Thread: Nike and Thailand, part saang

The other thread is so long and meanders over so many topics, I thought I'd start a new thread and focus on the specific issue of Nike and Thailand.

Here's some information I dug up from the internet. http://www.nosweat.org.uk/sections.p...ticle&artid=31

Some facts about Nike, Nike and Thailand

Phil Knight, Nike's founder and CEO, is now worth $12.3 billion.

Also, Nike sneakers made in China by young women paid 20 cents an hour arrive in the U.S. with a total customs value of $14.61. That $14.61 includes every conceivable expense - the materials, labour, shipping, and the profit to Nike's contractor in China. Nike then turns around and sells the sneakers in the U.S. for $135, which represents a 924 percent mark-up!

Nike has consistently moved production of its sneakers to wherever wages are lowest and workers' human rights are most brutally repressed. In 1990 more than half of Nike's sneakers were made in South Korea. As South Korea became a democracy and South Korean workers fought for wage increases, Nike shifted production to Indonesia and China. As Indonesia moved towards democracy in 1997-98, Nike started to reduce production there, moving that production to Vietnam and China. According to Nike's 2001 Annual report, in the 2001 fiscal year 40% of Nike's shoes were made in China, 31% in Indonesia and 13% each in Thailand and Vietnam. Only 1% each were made in Italy, South Korea and Taiwan.

In the great majority of Nike contract factories full-time wages are equal to or slightly above the local legal minimum wage. In the industrial zones of China, Vietnam, Thailand and Indonesia the legal minimum is well below what is needed to meet the basic needs of a small family.

Research conducted by Oxfam Community Aid Abroad in July 2001 confirmed that the majority of Indonesian Nike workers who are parents are forced by their financial circumstances to live apart from their children. Workers whose home villages are within a few hundred kilometres of their factory are usually able to see their children once a month. Workers from more distant villages are only able to see their children three or four times a year.

In 1997 Nike was severely embarrassed when the New York Times reported that workers in the gluing section of a Nike contract factory in Vietnam were being exposed to the toxic gas Toluene at more than one hundred times the Vietnamese legal limit.

Nike has employed staff with a background in public relations to manage its factory monitoring program, and they have put in place a scheme which looks good on paper but which in practice achieves very little.
Nike's main monitoring program involves the auditing firm PriceWaterhouseCoopers visiting each factory once each year. Nike calls this independent monitoring, but it is more accurate to call it company-controlled monitoring. PriceWaterhouseCoopers (PwC) have been selected by Nike, implement a monitoring program designed by Nike, and report their findings to Nike on a confidential basis.

Workers at VietNam Nike shoe manufacturing plants make on 20 cents an hour or $1.60 per day. The workers told Vietnam Labor Watch that the cost of three meals per day in Cu Chi is about $2. Many of them skipped meals or receive extra financial assistance from their families. During the first three months of employment, all workers received $37 per month which is below the minimum wage of $45 per month in Vietnam.

Here's a letter from Thai workers to the UN in 2002

Case Study 4. Nike in Thailand, 2002

Letter from Bed and Bath Prestige Ltd of Bangkok, Thailand to UN Officials, 9 December 2002

We, the workers of Bed and Bath Prestige are requesting of officials from the United Nations to call on the Government of Thailand to involve itself in our case and end our suffering.
Our company, Bed and Bath Prestige, was a highly profitable enterprise operating almost a decade. Bed and Bath produced children's apparel for such corporate giants as Nike, Levi's, Adidas and Reebok. The management and shareholders of Bed and Bath grew very wealthy over the years from our labour. Then, on October 10, 2002 suddenly and without notice our factory was shut down. This was done in violation of Thai law and international standards in that we were not paid any compensation, nor were we paid our wages for the last period of operations. Bed and Bath, Nike, Adidas and others have profited off of our labour without paying us our salaries or our compensation. This is unjust!

Since October 10, we who number almost 400 workers have been protesting peacefully outside the Ministry of Labour. We have marched on the Nike offices as well as the US Embassy here in Bangkok. The police have issued an arrest warrant for our two principles bosses, Mr Chaiyaphat Photikamjorn and Ms. Uayporn Songpornprasert, but efforts to locate these two have been very poor and totally unproductive. National and international authorities have claimed "sympathy" for our plight, but have done nothing to help us. They wish we would simply go away, but we cannot and will not let this injustice stand.

