formally: Blue Ribbon Sports, founded 1964

Brand: Swoosh

Slogan: "Just Do It"

Location: Washingtown County, Oregon
Beaverton, Oregon

Key People: [[Philip Knight]] - Chairman and Co-founder ~
[[Mark Parker]] - CEO ~
[[Bill Bowerman]] - Co-founder

Industry: Sporting Goods

Products: Sports Equipment, shoes, apparel, assessories

Revenue: $13 Billion (FY 2005) {{ref|revenue}}

Employees: 26,500 {{ref|revenue2}}

Website: www.Nike.com[http://www.nike.com]

NIKE, Inc. (NYSE: NKE[http://www.nyse.com/about/listed/lcddata.html?ticker=NKE]) and its subsidiaries are involved in the design, development and marketing of products such as footwear, apparel, equipment and accessories worldwide. Its mission is "to bring innovation and inspiration to every athlete in the world*. *If you have a body, you are an athlete" (Bowerman,B)[http://www.nike.com/nikebiz/nikebiz.jhtml?page=4] The corporation caters for all types of sport and lifestyles, designing various forms of footwear from athletic footwear for running, to shoes designed for hiking and outdoor activities. In addition, it sells a line of performance equipment, including golf clubs, sport balls, timepieces, electronic media devices, skates, bats, gloves, swimwear, cycling apparel, children's clothing, school supplies, and eyewear. The company sells its products to retail accounts, through its owned retail stores, and through a mix of independent distributors and licensees.

The company takes its name from the Greek goddess of victory, Nike.

Above information from [http://www.nike.com Nike.com]

==Background/History==
Nike is the world's number one manufacturer and marketer of athletic footwear and apparel. It was founded in 1964 when it was firstly called Blue Ribbon Sports and its headquarters are situated in Beaverton, Oregon. It was co-founded by [[Bill Bowerman]], who was the track and field coach for the University of Oregan and [[Philip H. Knight]], a student from the University and a middle-distance runner under Bowerman. Nike was established as one of the world's most familiar brands during the 1980s and 1990s and has propelled to the extent that it now operates 184 stores in the United States and 190 stores globally. It owns facilities in Oregon, Tennessee, North Carolina and The Netherlands, and operates leased facilities for 14 Niketowns, over 200 Nike Factory Stores, a dozen NikeWomen stores and over 100 sales and administrative offices. The company now reaches out to most of the planet, operating in regions of the world such as the US, the Americas, Europe, the Middle East, the Asia Pacific region and Africa. This significant growth in recent years is shown by the fact that the company provides 26,000 full-time jobs. Nike has also expanded financially and has reported net revenues of $13.7 billion, a 12 percent increase from FY'04.[http://finance.yahoo.com/q/pr?s=nke]

Nike, Inc now markets its products under its own brand signified by [[The Nike Swoosh]] as well as under Air Jordan, Nike Golf and Team Starter among others, and under brands from wholly owned subsidiaries including Bauer, Cole Haan, Converse, and Hurley International.

===Nike Timeline===

The following timeline is taken directly from [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nike%2C_Inc. Wikipedia]

===The 1960s===
1962
*[[Phil Knight]] drafts a thesis paper at Stanford University in which he asserts that low-priced athletic shoes made in Japan could compete with more expensive footwear made in Germany. After earning his MBA, Knight travels to Japan, where he meets with executives from Onitsuka Tiger and persuades them to make Knight's company, '''Blue Ribbon Sports''', the distributor of Tiger brand footwear for the western United States.

1964
*Knight sends samples of Tiger footwear to University of Oregon track coach [[Bill Bowerman]], for whom Knight ran middle distances while an undergraduate. Bowerman suggests that he and Knight become partners, with Bowerman to provide endorsement clout as well as footwear design ideas. The two shake hands and each pledge $500 to start the new venture.

1965
*Jeff Johnson, a former track rival of Knight's, joins as the company's first full-time salesman. He sells shoes out of the back of his van to high schoolers at track meets.

1966
*Johnson opens the company's first retail outlet in Santa Monica, California. Knight and Bowerman convert their handshake agreement into a formal, written agreement.

1967
*Knight and Bowerman incorporate Blue Ribbon Sports, creating BRS, Inc.

1969
*With annual sales approaching $300,000, Knight resigns as a professor at Portland State University to devote himself full-time to BRS, Inc.

===The 1970s===
1970
*Bowerman experiments with rubber spikes, pouring a liquid rubber compound into his wife's waffle iron, which led to the creation of the 'waffle' sole.

1971
*Knight begins development of a new athletic footwear brand. A graphic design student at Portland State University named [[Carolyn Davidson]] is hired by Knight to design the new brand, which is referred to as a [[Swoosh]].
*Along with the new brand, BRS, Inc. needs a name for its new line of footwear. Dozens of suggestions, including Knight's favorite "Dimension Six," are rejected until Jeff Johnson dreams up the name Nike, the Greek goddess of victory.

1972
*The first Nike products, adorned with the Swoosh, are delivered to athletes competing in Eugene, Oregon for the US Olympic Track & Field trials.

1973
*American record-holder Steve Prefontaine becomes the first major track athlete to wear Nike shoes.

1974
*The Waffle Trainer is introduced, quickly becoming the best-selling training shoe in the U.S.

1977
*Nike print ad with the tag "There is no finish line" is introduced.

1978
*Tennis 'bad boy' John McEnroe is signed by Nike to an endorsement contract.

1979
* Nike's ''Air'' technology patented by inventor M. Frank Rudy is introduced in the Tailwind running shoe. Gas-filled plastic membranes are inserted into the sole of running shoes to provide cushioning.

===The 1980s===
1980
* Nike completes an initial public offering of 2,377,000 shares of Class B common stock on December 2.

1981
* BRS, Inc. merges into Nike, Inc. on December 31, and the company officially becomes known as Nike, Inc.

1982
*Dan Wieden and Dave Kennedy start their own advertising agency, Wieden+Kennedy, taking with them the Nike account on April 1. In October, Nike airs its first national television ad during the New York Marathon.

1982
* The Air Force 1 Shoe|Air Force 1 basketball shoe becomes the first Nike court shoe to make use of the Air technology.

1984
* Nike signs Michael Jordan to an endorsement contract. The first model of his signature shoe, the Air Jordan, originally is banned by the NBA, drawing a tremendous amount of publicity. The introduction of the Air Jordan shoe was a key event in Nike's successful development.

1986
* Corporate revenues surpass $1 billion for the first time.

1987
* The Nike Air Max shoe is introduced, which uses a much larger Air cushioning unit, and for the first time is visible at the side of the midsole. This was the first of many generations of Air Max-branded technologies. A television ad featuring the Beatles' song "Revolution" was the first time that a song performed by the Beatles was used in a TV ad.

1988
* Nike introduces its "Just Do It" slogan, a phrase from Zen philosophy.

1989
* Nike begins its Bo Knows ad campaign, which becomes a part of the national culture for the next few years.

===The 1990s===
1990
* The first Niketown store opens in downtown Portland.
* Nike opens its world headquarters in unincorporated Washington County, just west of Portland, on 74 acres (0.3 km²) of land.

1993
* Nike introduces Reuse-A-Shoe, which collects athletic shoes, separates and grinds them up into Nike Grind, used in the making of athletic courts, tracks and fields.

1994
* Nike signs a long-term partnership with the Brazil national football team|Brazilian national football (soccer) team.
* Nike wins Advertiser of the Year at the Cannes Advertising Festival

1996
* Nike signs Tiger Woods soon after he gives up his amateur golf status.
* Nike causes controversy with its advertising campaign during the Olympic Games|Summer Olympics in Atlanta, Georgia|Atlanta which features the slogan, "You Don't Win Silver — You Lose Gold." Nike's use of this slogan draws harsh criticism from many sources, including several former Olympic silver and bronze medalists.

1998
* After pressure from lobbying groups Nike and other companies publicly disclose their worldwide factory locations, a first for the garment industry.
** Phil Knight formally commits Nike to strict standards for manufacturing facilities used by Nike, including: minimum age; air quality; mandatory education programs; expansion of microloan program; factory monitoring; and enhanced transparency of Nike's [[corporate social responsibility]] practices.

1999
* [[Bill Bowerman]], co-founder of Nike, dies on Dec. 24 at age 88.

===The 2000s===
2000
*Nike Shox|Nike Shox cushioning/support system is introduced, initially worn by Vince Carter and others on the US Olympic basketball team.

