Menstuff& has information on Nike.
Questions and answers about Nike
Where does Nike produce shoes?
1- During the 1970's, most Nike shoes were made in South Korea and
Taiwan. When workers there gained new freedom to organize and wages
began to rise, Nike looked for "greener pastures." It found them in
Indonesia, China and most recently Vietnam - countries with no
protective labor laws, endless supplies of cheap labor, and
authoritarian leaders who outlaw independent labor unions.
2- By 1992, Nike had eliminated nearly all of their U.S. work
force in favor of low-wage Asian producers.
Why pick on Nike, if all shoe companies are the same?
1- The Asian-American Free Labor Institute in Indonesia says Nike
factory workers file more complaints about wage violations than any
other shoe company.
2- Nike has been in Vietnam for less than two years and already
one factory official has been convicted of physically abusing
workers, another fled the country during a police investigation of
sexual-abuse charges and a third is under indictment for abusing
workers, as reported in the New York Times.
3- Nike, the biggest shoe company in the world, spends $978
million a year on marketing ploys that "empower" women and inner-city
youth to buy overpriced shoes that are made with sweatshop labor.
4- Nike has a responsibility to abide by humane labor practices as
defined by their Code of Conduct which says "in the area of human
rights...in the communities in which we do business - we seek to do
not only what is required, but what is expected of a leader." A
leader would not lower human rights standards to maximize
Aren't the workers happy to have the factory jobs?
1- Workers risk retaliation and further repression by staging
strikes to protest Nike's unfair labor practices. In April 1997,
10,000 Indonesian workers went on strike over wage violation. In the
same month, 1,300 workers in Vietnam went on strike demanding a one
cent per hour raise and last year 3,000 workers in China went on
strike to protest not only low wages, but hazardous working
conditions.
2- If Nike sets up shop in a developing country, great things are
supposed to happen because the workers need jobs. Yes, they need
jobs. What they don't need is physical and verbal abuse by Nike
factory supervisors. What they don't need is to work up to 192
overtime hours per month because they don't even make minimum wage at
the Nike factories in Dongguan Province in China.
Isn't the minimum wage enough to live on in those
countries?
1- If minimum wage was enough, workers would not have to work from
100 - 200 overtime hours per month.
2- The Indonesian government admits minimum wage is only 90% of
subsistence needs for one person.
3- U.S. companies like Coca-cola and Goodyear recognize minimum
wage is not enough. They are in Indonesia paying above minimum wage
and have remained competitive in the global market.
Can Nike afford to pay workers a living wage?
1- Some U.S. companies like New Balance, make most of their shoes
in the U.S. paying workers over 30 times what Nike workers get in
Vietnam. And New Balance still makes a profit.
2- Less than 10 percent of Nike's 978 million dollar marketing
budget could raise the salary of all their factory workers in
3- Nike has projected revenue at 9 billion dollars for 1997 and
the CEO of Nike, Philip Knight is worth 5.2 billion dollars.
G I o b a I E x c h a n g e Phone: 415-255-7296,
(not functioning) or 2017 Mission Street, Ste. 303, San Francisco,
Michael Jordan, Tiger Woods, Kathy Lee
Gifford, Julie Foudy and the World
Jordan's take from Nike dwarfs even that of Woods, since he has been
a pitchman far longer. Nike pays him more in one year than it pays
all the workers, mostly women and children, in all the factories
which made the shoes. Production labor cost for a $70 shoe is about
$2.75, 4%. (1997)
Nike CEO Phil Knight once received $80 million in stock dividends
for the previous three month period after one of its Indonesian
factories was granted a waiver so it did not have to increase the
minimum wage by less than 20 cents per day per worker. It turns out
that just two per-cent of Nike's annual marketing budget would double
the wages of the people making the shoes and raise them above the
poverty level.
Nike shoe production in the Third World -- the
Indonesian workers make $2.46 a day
10,000 Indonesians went on strike to protest wages that are below
subsistence level.
"If I don't work overtime, I can't survive," says Baltazar at PT
Hasi Nike factory in Jakarta. He works an average of 40 overtime
hours a week.
Vietnamese workers make $l.60 a day
1,300 workers at the Sam Yang factory went on strike to demand a
one cent per hour raise in wages. Other issues include excessive and
illegal overtime and compensation for working with hazardous
Chinese workers make $1.75 a day
There is no minimum wage in China and when abuses are discovered,
the whole factory disappears. "The supervisors will get nervous and
move the work to another province. It's impossible to monitor factory
conditions," says Asia Monitor Resource Center in Hong Kong.
You pay over $100 for shoes that cost less than five dollars to
As a consumer, you can change Nike's unfair labor practices.
Write: Nike Inc.