We have a very clear-cut legal case. We are entitled to our back wages and our compensation. If we were in wealthy or prominent positions the Government of Thailand and the police would have resolved this situation immediately. But we belong to the poor and invisible class of workers whose rights are so often violated and who are too often forgotten by our Government and international authorities. We ask the United Nations and other international bodies to call on the Government of Thailand, Nike, Levi's, Reebok and Adidas to help us.

The Government of Thailand makes claims about the equal treatment of all before and under the law. The corporations we produce for, particularly NIKE, spend millions in P.R campaigns bragging of their respect for workers and just working conditions. In our case this has been a sham. Our working conditions were atrocious. Our drinking water was laced with amphetamines and overtime was routinely forced on us around the clock, all in the name of more and more production while we saw little in return. Now, that Bed and Bath has shut down the law of the country has not been followed.

The law as pertains to back wages and compensation when a business shuts down in Thailand is very clear. The Shareholders and Board of Directors who grew so wealthy off of our labour continue to operate as shareholders and officials in other Bangkok companies, often producing for the same corporate clients as Bed and Bath! How can this stand when they have not met their responsibilities to us?

We call on you of the United Nations to intervene with the Government of Thailand as well as Nike and others to correct this unjust situation and prove that the law of Thailand and international law applies to all.

Sincerely, The workers of Bed and Bath Prestige Co, Ltd. Bangkok, Thailand

From another site I learned that factories in Thailand (at least in 1999) used "temp workers"

Temporary workers

There are about 200 temporary workers in the factory. After 4 months they are dismissed and mostly rehired. The labour law does not stipulate that you can't rehire the same person again. They are paid per hour. They work only 8 hours per day and no overtime, they get paid 21 Baht ($US0.55*) per hour. They are not entitled to any benefits, do not have any security of employment. The workers I am talking to would like to have this question raised with Nike.

Good stuff, Maynard.

The most current information I saw was from 2003, there may have been improvements since then, though I suspect they would be predominantly in image only.

Cool. I knew that the site I was visiting was attacking Nike, though that doesn't mean they aren't correct to be doing so, just as you can often get more accurate news from a site which is attacking Bush (say, as pertains to WMDs in Iraq…), than from more official sources such as corporate News programs or statements from businesses in their own defense (such as in the Case of Unilever after poisining an area of India with muercury dumping).

I actually got my informtion from a half dozen sites. The only way to decide which side is telling the truth is to how they compare to one another.

Added after 13 minutes:

I checked those sites and I'm sure there's material in there somewhere addressing these specific issues, but I couldn't latch onto it myself. In other words, there was tons of information, alot of it corporate speak, and it's very formal and academic, but I didn't see, for instance, anything in which specific allegations against Nike have been addreesed or refuted.

If you could be more specific or quote some of the information in a post.

Added after 21 minutes:

I did some looking myself for "other sources," just by plugging a Google search that was less biased in its wording. I discovered the "Nike Villiage" (micro-loan) information in a Nike press release. I think this gives a rosy impressioni far from the earlier material I quoted. It will be interesting to discover how Nike Villiage progressesn, and to know what these "micro loans" are all about.

It seems as though these projects are just now being implemented, possibly because of public preasure, perhaps after decades of probably abuse.

Nike Village
In Thailand, Nike has renewed its partnership with the Population and Community Development Association (PDA) to expand the Nike Village Development Project (Nike Village) in the Chakkarat district, near Nakhon Ratchasima province through July 31, 2006. PDA is helping build networks of smaller factories in rural areas – enabling more families to stay united because they are able to stay home and find meaningful work.

While Nike contract factories utilize a number of remote stitching centers in Thailand, the Nike Village is the only one where local manufacturing is complemented by local enterprise development via micro loans.