2002
*NikeGO launches, a grassroots initiative to increase physical activity among youths aged 9-15.
*Rap star Nelly releases a chart topping song about Air Force Ones, a brand of Nike shoes.

2003
*Nike acquires once-bankrupt rival Converse (company)|Converse for $305 million on July 9.
*For the first time in the company's history, international sales exceed USA sales, as Nike continues to develop into a global company.
*Nike is named "Advertiser of the Year" by the Cannes Advertising Festival, the first company to earn that honor twice (also 1994) in the festival's 50-year history.

2004
*Phil Knight steps down as CEO and President of Nike, but continues as chairman. Knight is replaced by [[William D. Perez]] as CEO of Nike, effective Dec. 28.
*Nike creates the Exeter Brands Group, a wholly owned subsidiary for athletic footwear and apparel brands for lower price points. Brands include Starter, Team Starter, Asphalt, Shaq and Dunkman.
*Annual revenues exceed $12.3 billion.
*In June, Chinese animator Zhu Zhiqianq, of Xiao Xiao fame, files a lawsuit against Nike for plagiarizing his cartoon stickmen in their commercials. Nike representatives deny the accusations, claiming that the stickman figure lacks originality, and is public domain. Zhu eventually wins the lawsuit, and Nike is ordered to pay $36,000 to the cartoonist.

2005
*Nike reports annual revenue for fiscal year 2005 (ending May 31) of $13.7 billion, a 12% increase over the previous fiscal year.
* Nike comes under fire from independent music fans and apologizes for their use of an easily identifiable Minor Threat album cover slightly modified into a promotional tool for their line of skateboarding shoes.

2006
* William Perez left Nike voluntarily on January 23, 2006. Perez said in the statement that he and Knight "weren't entirely aligned on some aspects of how to best lead the company's long-term growth. It became obvious to me that the long-term interests of the company would be best served by my resignation."
*Mark Parker replaces Perez as CEO. Parker, joined Nike in 1979 and is considered the visionary behind the Nike Air franchise and many other innovations, Nike said, and one of the key executives leading the company's long-term strategic planning.
*Nike Inc. filed a patent infringement lawsuit against Adidas-Salomon AG on February 16 2006, claiming its archrival makes shoes using elements of Nike's SHOX cushioning technology.

==People/Staff==
[[Philip H. Knight]], Chairman of the Board of Directors

[[Mark Parker]], President & Chief Executive Officer, Nike, Inc.

[[Charlie Denson]], President, Nike Brand

===Board of Directors===

John G. Connors

Timothy D. Cook

Jill K. Conway

Ralph D. DeNunzio

Alan B. Graf, Jr.

Douglas G. Houser

Jeanne P. Jackson

Orin C. Smith

John R. Thompson, Jr.

==A Closer Examination of Nike==

[[Nike & Corporate Social Responsibility]]

[[Nike make u-turn on free statement promise]]

[[Nike praised by Oxfam]]

==External Links==
* [http://www.nikebiz.com/ NikeBiz] Nike's corporate / investor website
* [http://niketown.nike.com/ Nike Town] Nike's Full Range of Products.
* [http://www.caa.org.au/campaigns/nike/ The NikeWatch Campaign] Oxfam campaign to pressure Nike for better workers rights
* [http://www.studentsagainstsweatshops.org/about/history.php Anti-sweatshop movement] Anti-Sweatshop student movement begins by focusing on Nike
* [http://pitchforkmedia.com/news/05-06/23.shtml Pitchfork Media News - 6/23/05 Logo Controversy] Indie music review site reporting on the Nike/Minor Threat logo controversy
* [http://www.fairlabor.org/2004report/ FairLabor.org annual report] Fair Labour annaul report looking at how 25 top companies including Nike are performing
* [http://www.ReclaimDemocracy.org/nike/ Information on Kasky v. Nike ] High profile court case

==Notes==

1 {{Note|Revenue}}[http://www.nike.com/nikebiz/nikebiz.jhtml?page=3&item=facts Company overview on nike.com]

2 {{Note|Revenue2}}[http://www.nike.com/nikebiz/nikebiz.jhtml?page=3&item=facts Company overview on nike.com]

Nike

2006-04-26T20:36:17Z

Ifu03592: /* Introduction */

=== Introduction ===
Company: Nike, Inc

Founded: 1971

Formally: Blue Ribbon Sports, founded 1964

Brand: Swoosh

Slogan: "Just Do It"

Location: Washingtown County, Oregon
Beaverton, Oregon

Key People: [[Philip Knight]] - Chairman and Co-founder ~
[[Mark Parker]] - CEO ~
[[Bill Bowerman]] - Co-founder

Industry: Sporting Goods

Products: Sports Equipment, shoes, apparel, assessories

Revenue: $13 Billion (FY 2005) {{ref|revenue}}

Employees: 26,500 {{ref|revenue2}}

Website: www.Nike.com[http://www.nike.com]

NIKE, Inc. (NYSE: NKE[http://www.nyse.com/about/listed/lcddata.html?ticker=NKE]) and its subsidiaries are involved in the design, development and marketing of products such as footwear, apparel, equipment and accessories worldwide. Its mission is "to bring innovation and inspiration to every athlete in the world*. *If you have a body, you are an athlete" (Bowerman,B)[http://www.nike.com/nikebiz/nikebiz.jhtml?page=4] The corporation caters for all types of sport and lifestyles, designing various forms of footwear from athletic footwear for running, to shoes designed for hiking and outdoor activities. In addition, it sells a line of performance equipment, including golf clubs, sport balls, timepieces, electronic media devices, skates, bats, gloves, swimwear, cycling apparel, children's clothing, school supplies, and eyewear. The company sells its products to retail accounts, through its owned retail stores, and through a mix of independent distributors and licensees.

The company takes its name from the Greek goddess of victory, Nike.

Above information from [http://www.nike.com Nike.com]

==Background/History==
Nike is the world's number one manufacturer and marketer of athletic footwear and apparel. It was founded in 1964 when it was firstly called Blue Ribbon Sports and its headquarters are situated in Beaverton, Oregon. It was co-founded by [[Bill Bowerman]], who was the track and field coach for the University of Oregan and [[Philip H. Knight]], a student from the University and a middle-distance runner under Bowerman. Nike was established as one of the world's most familiar brands during the 1980s and 1990s and has propelled to the extent that it now operates 184 stores in the United States and 190 stores globally. It owns facilities in Oregon, Tennessee, North Carolina and The Netherlands, and operates leased facilities for 14 Niketowns, over 200 Nike Factory Stores, a dozen NikeWomen stores and over 100 sales and administrative offices. The company now reaches out to most of the planet, operating in regions of the world such as the US, the Americas, Europe, the Middle East, the Asia Pacific region and Africa. This significant growth in recent years is shown by the fact that the company provides 26,000 full-time jobs. Nike has also expanded financially and has reported net revenues of $13.7 billion, a 12 percent increase from FY'04.[http://finance.yahoo.com/q/pr?s=nke]

Nike, Inc now markets its products under its own brand signified by [[The Nike Swoosh]] as well as under Air Jordan, Nike Golf and Team Starter among others, and under brands from wholly owned subsidiaries including Bauer, Cole Haan, Converse, and Hurley International.

===Nike Timeline===

The following timeline is taken directly from Wikipedia [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nike%2C_Inc.]

===The 1960s===
1962
*[[Phil Knight]] drafts a thesis paper at Stanford University in which he asserts that low-priced athletic shoes made in Japan could compete with more expensive footwear made in Germany. After earning his MBA, Knight travels to Japan, where he meets with executives from Onitsuka Tiger and persuades them to make Knight's company, '''Blue Ribbon Sports''', the distributor of Tiger brand footwear for the western United States.

1964
*Knight sends samples of Tiger footwear to University of Oregon track coach [[Bill Bowerman]], for whom Knight ran middle distances while an undergraduate. Bowerman suggests that he and Knight become partners, with Bowerman to provide endorsement clout as well as footwear design ideas. The two shake hands and each pledge $500 to start the new venture.

1965
*Jeff Johnson, a former track rival of Knight's, joins as the company's first full-time salesman. He sells shoes out of the back of his van to high schoolers at track meets.

1966
*Johnson opens the company's first retail outlet in Santa Monica, California. Knight and Bowerman convert their handshake agreement into a formal, written agreement.

1967
*Knight and Bowerman incorporate Blue Ribbon Sports, creating BRS, Inc.

1969
*With annual sales approaching $300,000, Knight resigns as a professor at Portland State University to devote himself full-time to BRS, Inc.