One Bowerman Drive
Beaverton, OR 97005
800-344-6453 (press 3 for comments)
Philip Knight, CEO of Nike is the sixth richest man in America. He
is worth 5 billion dollars and profits off the backs of sweatshop
laborers. (52nd Richest man in the world at 8.2 billion.- ) Phillip Knight, 31 in US, 10.5 billion - ) Phillip Knight, US&24, 9.5 billion, )
Phillip Knight
Nike is the biggest shoe company in the world because it operates
in countries where it is illegal to organize and collectively bargain
for better wages and working conditions.
Nike can afford to pay endorsers like Michael Jordan, Tiger Woods
and Monica Seles a combined total of over 60 million dollars to brand
themselves with the swoosh.
Demand that Nike pays overseas factory workers a living wage for
an eight hour work day.
Vietnam and China should get $3.00 a day and Indonesia should get
$4.00 a day.
For More Information contact Global Exchange: 415-255-7296 or fax
415.255.7498 or
2017 Mission Street, 2nd Floor, San Francisco, 94110 or
Jordan/Nike
Behind the Nike spectacle, there is, of course, the unedifying
reality of underpaid workers, toiling at sub-subsistence wages and
under terrible working conditions to produce highly overpriced shoes
for youth, many of which cannot afford and do not need such luxury
Nike was one of the first major corporations to shift to a mode of
production labelled "post-Fordism" and "flexible accumulation"
(Harvey 1989). Shifting production of its shoes from the U.S. to Asia
in the early 1980s, Nike first set up factories in Taiwan and South
Korea. Both countries had at the time military dictatorships, low
wages, and disciplined work forces. They frequently subcontracted
work to local companies which would then be responsible for such
things as wages, working conditions, and safety. While there were no
established unions, the largely women workers in South Korea began
organizing in response to poor working conditions, humiliating
treatment by bosses, and low wages. At the same time, a democracy
movement began in South Korea and at the first sign of labor unrest
factory managers called in government riot police to break up
employees' meetings. Troops sexually assaulted women workers,
stripping them, and rape them 'as a control mechanism for suppressing
women's engagement in the labor movement,' reported Jeong-Lim Nam of
Hyosung Women's University in Taegu. It didn't work. It didn't work
because the feminist activists in groups like the Korean Women
Workers Association (KWWA) helped women understand and deal with the
The KWWA held consciousness-raising sessions in which notions of
feminine duty and respectability were tackled along with wages and
benefits. They organized independently of the male-led labor unions
to ensure that their issues would be taken seriously, in labor
negotiations and in the pro-democracy movement as a whole (Enloe
1995: 12).
Conditions and wages improved for Korean women workers, but Nike
was in the process of moving production to countries with lower wages
and more control of labor, such as China and Indonesia. During the
1990s, Nike's shoes have thus been produced mostly in Asia where the
average wage paid to their workers is often below the subsistence
level. There was much publicity over Nike's Indonesian sweatshops,
where women would be paid approximately $1.20 per day to produce
shoes in the early 1990s. In
workers in the Sung Hwa
Dunia factory in Serang, Indonesia, went on strike and wages were
raised to $1.80 a day and eventually to $2.20 a day (Kirshenbaum
1996: 23). Under intense pressure from the Clinton administration to
improve working conditions and labor rights, in order not to lose
privileged trading status, the Indonesian government raised the
minimum wage to (a still pitiful) $1.80 an hour and promised that the
military would no longer harass and brutalize workers. But, as
Greider reports, the concessions were largely a charade because
"despite the official decrees, the military kept on intervening in
labor disputes, showing up at the plant gates and arresting strike
activists, herding the women back into the factories. This occurred
22 times within the first month following the supposed reform" (1994:
In addition, the companies often refused to pay the workers even
the legal minimum wage. The response of the Indonesian workers were a
series of wildcat strikes, international campaigns to publicize their
plight, and continued efforts to organize workers. Accordingly, Nike
sought other sites of production, increasing production in China and
then moving to Vietnam where the minimum wage is $30 per month and
they can return to the one dollar plus change a day wages of an
earlier era. Basing his figures on an analysis by Thuyen Nguyen, an
American businessman who studied the conditions of Nike workers in
Vietnam, Bob Herbert wrote in a New York Times op ed piece on
"Nike's Boot Camps," that Nike workers in Vietnam are paid $1.60 a
day while three meager meals cost $2.10 a day, renting a room costs
$6 a month, so that Nike's workers are paid subsistant wages and work
in conditions described as "military boot camps" with widespread
corporal punishment, molestation of women workers, and deteriorating
health of the workers (March 31, 1997: A16). There was so much
negative publicity concerning working conditions in sweatshops
producing Nike gear that the corporation hired Andrew Young to review
its labor practices and working conditions (New York Times, March 25,
1997). When Young returned some weeks later with a report that
whitewashed Nike, they took out full-page ads to trumpet the results,
though generally there was skepticism concerning Young's report and
his inadequate inspection of the Asian worker's
plight.[7]
Consequently, Nike moves production from country to country to
gain ever lower production costs. NAFTA and GATT treaties have made
it even easier for Nike and other global corporations to move
production across the U.S. border and Nike is thus able to move its
production around at will, searching for the lowest labor costs and
most easily exploitable working conditions. Meanwhile, its CEO Philip
Knight earns millions per year, his stock is worth an incredible $4.5
billion, and Jordan, Andre Agassi, and Spike Lee are paid staggering
sums for their endorsements and advertisements (see Herbert 1996).