During Nike Village phase one, Nike donated US$200,000 and worked with PDA and Nike contract manufacturing partner Union Footwear (UF) to create a community development project in Chakkarat to provide jobs and reduce migration to Bangkok. Through the creation of small stitching centers in the community, Nike Village offers about 500 villagers, primarily women, the opportunity to return to their homes and families from jobs once held in Bangkok. Phase two will focus on income generation, education and individual empowerment as well as the continuation of projects initiated in phase one of the program. In addition to micro loans, components of phase two will include: a mobile AIDS unit; environmental reforestation to promote forest conservation; school lunch programs; mini-farms that produce high-quality products via the utilization of limited natural resources available; sports activities and facilities; and development and training programs for women.

Added after 28 minutes:

This accusation seems persuasive. How does Nike respond to this?

Steelworkers and Jobs With Justice Call on Nike to End Systematic Labor Rights Violations


WASHINGTON - September 20 - Jobs With Justice and United Steelworkers of America representatives led a delegation today that called on Nike (NYSE: NKE) at its annual meeting to end what the organizations contend is a systematic violation of workers’ fundamental rights. They criticized the Company’s ongoing devastation of Canadian workers and communities through plant closures and drastic downsizing. They also criticized Nike for its continued failure to police some of its Asian contractors’ labor practices.

A small group of organized labor activists and officials rallied and distributed handbills outside of Nike’s annual meeting, held at the Oregon Convention Center. The group included representatives from JWJ, USWA, the Oregon AFL-CIO, the Communication Workers of America and the Portland Association of Teachers. The group then attended the meeting, and representatives from USWA and JWJ addressed Nike officials and other attendees during the question and answer session.

The labor activists were there to protest Nike’s continued pattern of workers’ rights violations. They specifically raised concerns about Nike’s ongoing restructuring of its operations in Canada.

Nike acquired the assets of what is now its wholly owned subsidiary Bauer Nike Hockey, including three Canadian union-represented facilities, in 1995. The Company announced in late 2003 that it will close two of these facilities and drastically downsize the third, a USWA represented facility in Quebec. By carrying out this restructuring, Nike will virtually eliminate union representation among its over twenty-four thousand employees around the globe.

The United Steelworkers of America has obtained information through international labor allies that Nike is outsourcing Bauer work previously done at these Canadian facilities to a Thai contractor that is forcing employees to work overtime, exposing workers to excess heat and violating local wage laws.

“Nike eliminating the jobs of hundreds of skillful, dedicated, unionized employees- many with decades of service- is a tragedy in itself. The fact that these are some of the massive global corporation’s only unionized employees raises serious questions about Nike’s willingness to allow workers to freely associate and form unions,” said USWA Quebec District Director Michel Arsenault. “Nike’s outsourcing of Bauer work to an abusive contractor is further indication of the Company’s continuing failure to respect workers’ basic rights.”

“Nike should rethink its unfair, anti-union restructuring in Canada and show that it is not hell bent on winning a race to the bottom,” added Arsenault.

"Nike apparently purchased Bauer in 1995 with a predatory strategy- extract a brand name and outsource the work,” said Brad Witt, Secretary Treasurer of the Oregon AFL-CIO. “In executing that strategy, Bauer Nike is destroying hundreds of jobs and devastating communities.”

“We expect local companies to be responsible citizens. We have been involved in demanding that Nike meet some basic standards in its labor practices for many years: this is just the latest evidence that Nike is still not accountable to the workers and communities in which it operates,” said Margaret Butler, Director of Portland Jobs with Justice.

USWA is a diversified union representing over 500,000 workers throughout the US and Canada primarily in the metals, manufacturing and mining industries as well as the service sector.

Portland Jobs With Justice is a coalition of over 75 unions and community groups working together in a campaign for workers’ rights.

###

Saang <-- WTF is that supposed to mean?

Nike pay English language consultants 2,000 an hour for custom written courses so they are OK by me! :smile:

Originally Posted by discus2000

The Nike Village projecct started in 1999. Read the pdf for more info

It sounds like too little too late, but it SOUNDS on the surface like a definite move in the right direction.

Thai's pronounce it like 'song' too.

I was just being pedantic as usual, PB.