===The 1970s===
1970
*Bowerman experiments with rubber spikes, pouring a liquid rubber compound into his wife's waffle iron, which led to the creation of the 'waffle' sole.

1971
*Knight begins development of a new athletic footwear brand. A graphic design student at Portland State University named [[Carolyn Davidson]] is hired by Knight to design the new brand, which is referred to as a [[Swoosh]].
*Along with the new brand, BRS, Inc. needs a name for its new line of footwear. Dozens of suggestions, including Knight's favorite "Dimension Six," are rejected until Jeff Johnson dreams up the name Nike, the Greek goddess of victory.

1972
*The first Nike products, adorned with the Swoosh, are delivered to athletes competing in Eugene, Oregon for the US Olympic Track & Field trials.

1973
*American record-holder Steve Prefontaine becomes the first major track athlete to wear Nike shoes.

1974
*The Waffle Trainer is introduced, quickly becoming the best-selling training shoe in the U.S.

1977
*Nike print ad with the tag "There is no finish line" is introduced.

1978
*Tennis 'bad boy' John McEnroe is signed by Nike to an endorsement contract.

1979
* Nike's ''Air'' technology patented by inventor M. Frank Rudy is introduced in the Tailwind running shoe. Gas-filled plastic membranes are inserted into the sole of running shoes to provide cushioning.

===The 1980s===
1980
* Nike completes an initial public offering of 2,377,000 shares of Class B common stock on December 2.

1981
* BRS, Inc. merges into Nike, Inc. on December 31, and the company officially becomes known as Nike, Inc.

1982
*Dan Wieden and Dave Kennedy start their own advertising agency, Wieden+Kennedy, taking with them the Nike account on April 1. In October, Nike airs its first national television ad during the New York Marathon.

1982
* The Air Force 1 Shoe|Air Force 1 basketball shoe becomes the first Nike court shoe to make use of the Air technology.

1984
* Nike signs Michael Jordan to an endorsement contract. The first model of his signature shoe, the Air Jordan, originally is banned by the NBA, drawing a tremendous amount of publicity. The introduction of the Air Jordan shoe was a key event in Nike's successful development.

1986
* Corporate revenues surpass $1 billion for the first time.

1987
* The Nike Air Max shoe is introduced, which uses a much larger Air cushioning unit, and for the first time is visible at the side of the midsole. This was the first of many generations of Air Max-branded technologies. A television ad featuring the Beatles' song "Revolution" was the first time that a song performed by the Beatles was used in a TV ad.

1988
* Nike introduces its "Just Do It" slogan, a phrase from Zen philosophy.

1989
* Nike begins its Bo Knows ad campaign, which becomes a part of the national culture for the next few years.

===The 1990s===
1990
* The first Niketown store opens in downtown Portland.
* Nike opens its world headquarters in unincorporated Washington County, just west of Portland, on 74 acres (0.3 km²) of land.

1993
* Nike introduces Reuse-A-Shoe, which collects athletic shoes, separates and grinds them up into Nike Grind, used in the making of athletic courts, tracks and fields.

1994
* Nike signs a long-term partnership with the Brazil national football team|Brazilian national football (soccer) team.
* Nike wins Advertiser of the Year at the Cannes Advertising Festival

1996
* Nike signs Tiger Woods soon after he gives up his amateur golf status.
* Nike causes controversy with its advertising campaign during the Olympic Games|Summer Olympics in Atlanta, Georgia|Atlanta which features the slogan, "You Don't Win Silver — You Lose Gold." Nike's use of this slogan draws harsh criticism from many sources, including several former Olympic silver and bronze medalists.

1998
* After pressure from lobbying groups Nike and other companies publicly disclose their worldwide factory locations, a first for the garment industry.
** Phil Knight formally commits Nike to strict standards for manufacturing facilities used by Nike, including: minimum age; air quality; mandatory education programs; expansion of microloan program; factory monitoring; and enhanced transparency of Nike's [[corporate social responsibility]] practices.

1999
* [[Bill Bowerman]], co-founder of Nike, dies on Dec. 24 at age 88.

===The 2000s===
2000
*Nike Shox|Nike Shox cushioning/support system is introduced, initially worn by Vince Carter and others on the US Olympic basketball team.

2002
*NikeGO launches, a grassroots initiative to increase physical activity among youths aged 9-15.
*Rap star Nelly releases a chart topping song about Air Force Ones, a brand of Nike shoes.

2003
*Nike acquires once-bankrupt rival Converse (company)|Converse for $305 million on July 9.
*For the first time in the company's history, international sales exceed USA sales, as Nike continues to develop into a global company.
*Nike is named "Advertiser of the Year" by the Cannes Advertising Festival, the first company to earn that honor twice (also 1994) in the festival's 50-year history.

2004
*Phil Knight steps down as CEO and President of Nike, but continues as chairman. Knight is replaced by [[William D. Perez]] as CEO of Nike, effective Dec. 28.
*Nike creates the Exeter Brands Group, a wholly owned subsidiary for athletic footwear and apparel brands for lower price points. Brands include Starter, Team Starter, Asphalt, Shaq and Dunkman.
*Annual revenues exceed $12.3 billion.
*In June, Chinese animator Zhu Zhiqianq, of Xiao Xiao fame, files a lawsuit against Nike for plagiarizing his cartoon stickmen in their commercials. Nike representatives deny the accusations, claiming that the stickman figure lacks originality, and is public domain. Zhu eventually wins the lawsuit, and Nike is ordered to pay $36,000 to the cartoonist.

2005
*Nike reports annual revenue for fiscal year 2005 (ending May 31) of $13.7 billion, a 12% increase over the previous fiscal year.
* Nike comes under fire from independent music fans and apologizes for their use of an easily identifiable Minor Threat album cover slightly modified into a promotional tool for their line of skateboarding shoes.

2006
* William Perez left Nike voluntarily on January 23, 2006. Perez said in the statement that he and Knight "weren't entirely aligned on some aspects of how to best lead the company's long-term growth. It became obvious to me that the long-term interests of the company would be best served by my resignation."
*Mark Parker replaces Perez as CEO. Parker, joined Nike in 1979 and is considered the visionary behind the Nike Air franchise and many other innovations, Nike said, and one of the key executives leading the company's long-term strategic planning.
*Nike Inc. filed a patent infringement lawsuit against Adidas-Salomon AG on February 16 2006, claiming its archrival makes shoes using elements of Nike's SHOX cushioning technology.

==People/Staff==
[[Philip H. Knight]], Chairman of the Board of Directors

[[Mark Parker]], President & Chief Executive Officer, Nike, Inc.

[[Charlie Denson]], President, Nike Brand

===Board of Directors===

John G. Connors

Timothy D. Cook

Jill K. Conway

Ralph D. DeNunzio

Alan B. Graf, Jr.

Douglas G. Houser

Jeanne P. Jackson

Orin C. Smith

John R. Thompson, Jr.

==A Closer Examination of Nike==

[[Nike & Corporate Social Responsibility]]

[[Nike make u-turn on free statement promise]]

[[Nike praised by Oxfam]]

==External Links==
* [http://www.nikebiz.com/ NikeBiz] Nike's corporate / investor website
* [http://niketown.nike.com/ Nike Town] Nike's Full Range of Products.
* [http://www.caa.org.au/campaigns/nike/ The NikeWatch Campaign] Oxfam campaign to pressure Nike for better workers rights
* [http://www.studentsagainstsweatshops.org/about/history.php Anti-sweatshop movement] Anti-Sweatshop student movement begins by focusing on Nike
* [http://pitchforkmedia.com/news/05-06/23.shtml Pitchfork Media News - 6/23/05 Logo Controversy] Indie music review site reporting on the Nike/Minor Threat logo controversy
* [http://www.fairlabor.org/2004report/ FairLabor.org annual report] Fair Labour annaul report looking at how 25 top companies including Nike are performing
* [http://www.ReclaimDemocracy.org/nike/ Information on Kasky v. Nike ] High profile court case

==Notes==

1 {{Note|Revenue}}[http://www.nike.com/nikebiz/nikebiz.jhtml?page=3&item=facts Company overview on nike.com]

2 {{Note|Revenue2}}[http://www.nike.com/nikebiz/nikebiz.jhtml?page=3&item=facts Company overview on nike.com]

Philip Knight

2006-04-26T20:35:03Z

Ifu03592:

http://lcb.uoregon.edu/images/visionaries/phil_knight.jpg

Philip Knight

Philip Knight was born on February 24th, 1938.