Their profit margins are enormous: Enloe (1995: 13) estimated that
for a $70 pair of Nike Pegasus shoes, $1.66 $1.19 to
$9.18 $2.82 for administration
and Nike thus pockets $22.95 while their retailer takes
in $32.20. With the Asian financial crisis, the situation of Nike
workers is even more dire. The Village Voice reports that Jeff
Ballinger, director of the workers' rights group Press for Change
"would like to see Jordan make good on his pledge to visit factories
in Southeast Asia where Michaelendorsed products are manufactured. In
a cover story for ESPN. The Magazine, Jordan said, 'I want to go to
Southeast Asia to see the Nike plants for myself... when basketball
is done" (Jockbeat, January 20-26, 1999). Ballinger says that a
Jordan visit would highlight the plight of Nike workers in countries
such as Vietnam and Indonesia that have been hit by the Asian
financial crisis, estimating that "Nike factory wages in Indonesia
have dropped to the equivalent of about $1 a day since the currency
crash-- while the plummeting value of the rupea has translated into
about $40 million in labor-cost savings for Nike" (ibid).
Indeed, Nike engages in superexploitation of both its Third World
workers and global consumers. Its products are not more intrinsically
valuable than other shoes, but have a certain distinctive sign value
that gives them prestige value,[8] that provides its wearers
with a mark of social status, and so it can charge $130-140 per pair
of shoes, thus earning tremendous profit margins. Nike provides a
spectacle of social differentiation that establishes its wearer as
cool, as with it, as part of the Nike/superstar spectacle nexus. Nike
promises transcendence, a new self, to be like Mike, to fly, to gain
respect. It enables the customer to participate in the Nike/Jordan
magic, to Be Like Mike, by purchasing the shoes he sells! As the
Spike Lee/Michael Jordan ad insists, "it's the shoes!" and those who
buy the shoes buy into a life-style, an image, a commodity-spectacle.
But a New York Times writer raised the question: "Does being Mike
entail any responsibilities beyond doing your best on the court?" And
answered: Let's ask Inge Hanson, who runs Harlem RBI, a youth
baseball and mentoring program. She was mugged earlier this year by a
14-year-old and his 10-year-oldhenchboys. After they knocked her down
and took about $60, a mugger kicked her in the face. The next day,
the bruise that had welled up on her left cheek bore the imprint of a
Nike swoosh. It lasted for three weeks and she felt sad thinking she
was probably robbed to finance a fancier pair of Nikes. "But I can't
honestly answer your question," she said. "How could Michael Jordan
possibly know that by endorsing sneakers -- sneakers! -- he was
involved in a crime? And yet, one does wonder if he has any
responsibility to his audience beyond just saying, 'Just Do It!'"
(Cited in Lipsyte 1996).
While Michael Jordan tries to present himself as the embodiment of
all good and wholesome values, he is clearly tainted by his corporate
involvements with Nike in the unholy alliance of commerce, sports
spectacle, and celebrity. His symbiosis with Nike is so tight, they
are so intertwined with each other, that if Nike is tarnished so too
is Jordan (and vice versa -- which is one of the reasons that Hertz
moved so quickly to sever its ties with O.J. Simpson after the
discovery of the murder of his former wife Nicole and her friend Ron
Goldman). The fate of Nike and Michael Jordan is inextricably
intertwined, with Nike taking on Jordan to endorse their products
early in his career, helping make him a superstar known to everyone,
while the Air Jordan product-line helped reverse declining sales and
make Nike an icon of corporate America with a global reach that made
Nike products part of the global popular (Andrews 1995). Thus,
whereas Jordan was no doubt embarrassed by all the bad publicity that
Nike received in 1996, his involvement with the corporation was
obviously too deep to "just say no" and sever himself from this
symbol of a corporate greed and exploitation.