In 1990 more than half of Nike's sneakers were made in South Korea. As South Korea became a democracy and South Korean workers fought for wage increases, Nike shifted production to Indonesia and China. As Indonesia moved towards democracy in 1997-98, Nike started to reduce production there, moving that production to Vietnam and China. According to Nike's 2001 Annual report, in the 2001 fiscal year 40% of Nike's shoes were made in China, 31% in Indonesia and 13% each in Thailand and Vietnam. Only 1% each were made in Italy, South Korea and Taiwan.

Ok, so South Korea prospered, employer demand for Korean labor rose, wages rose and so menial shoe factory jobs moved elsewhere and Korea continues to prosper. Now Korea makes cars and electronic equipment and is known for loads of broadband internet. It would be such a shame if Thailand suffered this awful fate, eh?

You are like the Rush Limbaugh of economids.

Added after 43 minutes:

Originally Posted by PKB

In 1990 more than half of Nike's sneakers were made in South Korea. As South Korea became a democracy and South Korean workers fought for wage increases, Nike shifted production to Indonesia and China. As Indonesia moved towards democracy in 1997-98, Nike started to reduce production there, moving that production to Vietnam and China. According to Nike's 2001 Annual report, in the 2001 fiscal year 40% of Nike's shoes were made in China, 31% in Indonesia and 13% each in Thailand and Vietnam. Only 1% each were made in Italy, South Korea and Taiwan.

Ok, so South Korea prospered employer demand for Korean labor rose, wages rose and so menial shoe factory jobs moved elsewhere and Korea continues to prosper. Now Korea makes cars and electronic equipment and is known for loads of broadband internet. It would be such a shame if Thailand suffered this awful fate, eh?

It doesn't say that "employer demand for Korean labor rose," it says that as South Korea was becoming a democracy workers fought for wage increases. No it wouldn't be a good thing if a multinational fled Thailand because Thai workers demanded wage increases. It would just be another tragedy for humanity and triumph for greed and corruption. The point was that Nike favored working with dictatorships because workers under a dictatorship have less rights (and aren't in a position to fight for better wages).

As to Nike Villiage. I do think it could be a compbination of a token gesture and a smoke screan, which nevertheless does do some comparative good. Because of bad PR Nike may have stood to lose a lost of customers. Do a little something for one community, create some spin about it, claim lofty intentions, but only do the minimal necessary.

Maybe not. Maybe they had a change of heart. But I think the whore thing could fall under the guise of sheer, cunning practicality and business sense.

Added after 9 hours 45 minutes:

Originally Posted by Marmite the Dog

Thai's pronounce it like 'song' too.

I was just being pedantic as usual, PB.

It's like "song" but with a rising tone. The "song" sound can mean a lot of other things depending on the tone, including "ghost" or "demon."

I'm kind of obsessed with learning Thai, including reading and writing, and I'm making some progress. It's hard but I keep chipping away at it.

Anyone know what my Bush cartoon says?

It doesn't say that "employer demand for Korean labor rose," it says that as South Korea was becoming a democracy workers fought for wage increases. No it wouldn't be a good thing if a multinational fled Thailand because Thai workers demanded wage increases.

It's not what it says, but it is what I say. What was going on in 1990? South Korea was prospering. Wages were going up, people were moving into different work sectors, employees were becoming more skilled, and those that weren't found it more profitable to be in the menial service sector than in the menial production sector. Thus Nike would have to raise wages to attract labor. Logical move? Go to Thailand. South Korea ain't crying for menial factory work!

One day Nike will leave Thailand, and the Thai workers can say, "Good riddance!" and drive to their new office jobs.

I don't see anything wrong with worker prosperity bringing down an industry.

Originally Posted by PKB

It doesn't say that "employer demand for Korean labor rose," it says that as South Korea was becoming a democracy workers fought for wage increases. No it wouldn't be a good thing if a multinational fled Thailand because Thai workers demanded wage increases.

It's not what it says, but it is what I say. What was going on in 1990? South Korea was prospering. Wages were going up, people were moving into different work sectors, employees were becoming more skilled, and those that weren't found it more profitable to be in the menial service sector than in the menial production sector. Thus Nike would have to raise wages to attract labor. Logical move? Go to Thailand. South Korea ain't crying for menial factory work!