He is a co-founder of Nike, Inc and served as its president from 1968 to 1990, excluding the period from June 1983 through September 1984. He was also president between June 2000 and December 2004. Prior to taking up the director's post in 1968, Mr. Knight was a certified public accountant with Price Waterhouse and Coopers & Lybrand and was an assistant professor of business administration at Portland State University. [http://www.nike.com/nikebiz/nikebiz.jhtml?page=7&item=board&ex=parker]

At number 46 on the Forbes World Rich List 2005 [www.Forbes.com], he has made $8.2 Billion since setting up the company 42 years ago.

Knight was named a "Corporate Crook" in Michael Moore's novel Downsize This!. The novel cited the harsh conditions in Indonesian sweatshops, where pregnant women and girls as young as fourteen years old sewed shoes for the company. Moore went to Knight in the hopes of convincing him to fix this problem. That interview can be seen in Moore's film The Big One.

Back to Homepage: [[Nike]]

Philip Knight

2006-04-26T20:34:38Z

Ifu03592:

Bill Bowerman

2006-04-26T20:23:11Z

Ifu03592:

http://www.usatf.org/HallOfFame/TF/images/Bowerman_Bill_01.jpg

Bill Bowerman

Bill Bowerman, born Feburary 19th, 1911 in Fossil, Oregon, died on 24th December 1999

Bowerman graduated from Medford (Oregon) High School, where he played for the state champion football team. When he enrolled at the University of Oregon in 1929, he played football and basketball. He later joined the university's track team, running the 440-yard dash for track coaching legend Bill Hayward.

After he graduated with a business administration degree from the University of Oregon in 1934, Bowerman coached track at various locations around the state of Oregon.

During a trip to New Zealand in 1962, Bowerman became an advocate for jogging after he took part in a jogging club organized by his friend and coaching colleague Arthur Lydiard. Bowerman returned to the USA and wrote a small book entitled "Jogging," which helped ignite the fitness phenomenon in the USA.

In 1964, he entered into a handshake agreement with Phil Knight, who had been a miler under Bowerman in the 1950s, to start an athletic footwear distribution company called Blue Ribbon Sports, later known as Nike, Inc.. Knight managed the business end of the partnership, while Bowerman experimented with improvements in athletic footwear design.

Bowerman is credited with creating the first lightweight outsole shoe from some latex, leather, glue and his wife’s waffle iron. He and Knight each put up $500 and made and sold 330 pairs of the shoes. From those early successes Nike was born and both Bowerman and Knight became larger than life.

Bowerman's design ideas led to the creation of the Cortez training shoe in 1968, which quickly became a top-seller and remains one of Nike's most iconic footwear designs. Bowerman's design inspiration also led to the introduction of the so-called "Moon Shoe" in 1972, so named because the waffle tread was said to resemble the footprints left by astronauts on the moon. Further refinement resulted in the Waffle Trainer in 1974, which helped fuel the explosive growth of Blue Ribbon Sports/Nike.

Bowerman's obsession with shaving weight off his athletes' running shoes was legendary. He believed that custom-made shoes would weigh less on the feet of his runners and cut down on blisters, as well as reduce the overall drag on their energy for every ounce he could remove from the shoe.

In June 1999, Bowerman stepped down as a member of the Nike Board of Directors, a post he held since 1968. In honor of his contributions to the sport of running and to the development of this company, Nike established the Bowerman Foundation. Nike is contributed a $1 million matching-funds program to the foundation, which renovated youth track-and-field facilities around the world through 2005. Along with this track restoration project, Nike saluted Bowerman and his unique spirit with a line of high-performance track-and-field footwear - the Bowerman Series. [http://www.nike.com/nikebiz/nikebiz.jhtml?page=5&item=bill]

Today, the headquarters for Nike is located on Bowerman Drive in homage of the company's co-founder.

Six months after his retirement in 1999, Bill Bowerman died in his sleep on Christmas Eve in his home in Fossil, Oregon. He was 88 years old.

From:[http://www.nike.com/nikebiz/nikebiz.jhtml?page=5&item=bill Nike.com] & [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bill_Bowerman Wikipedia]

Back to Homepage: [[Nike]]

Bill Bowerman

2006-04-26T20:22:24Z

Ifu03592:

Bill Bowerman

2006-04-26T20:22:05Z

Ifu03592:

2006-04-26T15:07:35Z

Ifu03592: /* CSR in Practice */

Nike & Corporate Social Responsibility

2006-04-26T15:05:03Z

Ifu03592: /* CSR in Practice */

Back to Home Page: [[Nike]]

Corporate social responsibility (CSR) is a concept that has blossomed over the last fifteen years. Rather than being narrowly focused on the pursuit of profit at the expense of all else, businesses practicing CSR, should at least in theory, be behaving responsibly in the course of their profit-making, taking into account their economic, environmental and social impacts on society.

However, there is a lot of debate surrounding CSR practice, regarding both to what extent certain companies are living up to their responsible promises and regarding some of the possible ulterior motives involved in practicing CSR.

Reasons leveled at Nike for why they might be practicing CSR, other than just on basic moral grounds include:
* Defending their important public image
* Differentiating themselves from their competitors
* Helping to prevent financially damaging boycotts, strikes, lawsuits, etc
* Appealing to the ethical consumer
* Appealing to the ethical investor
* Appealing to the ethical employee
* Pressure to do so from NGO's, Government or to combat public relations disasters
* Using CSR policies as evidence that they do not need to be regulated any further than they already are at present

== Nikes CSR Policy ==
Nike maintain that their business is built on trust, teamwork, honesty and mutual respect. [http://www.nike.com/nikebiz/nikebiz.jhtml?page=7&item=responsibility] In order for this to be achieved, the company has put in place a set of corporate governance policies and practices and this has been extended in recent times to attempt to include corporate responsibility issues as a central part of their governance system. Nike's codes and policies are outlined below:

===Our Codes and Policies===
Our code of ethics is called Inside the Lines; it defines the standards of conduct we expect of our employees. Every year, all employees are required to verify that they have read and understand Inside the Lines.

We operate a global toll-free Alertline for employees to report in confidence any suspected violations of the law or our code of ethics. Any reported concerns around accounting, auditing or internal control are communicated to the Audit Committee of the Board.

We expect our suppliers to share our standards and to operate in a legal and ethical manner. While Inside the Lines covers the behavior of Nike employees, our Nike Code of Conduct covers contractors who manufacture Nike-branded products. It directs them to respect the rights of their employees, and to provide them with a safe and healthy work environment.

Taken from: [http://www.nike.com/nikebiz/nikebiz.jhtml?page=7&item=responsibility Nike Website]

===Corporate Responsibility Committee===

Jill Ker Conway, Non-Executive Director, Committee Chair

Douglas G. Houser, Non-Executive Director

Jeanne P. Jackson, Non-Executive Director

John R. Thompson, Jr., Non-Executive Director

Established in 2001, the CR Committee of the Board was set up to review significant policies and activities and make recommendations to the Board of Directors regarding labor and environmental practices, community affairs, charitable and foundation activities, diversity and equal opportunity, and environmental and sustainability initiatives. Meetings are held regularly where the Committee meet to discuss these issues. In addition, close to 150 Nike employees work on CR issues as their main function or have CR work included in their workload.

Taken from: [http://www.nike.com/nikebiz/nikebiz.jhtml?page=7&item=responsibility Nike Website]

== CSR in Practice ==

'''Nike’s approach to labour conditions in there contract factories is evolving.'''

The following is taken from Nike's website reflecting how they feel they are performing.

Nike has transformed from a focus on the Code of Conduct to advocating common standards across the industry. They have evolved from outsourcing labour monitoring to relying on a trained team of internal monitors and support for common monitoring platforms such as the “Fair Labour Association.” Furthermore they are growing from a focus on monitoring to a focus on capacity building. From an exclusive focus on factory floor impact to an exploration of ways to help change the industry through transparency and multi-stakeholder collaborations.

These changes are driven by awareness that structural issues, common to the global footwear, apparel and equipment industries affect an individual company’s ability to change conditions in particular factories.