Concluding Remarks
The media figure of Michael Jordan thus has contradictory effects.
While he is a symbol of making it in corporate America, he also is
tarnished by the scandals and negative qualities with which the
corporations to whom he sells himself are tainted, as well as
embodying negative aspects of excessive greed, competitiveness, and
other capitalist values. Moreover, although it is positive for
members of the underclass to have role models and aspirations to
better themselves, it is not clear that sports can provide a means to
success for any but a few. The 1995 documentary Hoop Dreams
brilliantly documented the failed hopes and illusory dreams of ghetto
youth making it in college basketball and the NBA For most would-be
stars, it is a false hope to dream of fame and athletic glory, thus
it is not clear that Jordan's "Be like Mike" is going to be of much
real use to youth. Moreover, the widespread limitation of figures of
the black spectacle to sports and entertainment might also contribute
to the stereotype, as Mercer suggests (1994), that blacks are all
brawn and no brain, or mere spectacular bodies and not substantive
persons. Yet some criticism of Jordan as a basketball player has also
circulated. Amidst the accolades after his announced retirement, some
criticisms emerged of his style and influence on the game. Stating
baldly that "I hate Michael Jordan," Jonathan Chait wrote: Whenever I
declare this in public, I am met with stammering disbelief, as if I
had expressed my desire to rape nuns. But I have my reasons. First,
he has helped to change the culture of sports from one emphasizing
teamwork to one emphasizing individualism. The NBA has contributed to
this by promoting superstars ("Come see Charles Barkley take on
Hakeem Olajuwan!"), but Jordan buys into it, too. Once he referred to
his teammates as his "supporting cast," and in last year's finals he
yelled at a teammate for taking a shot in the clutch moments that he,
Jordan, should have taken--after his teammate made the shot. The
result is a generation of basketball players who don't know or care
how to play as a team. (Slate evening delivery: Tues., Jan. 19,
Chait also complained that Jordan was "the beneficiary of
extremely favorable officiating," that "Jordan has been so spoiled
and pampered by his special treatment that he expects a trip to the
foul line every time an opponent gets near him, and he whines if he
doesn't get it.... The prevailing ethic in American sports used to be
teamwork, fair play, and rooting for the underdog. Michael Jordan has
inverted this ethic" (ibid). Others noted that Jordan was so
competitive and obsessed with winning that he was downright
"predatory," as teammate Luc Longley put it: "Opposing player Danny
Ainge described Jordan as destroying one opponent like 'an assassin
who comes to kill you and then cut your heart out.' Jordan, 'skilled
at verbal blood sport,' is hard on teammates and harder still, even
merciless, in baiting and belittling his nemesis, [Chicago Bulls
general manager] Jerry Krause" (Novak 1999: X3).
Furthermore, his obsession with wealth, highlighted in Spike Lee's
nickname for Jordan -- "Money" -- circulates capitalist values and
ideals, promoting the commercialization of sports and greed, which
many claim has despoiled the noble terrain of sports. Jordan is the
prototypical overachiever, pushing to win at all costs with his eyes
on the prize of the rewards of success and winning. Moreover, as
noted, so far, Jordan has not assumed the political responsibilities
taken on by other athletic idols of his race such as Jessie Owens,
Joe Louis, Jackie Robinson, or Muhammad Ali. As Tour& put
Any cause he might have championed -- from something as morally
simple as supporting the candidacy of fellow North Carolinian Harvey
Gant, who lost two close Senate races against Satan's cousin, Jesse
Helms, to any stand against any sort of American injustice--would
have been taken seriously because it was endorsed by Jordan. Yet as
careful as he has been at vacuuming every possible penny into his
pocket... he has been equally diligent about leaving every bit of
political potential on the table. Couldn't the world's greatest
endorser have sold us something besides shoes? (Village Voice,
January 27-February 5, 1999). Jordan has generally symbolized the
decline of politics and replacement of all social values by monetary
ones that has characterized the turn-of-the-millenium global economy.
Such issues are relevant in assessing the Jordan-effect because
superstar celebrities such as Michael Jordan mobilize desire into
specific role models, ideals of behavior, and values. They produce an
active fantasy life whereby individuals dream that they can "be like
Mike," to cite the mantra of the
Gatorade commercial, and emulate their idol's behavior and values.
Thus, part of the "Jordaneffect" is the creation of role models,
cultural ideals, values, and modes of behavior, and thus scrutiny of
what sort of values and behavior the Jordan spectacle promotes is
relevant to assessing the cultural significance of the
phenomenon.
Because the figures and spectacles of media culture play such an
important role in the culture it is therefore important to develop
critical insight into how media culture is constructed and functions.