One day Nike will leave Thailand, and the Thai workers can say, "Good riddance!" and drive to their new office jobs.

There are a lot of problems with your rosy, justify-corrupt-corporate-policies-at-all-costs scenario. First, you say that “wages were going up.” Well, apparently the wages weren’t going up a the factories contracted by Nike, otherwise the workers wouldn’t be organizing and demanding higher salaries. I like how you do a back flip to say that Nike would have to raise wages to attract workers, as opposed to the more honest portrayal, which is that Nike refused to meet the demands of the newly-liberated-from-authoritarianism worker’s for a living wage.

In 1989 more than half of Nike's sneakers were made in South Korea, which was then ruled by an authoritarian government. As South Korea became a democracy and workers gained wage increases and union rights, Nike shifted production to Indonesia and China. Barely 2% of Nike's sneakers are now made in South Korea. In 1996, when Indonesia was ruled by the dictator Suharto and the only legal union was run by the government, 38% of Nike's sneakers were Indonesian-made. Since then Suharto has fallen, Indonesia has taken its first faltering steps toward democracy and workers have been able to form their own unions.

http://www.oxfam.org.au/campaigns/ni...indonesia.html

Also note that shoes are still being manufactured in South Korea, but are now made by union garnered living wages unacceptable to the Nike bottom line.

If a shoe has a label saying that is was made in South Korea or Taiwan, you can be confident that the workers who made it are receiving a living wage (because those workers struggled for decent wages through their union -- an option denied to workers in some of the countries where Nike produces).

http://www-personal.umich.edu/~lorma.../nike101-6.htm

Interesting.

Most of the countries where sweatshops are located have increasing -- not decreasing -- poverty. Nike cites South Korea and Taiwan as countries where Nike investment led the way out of poverty. However, entirely different forces were behind the increasing wealth of those countries, forces not apparent in the other countries where Nike produces.

http://www-personal.umich.edu/~lorma.../nike101-6.htm

And more…

Taiwan and South Korea are two of the "Asian Tiger" economies that have been the marvel of the industrialized world and the envy of other developing countries. In the 1970s and 1980s, they rose to prominence as Newly Industrialized Countries (NICs) thanks to strictly authoritarian governments that suppressed any sign of labor activity. Their regimes kept wages low and profits very high, in part through their willingness to permit the highest rate of industrial accidents and deaths in the world; at one point in the 1980s it was calculated that 2.26 percent of South Korea's labor force sustained serious injuries or died at work every year. Taiwanese employers vied with the South Koreans for the dubious distinction of requiring the longest workweek in the world.
Working people fought back. In 1988, after a nominally democratic government was installed in South Korea, there was a wave of strikes and fourteen hundred unions were formed. Korean companies retaliated with a vengeance, using well-organized gangs of thugs called Kusidae to terrorize workers and drive out the new unions. One American company, a subsidiary of the Tandy Corporation (the corporation that makes Radio Shack equipment), used these anti-labor squadrons to subdue its female workforce. Groups of male Kusidae assisted male managers in the factory in a brutal attack on women union leaders; several women were hung upside down, beaten, and sexually molested; twenty-three others were physically abused in other ways until they signed resignation letters.
Such viciousness was a sign of business "realism"-that is, knowing what to do to boost profits and promote growth in an increasingly competitive world. After four decades of political and labor repression, pressures from the restive working and middle classes eventually pushed both Taiwan and South Korea toward democracy. The new labor unions negotiated successfully for substantial raises that more closely reflected the productivity of the South Korean economy. And, after free elections were held, public anger against two ax-presidents was so great that they were convicted of crimes against the people and thrown into prison.

http://www.thirdworldtraveler.com/Ec...dJobsGone.html
An interesting conundrum of your continual defense of multinational corporations is that while you agree that their motives are entirely self-interested, even selfish, you nevertheless think that one person’s selfish greed can be another’s windfall.

PS. You never answered the question of whether or not your are affiliated in any way with business related to our discussion.

Barely 2% of Nike's sneakers are now made in South Korea.

Also note that shoes are still being manufactured in South Korea, but are now made by union garnered living wages unacceptable to the Nike bottom line.

So imposing a mandated living wage lead to layoffs? Interesting.