There monitoring processes provide clear issues arising inside factories. What they do not tell us, however, is how those issues are affected by events of external factors. For example, in trying to reduce excessive overtime, we can focus on more effective policing of factories to achieve compliance. But simply focusing on policing does not address the root cause and might take resources away from engaging in broader discussions about why workers in some cases want extra hours. Those are the discussions that may lead to greater and more lasting changes. This kind of root cause analysis requires active listening and engagement in the broader dialogue with civil society, institutions and businesses around supply chain working conditions.
In recent years, we have focused on refining our skills at (a) identifying risk of code compliance (b) uncovering issues and (c) implementing strategies that can be used to drive performance and enable change within Nike internally and on a broader level.
They have become more systematic in identifying non-compliance risk, and they have become increasingly adept at uncovering issues, but despite anecdotal instances of success, they remain deeply challenged – challenged to understand how to measure systematically the impact of there own interventions and challenged by how they play a role in enabling widespread change within the industry, which they now know is critical to facilitating change within there contract supply chain.

One step in responding to this challenge is to reveal there contract factory base. While no one can say with certainty what greater levels of factory disclosure will unleash, they do know the current system of addressing factory compliance has to be fundamentally transformed to create sustainable change. They believe that disclosure of supply chains is a step toward greater efficiencies in monitoring and remediation and in shared knowledge and capacity building that will elevate overall conditions in the industry. No one company can solve these issues that are endemic to the industry.

Transparency also should increase the incentive of brands to work with factories that demonstrate CR excellence. A more thorough description and assessment of Nike’s approach in this area can be found in the FY04 Corporate Responsibility Report.[http://www.nike.com/nikebiz/nikebiz.jhtml?page=29&item=fy04]

Taken from: [http://www.nike.com/nikebiz/nikebiz.jhtml;bsessionid=R12NPVSQU0E3GCQFTBFCF5AKAWMB2IZB?page=25&cat=approach&subcat=compliance Nike Website]

'''A Small but Important Step Forward - Nike Reveals Factory Addresses'''

The following is taken from a news report written by Oxfam, published May 2005

Oxfam Community Aid Abroad welcomes Nike's decision to release its address list of factory
suppliers for Nike-branded products. The release of factory addresses is an important step
forward in terms of transparency and we strongly encourage other brands to follow Nike's
lead. We also encourage Nike to release the addresses of factories making the other brands
which Nike owns, including Converse and the discount sportswear Nike produces for sale in
Wal-Mart stores.

The addresses were made public in April as part of the launch of Nike's latest Corporate
Responsibility Report. Another positive aspect of the report is Nike's openness in admitting
that between 25% and 50% of its supplier factories are:

1. failing to provide workers with one day off in seven

2. paying wages below the relevant legal minimum wage

Nike also acknowledges that the company's business decisions including manufacturing
timelines and pricing may contribute to negative impacts on workers. More information is
needed in order to assess whether Nike's "balanced scorecard" approach to selecting
factories will reduce this problem.
While openness and transparency are important, there is a difference between admitting to
problems and solving them. Oxfam Community Aid Abroad remains concerned that the great
majority of workers producing Nike product are still not paid enough to meet the basic needs
of their dependents and are denied their right to freedom of association.

It is good that Nike acknowledges that trade union rights represent a key challenge for the
company and admits that some suppliers are actively and illegally opposing organising
efforts. However, Oxfam Community Aid Abroad is aware of only a few isolated cases where
Nike has helped increase the space for Nike workers to exercise their trade union rights and
in those cases Nike only acted positively in response to sustained campaign pressure.
On wages, whereas Oxfam believes companies should commit to a living wage, Nike's report
makes it clear that the company does not support this approach.
Nike's moves to increase transparency in its supply chain are welcome. We encourage Nike
to match this with a commitment to ensuring that workers are paid a living wage and with
concrete action to ensure that workers' trade union rights are respected.

Taken from: [http://www.oxfam.org.au/campaigns/nike/newsletters/05_05_NikeWatchNews.pdf Oxfams Website]

'''Giving voice to workers: The Global Alliance’s legacy'''

One of our most important partners in understanding factory worker concerns, and in training for both workers and managers, has been the Global Alliance for Workers and Communities (GA). After five years of operations, its partners collectively chose to end the initiative in December 2004.

The Global Alliance was a partnership of Nike, Gap, the World Bank, the International Youth Foundation (IYF), and other organisations aimed at worker and workplace development. Since its launch in 1999, Global Alliance facilitated interviews with more than 16,000 workers, and launched a number of development projects focused primarily around building better management practices, and worker awareness of health issues.

The Global Alliance interviews and focus groups helped us uncover the kinds of compliance issues that are difficult to bring out in typical audits. For example, a series of worker interviews conducted in Indonesia in 2000-2001 made our compliance teams much more aware of verbal, physical and sexual harassment issues – of particular importance with a workforce that is predominantly young and female. They also helped us gauge overall satisfaction with the work environment.

Their revelations led us to specifically direct factories to institute confidential grievance systems, which do not exist broadly in the industry. The grievance system standard is beginning to take hold, though nearly a third of Nike contract factories audited in fiscal years 2003 and 2004 still have no confidential grievance process in place for workers.
They also led to training as well: During our 2004 fiscal year, Global Alliance trained more than 25,000 managers and workers in more than 60 factories in China, India, Indonesia, Thailand and Vietnam.

The Global Alliance was criticized in some quarters as, at best, irrelevant when compliance issues abound, and, at worst, an end-run around trade unions. We believe this dismissal of the Global Alliance misses a larger point: Though not a perfect effort, the five-year experience with the Global Alliance taught its partners a great deal about worker issues and aspirations, and highlighted some core compliance issues as well (as is clear from the example of harassment issues). We know now that to gain a deeper understanding of a workplace, we must go beyond M-Audit scores and probe under the surface to try to measure worker satisfaction with the workplace. The evolution of our own monitoring tool to now include a strong emphasis on worker interviews is one reflection of Global Alliance’s influence.

Although we were able to gather anecdotal information about some of the positive impacts of the Global Alliance on the workplace, particularly the management training and worker health training, a measurement of actual impacts is still to come. Global Alliance’s ability to expand programming and attract other corporate partners proved limited, which led to the decision to end the initiative.

For more information about the Global Alliance, see [http://www.theglobalalliance.org their Website]. You can also download the 2003 Indonesia reassessment report outlining workers’ views of workplace improvements in Nike contract facilities.

In addition to the Global Alliance training, Nike continues to sponsor a program of worker after-hours education generally aimed at securing a high school equivalency for workers in footwear factories in Thailand, Vietnam, Indonesia and China. In the 2003/2004 school year, 984 workers graduated from one of those programs. Our commitment to worker and workplace development remains. At this point in time we are exploring different ways in which the remaining funds can be utilized in the spirit of the GA – we will report on this in our fiscal year 2005 report.

== The alternative viewpoints ==
http://www.toolness.com/nike/swoosh.jpg33
http://perso.wanadoo.fr/jerome.lafourcade/Documents/Detente/Images/Anti-mondialiste/nike.jpg33

Nike might see themselves as a victim of their own sucess. As one of the biggest manufacturers of sportswear, they are under considerably more scrutiny than many of their competitors, targeted by a broad range of campaigning NGOs and journalists as a symbol of the "Typical Multinational". In Nikes 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 and even publicly apologised for its past wrongdoings last year. However, some criticism continues.

===A Parody for Nike===
The results of an internet search regarding Nike will usually bring up a clever and thought provoking parody by a man called Atul, at http://www.toolness.com/nike high on the list. It ridicules Nike for some of their approaches to manufacturing in the third-world. While the parody, titled: "Nike SweatshopsÃ¢â€žÂ¢ Ã¢â‚¬â€? unlocking the power of poverty", provides no evidence of malpractice, it's sarcastic tone sums-up and reinforces what many people believe goes on.

Atul writes:

<center>"The theme of this parody is the idea that, from the perspective of our current economic system, poverty is a very good thing. Because it increases profit margins, its existence is beneficial to a global economy. In fact, it is in the best interests of multinational corporations and their shareholders to prolong poverty for as long as possible."</center>

The following is a list of accucations made in the parody, which highlight many respected NGO and activist opinions on third-world sweatshops:

* Nike actively seek to keep their sweatshop communities in poverty by
** Setting up schools that purposely provide a low level of education to keep the community low-skilled
** Paying a wage that employees can only just survive off to make sure that they can not save to start their own business, thus keeping a stranglehold on the economy.

* Nike build factories in areas with such high unemployment so employees have no choice but to work for Nike.
** They provide basic facilities for the factory community to further increase the communities dependence on them, so the community will be crippled if Nike leave

* Nike look after investors interests by keeping profit margins high, at the expense of their third-world employees
** Maintaining low third-world wages and poor working conditions to keep profit margins high
** If salaries become to high in the area they're operating in, they pull out, spelling high unemployment and deprivation for the community.