In this chapter, I have attempted to theorize the role of the sports
spectacle and in particular the significance of the Jordan/Nike nexus
in postindustrial America and to articulate the importance for media
culture of sports and the representations of a black superstar. I
have tried to provide critical insights into the contradictory
meanings and effects of the sports spectacle, the ways that sports
provides figures and ideologies to reproduce existing values, and the
complex meanings and effects of a superstar such as Michael
Insight into how media culture works and generates social meanings
and ideologies requires a critical media literacy that empowers
individuals and undermines the mesmerizing and manipulative aspects
of the media spectacle (Kellner 1995 and 1998). Critical cultural
studies is thus necessary to help demystify media culture and produce
insights into contemporary society and culture. Reflection on the
Nike/Jordan nexus reminds us that media culture is one of the sites
of construction of the sports/entertainment colossus and of the icons
of contemporary society.
Media culture is also the stage in which our social conflicts are
played out and our social reality is constructed, so the ways that
the dynamics of gender, race, class, and dominant values are played
out is crucial for the construction of individual and society in
contemporary culture. Since Michael Jordan embodies crucial dynamics
of media culture, it is important to understand how the Jordan image
functions, its manifold and contradictory effects, and the ways that
the Jordan sports/entertainment spectacle embodies social meanings.
Since the Jordan adventure is not yet over, his figure remains a
source of fascination that should evoke evaluative scrutiny by
critical cultural studies and social theory.
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__________ (1997b) "Hoopology 101. Professor Todd
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______________________________ (1999) Nike
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*My comments on the sports spectacle and use of
Debord draws on work with Steve Best in our book The Postmodern Turn
(Guilford, 1997). Thanks to David Andrews for providing material and
comments which have helped with the production of this
[1]. On the China and Bosnia references,
see Dan McGraw and Mike Tharp, "Going out on top," U.S. News and
World Report, January 25, 1999: 55. Summing up Jordan's achievements,
Jerry Crowe writes: "His resume includes five most-valuable-player
awards, 12 All-Star appearances, two Olympic gold medals and a
worldwide popularity that filled arenas and boosted the stock of the
companies with which he was affiliated" (Los Angeles Times, January
13, 1999: D1). In addition, he garnered six NBA championship rings,
ten NBA scoring titles (a record); a 31.5 regular-season scoring
average (best of all times), a record 63 points in a playoff game,
5,987 career playoff points (best all time), and made the
game-winning shot a record 26 times during his NBA career. Tributes
included: Indiana coach Bob Knight who mentored the budding superstar
in the 1984 Los Angeles Olympics called Jordan: "the greatest
basketball player ever... the best player involved in a team sport of
any kind"; Coach Pat Riley of the Miami Heat called him "the greatest
influence that sports has ever had."; Jerry West, former NBA
superstar and executive vice president of the
Los Angeles Lakers, called him "the modern day Babe Ruth"; Jason
Williams of the New Jersey Nets sanctified him as "Jesus in tennis
shoes" (ibid), adding to the Jordan religious iconography coined by
Boston Celtics great Larry Bird who marveled "God disguised as
Michael Jordan" after Jordan scored 63 points against the Celtics in
a 1986 playoff game.
[2]. Halberstam, quoted in People, January
25, 1999: 56. In its front page story on Jordan's retirement, USA
Today "employed three 'greats,' five 'greatests,' one 'greatness,'
two 'marvelouses,' three 'extraordinarys,' one 'unbelievable,' one
'unmatched,' two 'awe-inspirings,' two 'staggerings,' one
'superstar'" and a superhybolic "great superstar" (Sports
Illustrated, January 25, 1999: 32). Television talking heads
commenting on Jordan's retirement speculated if he would run for
President or "compete with Bill Gates in the business arena" (ibid),
while in a completely earnest front-page story the Chicago Tribune
suggested that Jordan could be an astronaut (cited in Time, January
25, 1999": 68). But the winner in the Michael Jordan Retirement
Hyperbole Contest is Bill Plaschke: "Hearing that you'll never see
Michael Jordan play competitive basketball again is hearing that
sunsets have been canceled. That star-filled skies have been revoked.
That babies are no longer allowed to smile" (Los Angeles Times,
January 12, 1999: D1).
[3]. Debord's The Society of the Spectacle
(1967) was published in translation in a pirate edition by Black and
Red (Detroit) in 1970 and
another edition
appeared in 1983 and a new translation in 1994, thus, in the
following discussion, I cite references to the numbered paragraphs of
Debord's text to make it easier for those with
different editions to follow my reading. The key texts of the
Situationists and many interesting commentaries are found on various
Web sites, producing a curious afterlife for Situationist ideas and
practices. For further discussion of the Situationists, see Best and
Kellner 1997, Chapter 3.
[4]. For the complex events that led
Jordan to this seemingly bizarre decision, see Smith 1995 and
Halberstam 1999. During 1993, Jordan's gambling habits were
criticized and increasingly the subject of scrutiny, and when his
father was mysteriously murdered there were speculations that the
murder was related to gambling debts, the NBA intensified its
scrutiny of Jordan, and he abruptly quit basketball to pursue a
quixotic and failed minor league baseball career, returning to
professional basketball 18 months later to achieve his greatest
athletic triumphs.
[5]. This line frequently appeared in
interviews upon Jordan's retirement by Mark Vancil who edited the
Rare Air Jordan photography books and has been regularly promoted by
commentators since the mid-1990s. Frank Deford argued in the Sports
Illustrated collector's issue published after Jordan's retirement
that Jordan is not "a creature of color" and transcends the racial
divisions that have so sundered U.S. society. Matthew DeBord has
recently written that Jordan is "trans-racial, the first African
American cultural hero to massively evade blaxploitation by rising
above it, elevating to a zone of rarefied commerce where the only
pigment that anyone worries about is green" (1999). At times in
Jordan's reception, this transcendence of race appears to be taking
place, but such claims ignore the negative press of 1993 and the fact
that African Americans celebrities can easily
become whipping boys as well as poster boys. For a
more nuanced analysis of the stages of Jordan's racial signification,
see Andrews in this volume. For a critique of the oft-cited claim
that Jordan transcends race, see the article by Leon E. Wynter, "The
Jordan Effect: What's race got to do with it?" Salon (January 29,
[6]. Of course, Malcolm X, Martin Luther
King, and the civil rights movement did more to dramatize the plight
of African Americans, but I would argue that sports and entertainment
helped promote the interests of blacks and that the tremendous
achievements of black athletes, music performers, and entertainers
were essential in getting mainstream America to accept and respect
blacks and to allow them into the mainstream -- in however limited
and problematic a fashion.
[7]. For a detailed critique of Young's
report, see the study by Grass 1997.
[8]. On the concept of sign value, see
Baudrillard 1981; Goldman 1992; and Goldman and Papson
Nike:&How cool is exploitation?
Image is a vital to the success of the giant international sports
footwear and apparel corporation Nike. Endorsements by sports
superstars like basketballer Michael Jordan, soccer maestro Eric
Cantona and sprinting ace Cathy Freeman -- to name just a very few --
have made the company's "Swoosh" logo synonymous with "cool" for
millions of young people worldwide. That image would be badly
tarnished if it became widely known that the Nike empire is built on
cheap Third World labour (including child labour), denial of trade
union rights and collaboration with repressive regimes, most notably
the Suharto regime in Indonesia.
Nike Australia's public relations spokesperson, Megan Ryan, was
coy about how much the company spends on marketing and sponsorship
when Green Left Weekly spoke to her.
She refused to disclose how much it pays top athletes to endorse
its products. She said Nike sought to sponsor, and be endorsed by,
the "best athletes possible" as a recognition of their achievements.
The only image Nike sought from association with sports mega-heroes
was to be recognised as an "authentic" sports brand. "Nike is not a
fashion brand", she insisted.
Perhaps Ryan hasn't stood on a city street corner, or in a
suburban shopping centre, to see just how much Nike gear has become
part of youth culture. This is in large part due to the "street cred"
that comes from being associated with the likes of the
larger-than-life Michael Jordan and the outrageous "dunk-punk" Dennis
Rodman, US NBA basketball -- according to one poll, the most popular
sport among Australian young people -- and, indirectly,
African-American fashion and music.
Okay, Ryan finally conceded, there is "some flow-through effect".
In fact, more than 60% of Nike sales are to non-athletes.
To achieve this "flow-through effect" Nike pays Jordan, the jewel
in its endorsement crown, an estimated US$20 million a year to have a
sandshoe named after him. In 1992, the company forked out $250
million on its advertising and promotion budget alone. Nike
advertisements appear in magazines not noted for their sports
content, such as Rolling Stone and the Source, the premier US hip hop
Nike billboards have featured the Swoosh symbol painted by street
graffiti artists, and flying basketballers letting loose with
technical sports terms like: "I'm gonna dunk on your ass". And, of
course, Nike has a home page on the World Wide Web where athletic Web
surfers are urged to "hear Spike Lee talk about the Air Jordan XI,
call 1-800-645-6031" (perhaps Spike jogs?).