===Poverty===

==Find out for Yourself==

References

Nike & Corporate Social Responsibility

2006-04-26T15:04:39Z

Ifu03592: /* CSR in Practice */

Back to Home Page: [[Nike]]

Corporate social responsibility (CSR) is a concept that has blossomed over the last fifteen years. Rather than being narrowly focused on the pursuit of profit at the expense of all else, businesses practicing CSR, should at least in theory, be behaving responsibly in the course of their profit-making, taking into account their economic, environmental and social impacts on society.

However, there is a lot of debate surrounding CSR practice, regarding both to what extent certain companies are living up to their responsible promises and regarding some of the possible ulterior motives involved in practicing CSR.

Reasons leveled at Nike for why they might be practicing CSR, other than just on basic moral grounds include:
* Defending their important public image
* Differentiating themselves from their competitors
* Helping to prevent financially damaging boycotts, strikes, lawsuits, etc
* Appealing to the ethical consumer
* Appealing to the ethical investor
* Appealing to the ethical employee
* Pressure to do so from NGO's, Government or to combat public relations disasters
* Using CSR policies as evidence that they do not need to be regulated any further than they already are at present

== Nikes CSR Policy ==
Nike maintain that their business is built on trust, teamwork, honesty and mutual respect. [http://www.nike.com/nikebiz/nikebiz.jhtml?page=7&item=responsibility] In order for this to be achieved, the company has put in place a set of corporate governance policies and practices and this has been extended in recent times to attempt to include corporate responsibility issues as a central part of their governance system. Nike's codes and policies are outlined below:

===Our Codes and Policies===
Our code of ethics is called Inside the Lines; it defines the standards of conduct we expect of our employees. Every year, all employees are required to verify that they have read and understand Inside the Lines.

We operate a global toll-free Alertline for employees to report in confidence any suspected violations of the law or our code of ethics. Any reported concerns around accounting, auditing or internal control are communicated to the Audit Committee of the Board.

We expect our suppliers to share our standards and to operate in a legal and ethical manner. While Inside the Lines covers the behavior of Nike employees, our Nike Code of Conduct covers contractors who manufacture Nike-branded products. It directs them to respect the rights of their employees, and to provide them with a safe and healthy work environment.

Taken from: [http://www.nike.com/nikebiz/nikebiz.jhtml?page=7&item=responsibility Nike Website]

===Corporate Responsibility Committee===

Jill Ker Conway, Non-Executive Director, Committee Chair

Douglas G. Houser, Non-Executive Director

Jeanne P. Jackson, Non-Executive Director

John R. Thompson, Jr., Non-Executive Director

Established in 2001, the CR Committee of the Board was set up to review significant policies and activities and make recommendations to the Board of Directors regarding labor and environmental practices, community affairs, charitable and foundation activities, diversity and equal opportunity, and environmental and sustainability initiatives. Meetings are held regularly where the Committee meet to discuss these issues. In addition, close to 150 Nike employees work on CR issues as their main function or have CR work included in their workload.

Taken from: [http://www.nike.com/nikebiz/nikebiz.jhtml?page=7&item=responsibility Nike Website]

== CSR in Practice ==

'''Nike’s approach to labour conditions in there contract factories is evolving.'''

The following is taken from Nike's website reflecting how they feel they are performing.

Nike has transformed from a focus on the Code of Conduct to advocating common standards across the industry. They have evolved from outsourcing labour monitoring to relying on a trained team of internal monitors and support for common monitoring platforms such as the “Fair Labour Association.” Furthermore they are growing from a focus on monitoring to a focus on capacity building. From an exclusive focus on factory floor impact to an exploration of ways to help change the industry through transparency and multi-stakeholder collaborations.

These changes are driven by awareness that structural issues, common to the global footwear, apparel and equipment industries affect an individual company’s ability to change conditions in particular factories.

There monitoring processes provide clear issues arising inside factories. What they do not tell us, however, is how those issues are affected by events of external factors. For example, in trying to reduce excessive overtime, we can focus on more effective policing of factories to achieve compliance. But simply focusing on policing does not address the root cause and might take resources away from engaging in broader discussions about why workers in some cases want extra hours. Those are the discussions that may lead to greater and more lasting changes. This kind of root cause analysis requires active listening and engagement in the broader dialogue with civil society, institutions and businesses around supply chain working conditions.
In recent years, we have focused on refining our skills at (a) identifying risk of code compliance (b) uncovering issues and (c) implementing strategies that can be used to drive performance and enable change within Nike internally and on a broader level.
They have become more systematic in identifying non-compliance risk, and they have become increasingly adept at uncovering issues, but despite anecdotal instances of success, they remain deeply challenged – challenged to understand how to measure systematically the impact of there own interventions and challenged by how they play a role in enabling widespread change within the industry, which they now know is critical to facilitating change within there contract supply chain.

One step in responding to this challenge is to reveal there contract factory base. While no one can say with certainty what greater levels of factory disclosure will unleash, they do know the current system of addressing factory compliance has to be fundamentally transformed to create sustainable change. They believe that disclosure of supply chains is a step toward greater efficiencies in monitoring and remediation and in shared knowledge and capacity building that will elevate overall conditions in the industry. No one company can solve these issues that are endemic to the industry.

Transparency also should increase the incentive of brands to work with factories that demonstrate CR excellence. A more thorough description and assessment of Nike’s approach in this area can be found in the FY04 Corporate Responsibility Report.[http://www.nike.com/nikebiz/nikebiz.jhtml?page=29&item=fy04]

Taken from: [http://www.nike.com/nikebiz/nikebiz.jhtml;bsessionid=R12NPVSQU0E3GCQFTBFCF5AKAWMB2IZB?page=25&cat=approach&subcat=compliance Nike Website]

'''A Small but Important Step Forward - Nike Reveals Factory Addresses'''

The following is taken from a news report written by Oxfam, published May 2005

Oxfam Community Aid Abroad welcomes Nike's decision to release its address list of factory
suppliers for Nike-branded products. The release of factory addresses is an important step
forward in terms of transparency and we strongly encourage other brands to follow Nike's
lead. We also encourage Nike to release the addresses of factories making the other brands
which Nike owns, including Converse and the discount sportswear Nike produces for sale in
Wal-Mart stores.

The addresses were made public in April as part of the launch of Nike's latest Corporate
Responsibility Report. Another positive aspect of the report is Nike's openness in admitting
that between 25% and 50% of its supplier factories are:

1. failing to provide workers with one day off in seven

2. paying wages below the relevant legal minimum wage

Nike also acknowledges that the company's business decisions including manufacturing
timelines and pricing may contribute to negative impacts on workers. More information is
needed in order to assess whether Nike's "balanced scorecard" approach to selecting
factories will reduce this problem.
While openness and transparency are important, there is a difference between admitting to
problems and solving them. Oxfam Community Aid Abroad remains concerned that the great
majority of workers producing Nike product are still not paid enough to meet the basic needs
of their dependents and are denied their right to freedom of association.

It is good that Nike acknowledges that trade union rights represent a key challenge for the
company and admits that some suppliers are actively and illegally opposing organising
efforts. However, Oxfam Community Aid Abroad is aware of only a few isolated cases where
Nike has helped increase the space for Nike workers to exercise their trade union rights and
in those cases Nike only acted positively in response to sustained campaign pressure.
On wages, whereas Oxfam believes companies should commit to a living wage, Nike's report
makes it clear that the company does not support this approach.
Nike's moves to increase transparency in its supply chain are welcome. We encourage Nike
to match this with a commitment to ensuring that workers are paid a living wage and with
concrete action to ensure that workers' trade union rights are respected.

Taken from: [http://www.oxfam.org.au/campaigns/nike/newsletters/05_05_NikeWatchNews.pdf Oxfams Website]

'''Giving voice to workers: The Global Alliance’s legacy'''

One of our most important partners in understanding factory worker concerns, and in training for both workers and managers, has been the Global Alliance for Workers and Communities (GA). After five years of operations, its partners collectively chose to end the initiative in December 2004.

The Global Alliance was a partnership of Nike, Gap, the World Bank, the International Youth Foundation (IYF), and other organisations aimed at worker and workplace development. Since its launch in 1999, Global Alliance facilitated interviews with more than 16,000 workers, and launched a number of development projects focused primarily around building better management practices, and worker awareness of health issues.

The Global Alliance interviews and focus groups helped us uncover the kinds of compliance issues that are difficult to bring out in typical audits. For example, a series of worker interviews conducted in Indonesia in 2000-2001 made our compliance teams much more aware of verbal, physical and sexual harassment issues – of particular importance with a workforce that is predominantly young and female. They also helped us gauge overall satisfaction with the work environment.