Nike has a penchant for sponsoring aggressive young sports people
with a rebel image or who succeed against the odds, reflected in the
Nike slogan "Just Do It". This explains the high profile given to
African-American athletes. Nike's international stable of stars
includes tennis brat Andre Agassi, US basketball stars Dennis Rodman
and Charles Barkley, outspokenly anti-racist French soccer hero Eric
Cantona, world record-holder and 1996 Olympics track sensation
Michael Johnson and the US Olympic team.
Its Australian contingent includes Cathy Freeman, high jumper Tim
Forsyth, marathon runner Steve Monaghetti, test cricketers Shane
Warne, Michael Slater, Ricky Ponting and Glen McGrath, the AFL's
North Melbourne, Melbourne and Fremantle teams, Super League's
Brisbane Broncos, Canberra Raiders and Sydney Bulldogs as well as
sundry individual Murdoch-aligned players, basketball's North
Melbourne Giants, Brisbane Bullets and Adelaide, as well as four
members of the Australian netball team.
For young people under capitalism, especially the poorest and most
discriminated against, one of the few routes out of poverty and
hopelessness is through individual success in sport or music.
In the US, sports people and musicians -- especially black
basketballers and hip hop artists -- are idolised. The outfits of the
sports fields influence street fashion -- the baggy shorts, the
baseball hats, the basketball singlets, the sandshoes -- and this
street fashion in turn is reflected on the hip hop stage.
African-American and minority youth culture influences white youth in
the US, and youth throughout the world. It is no coincidence that
working-class Australian kids from migrant backgrounds keenly
identify with hip hop and basketball.
The "flow-through effect" of all this prestige and street cred
helps Nike sell hundreds of thousands of shoes at between $120 and
$230 a pair to many young people who can ill afford them. In 1990,
Jesse Jackson and the civil rights group Operation PUSH charged that
Nike sold more than 40% of its shoes to members of the black and
minority communities, yet little of that income remained in the
communities. PUSH was outraged at reports of African-American youth
killing each other to steal shoes that they could not afford, saying
that Nike targets poor urban kids in its hard sell. Surveys show that
77% of teenage men in the US want to wear Nikes. More than half of
all Nike's sales and 75% of its basketball shoe sales are to people
At the time, Nike denied that it singled out young, poor, minority
youth but "we do sell to psychographic segments", a spokesperson told
Sports Illustrated. "Such as people who love only basketball. We sell
to passions and states of mind, not by age, address or ethnicity."
Despite a ban on the use of the word "fashion" by Nike execs, a
spokesperson conceded that Nike makes "shoelaces longer because of
lacing styles favoured by the kids. All the kids leave the tags on
certain shoes, so we've made the tags look nicer."
A sports shop owner in predominantly black Newark was more
straightforward: "Most of the people in this store, their lives are
shit, their homes in the projects are shit, and it's not like they
don't know it. There's no drop-in centre around here any more, and no
place to go that they can think of as their own. So they come to my
store. They buy these shoes just like other kinds of Americans buy
fancy cars and new suits. It's all about trying to find some status
in the world."
But this "cool", "rebellious" and aggressive image, with its
subliminal theme of overcoming an unfair society through effort and
commitment, is a cruel, multimillion-dollar hoax.
Founder Phil Knight's Nike empire, worth US$5 billion according to
Fortune magazine, has been built over three decades on advertising
hype and exploiting Third World labour, poor working conditions,
denial of trade union rights and collaboration with repressive
regimes. Nike's corporate motto of "enhancing people's lives
through sports and fitness" does not extend to workers toiling in its
Third World sweatshops.
Nike began in 1962 as Blue Ribbon Sports. From the beginning its
strategy was based on outsourcing production to low-wage Asian
countries, first to Japan. When wages improved there, Nike operations
shifted to South Korea and Taiwan. Indonesia is now Nike's main
production centre, where 120,000 workers receive a paltry A$2.80 a
day. Human rights organisations charge that child labour is not
uncommon. A bottom-of-the-line pair of Nike basketball boots on sale
in Australia would cost an Indonesian worker 40 days' wages.
Nike's operations moved to Indonesia (as well as China, Thailand
and, most recently, Vietnam) from South Korea in the late '80s after
rising worker militancy forced Seoul to permit workers to organise.
The Indonesian dictatorship promised low wages and an environment
where strikes are not allowed and trade unions independent of the
regime are forbidden.
Attempts to organise to improve conditions are met with
repression. "Employers always call the police, and they come and
interrogate the workers", Apong Herlima of the Indonesian Legal Aid
Foundation told a reporter in March. "Then the workers are
Last October, Tongris Situmorang, a worker at a Nike factory in
Serang, was sacked and then locked in a store room and questioned by
military goons for five days after leading a strike demanding payment
of the legal minimum wage.