Their revelations led us to specifically direct factories to institute confidential grievance systems, which do not exist broadly in the industry. The grievance system standard is beginning to take hold, though nearly a third of Nike contract factories audited in fiscal years 2003 and 2004 still have no confidential grievance process in place for workers.
They also led to training as well: During our 2004 fiscal year, Global Alliance trained more than 25,000 managers and workers in more than 60 factories in China, India, Indonesia, Thailand and Vietnam.

The Global Alliance was criticized in some quarters as, at best, irrelevant when compliance issues abound, and, at worst, an end-run around trade unions. We believe this dismissal of the Global Alliance misses a larger point: Though not a perfect effort, the five-year experience with the Global Alliance taught its partners a great deal about worker issues and aspirations, and highlighted some core compliance issues as well (as is clear from the example of harassment issues). We know now that to gain a deeper understanding of a workplace, we must go beyond M-Audit scores and probe under the surface to try to measure worker satisfaction with the workplace. The evolution of our own monitoring tool to now include a strong emphasis on worker interviews is one reflection of Global Alliance’s influence.

Although we were able to gather anecdotal information about some of the positive impacts of the Global Alliance on the workplace, particularly the management training and worker health training, a measurement of actual impacts is still to come. Global Alliance’s ability to expand programming and attract other corporate partners proved limited, which led to the decision to end the initiative.

For more information about the Global Alliance, see [http://www.theglobalalliance.org Their Website]. You can also download the 2003 Indonesia reassessment report outlining workers’ views of workplace improvements in Nike contract facilities.

In addition to the Global Alliance training, Nike continues to sponsor a program of worker after-hours education generally aimed at securing a high school equivalency for workers in footwear factories in Thailand, Vietnam, Indonesia and China. In the 2003/2004 school year, 984 workers graduated from one of those programs. Our commitment to worker and workplace development remains. At this point in time we are exploring different ways in which the remaining funds can be utilized in the spirit of the GA – we will report on this in our fiscal year 2005 report.

== The alternative viewpoints ==
http://www.toolness.com/nike/swoosh.jpg33
http://perso.wanadoo.fr/jerome.lafourcade/Documents/Detente/Images/Anti-mondialiste/nike.jpg33

Nike might see themselves as a victim of their own sucess. As one of the biggest manufacturers of sportswear, they are under considerably more scrutiny than many of their competitors, targeted by a broad range of campaigning NGOs and journalists as a symbol of the "Typical Multinational". In Nikes 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 and even publicly apologised for its past wrongdoings last year. However, some criticism continues.

===A Parody for Nike===
The results of an internet search regarding Nike will usually bring up a clever and thought provoking parody by a man called Atul, at http://www.toolness.com/nike high on the list. It ridicules Nike for some of their approaches to manufacturing in the third-world. While the parody, titled: "Nike SweatshopsÃ¢â€žÂ¢ Ã¢â‚¬â€? unlocking the power of poverty", provides no evidence of malpractice, it's sarcastic tone sums-up and reinforces what many people believe goes on.

Atul writes:

<center>"The theme of this parody is the idea that, from the perspective of our current economic system, poverty is a very good thing. Because it increases profit margins, its existence is beneficial to a global economy. In fact, it is in the best interests of multinational corporations and their shareholders to prolong poverty for as long as possible."</center>

The following is a list of accucations made in the parody, which highlight many respected NGO and activist opinions on third-world sweatshops:

* Nike actively seek to keep their sweatshop communities in poverty by
** Setting up schools that purposely provide a low level of education to keep the community low-skilled
** Paying a wage that employees can only just survive off to make sure that they can not save to start their own business, thus keeping a stranglehold on the economy.

* Nike build factories in areas with such high unemployment so employees have no choice but to work for Nike.
** They provide basic facilities for the factory community to further increase the communities dependence on them, so the community will be crippled if Nike leave

* Nike look after investors interests by keeping profit margins high, at the expense of their third-world employees
** Maintaining low third-world wages and poor working conditions to keep profit margins high
** If salaries become to high in the area they're operating in, they pull out, spelling high unemployment and deprivation for the community.

===Poverty===

==Find out for Yourself==

References

Nike & Corporate Social Responsibility

2006-04-26T15:03:09Z

Ifu03592: /* CSR in Practice */

Back to Home Page: [[Nike]]

Corporate social responsibility (CSR) is a concept that has blossomed over the last fifteen years. Rather than being narrowly focused on the pursuit of profit at the expense of all else, businesses practicing CSR, should at least in theory, be behaving responsibly in the course of their profit-making, taking into account their economic, environmental and social impacts on society.

However, there is a lot of debate surrounding CSR practice, regarding both to what extent certain companies are living up to their responsible promises and regarding some of the possible ulterior motives involved in practicing CSR.

Reasons leveled at Nike for why they might be practicing CSR, other than just on basic moral grounds include:
* Defending their important public image
* Differentiating themselves from their competitors
* Helping to prevent financially damaging boycotts, strikes, lawsuits, etc
* Appealing to the ethical consumer
* Appealing to the ethical investor
* Appealing to the ethical employee
* Pressure to do so from NGO's, Government or to combat public relations disasters
* Using CSR policies as evidence that they do not need to be regulated any further than they already are at present

== Nikes CSR Policy ==
Nike maintain that their business is built on trust, teamwork, honesty and mutual respect. [http://www.nike.com/nikebiz/nikebiz.jhtml?page=7&item=responsibility] In order for this to be achieved, the company has put in place a set of corporate governance policies and practices and this has been extended in recent times to attempt to include corporate responsibility issues as a central part of their governance system. Nike's codes and policies are outlined below:

===Our Codes and Policies===
Our code of ethics is called Inside the Lines; it defines the standards of conduct we expect of our employees. Every year, all employees are required to verify that they have read and understand Inside the Lines.

We operate a global toll-free Alertline for employees to report in confidence any suspected violations of the law or our code of ethics. Any reported concerns around accounting, auditing or internal control are communicated to the Audit Committee of the Board.

We expect our suppliers to share our standards and to operate in a legal and ethical manner. While Inside the Lines covers the behavior of Nike employees, our Nike Code of Conduct covers contractors who manufacture Nike-branded products. It directs them to respect the rights of their employees, and to provide them with a safe and healthy work environment.

Taken from: [http://www.nike.com/nikebiz/nikebiz.jhtml?page=7&item=responsibility Nike Website]

===Corporate Responsibility Committee===

Jill Ker Conway, Non-Executive Director, Committee Chair

Douglas G. Houser, Non-Executive Director

Jeanne P. Jackson, Non-Executive Director

John R. Thompson, Jr., Non-Executive Director

Established in 2001, the CR Committee of the Board was set up to review significant policies and activities and make recommendations to the Board of Directors regarding labor and environmental practices, community affairs, charitable and foundation activities, diversity and equal opportunity, and environmental and sustainability initiatives. Meetings are held regularly where the Committee meet to discuss these issues. In addition, close to 150 Nike employees work on CR issues as their main function or have CR work included in their workload.

Taken from: [http://www.nike.com/nikebiz/nikebiz.jhtml?page=7&item=responsibility Nike Website]

== CSR in Practice ==

'''Nike’s approach to labour conditions in there contract factories is evolving.'''

The following is taken from Nike's website reflecting how they feel they are performing.

Nike has transformed from a focus on the Code of Conduct to advocating common standards across the industry. They have evolved from outsourcing labour monitoring to relying on a trained team of internal monitors and support for common monitoring platforms such as the “Fair Labour Association.” Furthermore they are growing from a focus on monitoring to a focus on capacity building. From an exclusive focus on factory floor impact to an exploration of ways to help change the industry through transparency and multi-stakeholder collaborations.

These changes are driven by awareness that structural issues, common to the global footwear, apparel and equipment industries affect an individual company’s ability to change conditions in particular factories.

There monitoring processes provide clear issues arising inside factories. What they do not tell us, however, is how those issues are affected by events of external factors. For example, in trying to reduce excessive overtime, we can focus on more effective policing of factories to achieve compliance. But simply focusing on policing does not address the root cause and might take resources away from engaging in broader discussions about why workers in some cases want extra hours. Those are the discussions that may lead to greater and more lasting changes. This kind of root cause analysis requires active listening and engagement in the broader dialogue with civil society, institutions and businesses around supply chain working conditions.
In recent years, we have focused on refining our skills at (a) identifying risk of code compliance (b) uncovering issues and (c) implementing strategies that can be used to drive performance and enable change within Nike internally and on a broader level.
They have become more systematic in identifying non-compliance risk, and they have become increasingly adept at uncovering issues, but despite anecdotal instances of success, they remain deeply challenged – challenged to understand how to measure systematically the impact of there own interventions and challenged by how they play a role in enabling widespread change within the industry, which they now know is critical to facilitating change within there contract supply chain.