Nike's carefully constructed image has taken a battering in the US
in recent weeks as human rights and social justice activists have
highlighted Nike's role in exploiting Indonesian workers. Former Nike
worker Cicih Sukaesih toured the US in July. Sukaesih attempted to
meet with Michael Jordan in Chicago and Phillip Knight at the
company's head office in Portland, Oregon, without success. While in
Portland, she tried on a Nike shoe for the first time in her
Sukaesih said she wanted to ask Jordan why is he accepting
millions of dollars from a company that so blatantly takes advantage
of its cheap labour force. "Michael Jordan, Andre Agassi and Spike
Lee make us forget the real heroes behind the Nike image", Sukaesih
told the San Francisco Bay Guardian. "They are the labourers
faced with forced overtime, minimum-wage violations, illegally low
training wages, and abusive employers in countries such as China,
South Korea and Indonesia to which Nike has contracted its
manufacturing."
Sukaesih said that in the Jakarta factory where she worked in
1992, supervisors would beat and yell at workers to make them work
faster and refuse to let them go to the toilet. They were paid below
the government minimum wage and forced to do unpaid overtime. When
the company began to deduct money from workers' pay for lunch, she
led a strike of 6500 workers.
The workers won a pay increase and free meals, but a month later
Sukaesih was detained and interrogated by police and later she and 24
others were sacked. She remains on a blacklist that has kept her
unemployed ever since.
Sukaesih's US tour is being sponsored by a coalition called the
Working Group on Nike. It is demanding that Nike allow independent
monitoring of its factories by Indonesian human rights groups, that
Nike allow workers to organise free trade unions in its factories,
that workers be paid a living wage and that Nike stop using child
labour. The coalition is planning monthly North America-wide pickets
of Nike retail outlets beginning September 14.
While there is no similar campaign in Australia, Jo Brown,
spokesperson for Action in Solidarity with Indonesia and East Timor,
told Green Left Weekly that Australian activists should do all
in their power to support the movement for democracy in Indonesia to
bring an end to the Suharto regime which allows such exploitation and
repression.
Source: From: Archives, Green Left Weekly issue #244
28 August 1996,
Nike Refuses to Remove “Dope” and
“Get High” T-Shirts From Boston Window Display
Nike is refusing Boston Mayor Thomas M. Menino’s request that
the company remove a window display with T-shirts that say
“Dope” and “Get High” in one of their stores.
The mayor asked the Niketown store in Boston’s Back Bay
neighborhood to remove the T-shirts, saying they contain drug
references and profanity that “are out of keeping with the
character of Boston’s Back Bay, our entire city, and our
aspirations for our young people…not to mention common
sense,” the Boston Herald reports. The shirts also feature pill
bottles, according to the article.
In a statement, the company said, “In no way does Nike
condone the use of banned or illegal substances. This is about sport
and being authentic to action sports. The shirts are part of an
action sports campaign, featuring marquee athletes using commonly
used and accepted expression for performance at the highest level of
their sport, be it surfing, skate or BMX.”
Nike can't Possibly pay its Workers a
Minimum Wage, Much Less a Living Wage
The following is a composite view of some of the commitments Nike has
or has had with celebrities:
Andre Agassi - tennis
Charles Barkley - NBA
Eric Cantona, anti-racist French soccer hero
Dale Earnhardt Jr. -stock cars
LeBron James - King James - $90mil 7 years, starting in
($12,857,142/year.)
Michael Johnson, world record-holder and 1996 Olympics track
sensation and US&Olympic team.
Michael Jordan - NBA -
Manny Pacquiano - boxer -
Dennis Rodman - NBA
Maria Sharapova - tennis
Tiger Woods signed in 1996 $20mil a year for 10 years. 8/25/99
BBC&News reported
and said Nike signed him in 1996 for a five year contract of $40M
(Nike stepped into the breach and now pays Woods $18m a year for the
next five years, while the deal with Titleist was "restructured" to
reflect his new commitments.)
Michigan State, Georgetown, Califonrnia and the American East
Conference
Its Australian contingent includes
Cathy Freeman,
high jumper Tim Forsyth,
marathon runner Steve Monaghetti,
test cricketers Shane Warne, Michael Slater, Ricky Ponting and Glen
the AFL's North Melbourne, Melbourne and Fremantle teams,
Super League's Brisbane Broncos,
Canberra Raiders and Sydney Bulldogs
as well as sundry individual Murdoch-aligned players,
basketball's North Melbourne Giants,
Brisbane Bullets and Adelaide,
four members of the Australian netball team.
With all of those commitments (contracts), how could Nike possibly
pay its workers a living wage?
*&&&&*&&&&*
I gave all the clothing I had with the Nike logo on it to the
Menstuff& is a registered trademark of Gordon Clay
&, Gordon Clay