One step in responding to this challenge is to reveal there contract factory base. While no one can say with certainty what greater levels of factory disclosure will unleash, they do know the current system of addressing factory compliance has to be fundamentally transformed to create sustainable change. They believe that disclosure of supply chains is a step toward greater efficiencies in monitoring and remediation and in shared knowledge and capacity building that will elevate overall conditions in the industry. No one company can solve these issues that are endemic to the industry.

Transparency also should increase the incentive of brands to work with factories that demonstrate CR excellence. A more thorough description and assessment of Nike’s approach in this area can be found in the FY04 Corporate Responsibility Report.[http://www.nike.com/nikebiz/nikebiz.jhtml?page=29&item=fy04]

Taken from: [http://www.nike.com/nikebiz/nikebiz.jhtml;bsessionid=R12NPVSQU0E3GCQFTBFCF5AKAWMB2IZB?page=25&cat=approach&subcat=compliance Nike Website]

'''A Small but Important Step Forward - Nike Reveals Factory Addresses'''

The following is taken from a news report written by Oxfam, published May 2005

Oxfam Community Aid Abroad welcomes Nike's decision to release its address list of factory
suppliers for Nike-branded products. The release of factory addresses is an important step
forward in terms of transparency and we strongly encourage other brands to follow Nike's
lead. We also encourage Nike to release the addresses of factories making the other brands
which Nike owns, including Converse and the discount sportswear Nike produces for sale in
Wal-Mart stores.

The addresses were made public in April as part of the launch of Nike's latest Corporate
Responsibility Report. Another positive aspect of the report is Nike's openness in admitting
that between 25% and 50% of its supplier factories are:

1. failing to provide workers with one day off in seven

2. paying wages below the relevant legal minimum wage

Nike also acknowledges that the company's business decisions including manufacturing
timelines and pricing may contribute to negative impacts on workers. More information is
needed in order to assess whether Nike's "balanced scorecard" approach to selecting
factories will reduce this problem.
While openness and transparency are important, there is a difference between admitting to
problems and solving them. Oxfam Community Aid Abroad remains concerned that the great
majority of workers producing Nike product are still not paid enough to meet the basic needs
of their dependents and are denied their right to freedom of association.

It is good that Nike acknowledges that trade union rights represent a key challenge for the
company and admits that some suppliers are actively and illegally opposing organising
efforts. However, Oxfam Community Aid Abroad is aware of only a few isolated cases where
Nike has helped increase the space for Nike workers to exercise their trade union rights and
in those cases Nike only acted positively in response to sustained campaign pressure.
On wages, whereas Oxfam believes companies should commit to a living wage, Nike's report
makes it clear that the company does not support this approach.
Nike's moves to increase transparency in its supply chain are welcome. We encourage Nike
to match this with a commitment to ensuring that workers are paid a living wage and with
concrete action to ensure that workers' trade union rights are respected.

Taken from: [http://www.oxfam.org.au/campaigns/nike/newsletters/05_05_NikeWatchNews.pdf Oxfams Website]

'''Giving voice to workers: The Global Alliance’s legacy'''

One of our most important partners in understanding factory worker concerns, and in training for both workers and managers, has been the Global Alliance for Workers and Communities (GA). After five years of operations, its partners collectively chose to end the initiative in December 2004.

The Global Alliance was a partnership of Nike, Gap, the World Bank, the International Youth Foundation (IYF), and other organisations aimed at worker and workplace development. Since its launch in 1999, Global Alliance facilitated interviews with more than 16,000 workers, and launched a number of development projects focused primarily around building better management practices, and worker awareness of health issues.

The Global Alliance interviews and focus groups helped us uncover the kinds of compliance issues that are difficult to bring out in typical audits. For example, a series of worker interviews conducted in Indonesia in 2000-2001 made our compliance teams much more aware of verbal, physical and sexual harassment issues – of particular importance with a workforce that is predominantly young and female. They also helped us gauge overall satisfaction with the work environment.

Their revelations led us to specifically direct factories to institute confidential grievance systems, which do not exist broadly in the industry. The grievance system standard is beginning to take hold, though nearly a third of Nike contract factories audited in fiscal years 2003 and 2004 still have no confidential grievance process in place for workers.
They also led to training as well: During our 2004 fiscal year, Global Alliance trained more than 25,000 managers and workers in more than 60 factories in China, India, Indonesia, Thailand and Vietnam.

The Global Alliance was criticized in some quarters as, at best, irrelevant when compliance issues abound, and, at worst, an end-run around trade unions. We believe this dismissal of the Global Alliance misses a larger point: Though not a perfect effort, the five-year experience with the Global Alliance taught its partners a great deal about worker issues and aspirations, and highlighted some core compliance issues as well (as is clear from the example of harassment issues). We know now that to gain a deeper understanding of a workplace, we must go beyond M-Audit scores and probe under the surface to try to measure worker satisfaction with the workplace. The evolution of our own monitoring tool to now include a strong emphasis on worker interviews is one reflection of Global Alliance’s influence.

Although we were able to gather anecdotal information about some of the positive impacts of the Global Alliance on the workplace, particularly the management training and worker health training, a measurement of actual impacts is still to come. Global Alliance’s ability to expand programming and attract other corporate partners proved limited, which led to the decision to end the initiative.

For more information about the Global Alliance, see http://www.theglobalalliance.org. You can also download the 2003 Indonesia reassessment report outlining workers’ views of workplace improvements in Nike contract facilities.

In addition to the Global Alliance training, Nike continues to sponsor a program of worker after-hours education generally aimed at securing a high school equivalency for workers in footwear factories in Thailand, Vietnam, Indonesia and China. In the 2003/2004 school year, 984 workers graduated from one of those programs. Our commitment to worker and workplace development remains. At this point in time we are exploring different ways in which the remaining funds can be utilized in the spirit of the GA – we will report on this in our fiscal year 2005 report. [http://www.spinprofiles.org/index.php/Nike_%26_Corporate_Social_Responsibility#CSR_in_Practice]

== The alternative viewpoints ==
http://www.toolness.com/nike/swoosh.jpg33
http://perso.wanadoo.fr/jerome.lafourcade/Documents/Detente/Images/Anti-mondialiste/nike.jpg33

Nike might see themselves as a victim of their own sucess. As one of the biggest manufacturers of sportswear, they are under considerably more scrutiny than many of their competitors, targeted by a broad range of campaigning NGOs and journalists as a symbol of the "Typical Multinational". In Nikes 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 and even publicly apologised for its past wrongdoings last year. However, some criticism continues.

===A Parody for Nike===
The results of an internet search regarding Nike will usually bring up a clever and thought provoking parody by a man called Atul, at http://www.toolness.com/nike high on the list. It ridicules Nike for some of their approaches to manufacturing in the third-world. While the parody, titled: "Nike SweatshopsÃ¢â€žÂ¢ Ã¢â‚¬â€? unlocking the power of poverty", provides no evidence of malpractice, it's sarcastic tone sums-up and reinforces what many people believe goes on.

Atul writes:

<center>"The theme of this parody is the idea that, from the perspective of our current economic system, poverty is a very good thing. Because it increases profit margins, its existence is beneficial to a global economy. In fact, it is in the best interests of multinational corporations and their shareholders to prolong poverty for as long as possible."</center>

The following is a list of accucations made in the parody, which highlight many respected NGO and activist opinions on third-world sweatshops:

* Nike actively seek to keep their sweatshop communities in poverty by
** Setting up schools that purposely provide a low level of education to keep the community low-skilled
** Paying a wage that employees can only just survive off to make sure that they can not save to start their own business, thus keeping a stranglehold on the economy.

* Nike build factories in areas with such high unemployment so employees have no choice but to work for Nike.
** They provide basic facilities for the factory community to further increase the communities dependence on them, so the community will be crippled if Nike leave

* Nike look after investors interests by keeping profit margins high, at the expense of their third-world employees
** Maintaining low third-world wages and poor working conditions to keep profit margins high
** If salaries become to high in the area they're operating in, they pull out, spelling high unemployment and deprivation for the community.

===Poverty===

==Find out for Yourself==

References