Labor Alerts: a service of Campaign for Labor Rights

NIKE MOBILIZATION OCTOBER 17

The third international Nike mobilization is scheduled for Saturday, October 17. Campaign for Labor Rights will have a special action packet available in hard copy starting about one month prior to that date. If you would like us to mail you a packet when it is ready, please contact us now at (202) 232-5002 or clr@clrlabor.org and send us your postal address. Be sure to mention that you want the October 17 Nike packet because we also distribute other action packets. Let us know about your plans for this event as they develop.

UPDATED LABOR RIGHTS CALENDAR

Please notify Campaign for Labor Rights as you develop plans to participate in any of these events. We can help you connect with other people in your community who are concerned about sweatshop issues.

The precise date of some of the following actions may not fit local organizing needs. If your group needs to shift its event to some other date in the same general time frame as a particular day of action, then that event certainly would still count as part of the coordinated national action.

September: One or more HAN YOUNG worker speaking tours. Itineraries still being decided.

Saturday, September 19: HAN YOUNG national action day. Probable focus on Hyundai Motors dealerships and Mexican consulates - focus is subject to revision pending new developments in Tijuana. Contact Campaign for Labor Rights: (202) 232-5002 clr@clrlabor.org.

Saturday, October 3: National action day kicks off campaign to press companies to disclose the name and location of all factories where they produce. Initially, the campaign will focus on WAL-MART. Contact the National Labor Committee: (212) 242-3002. Web site: www.nlcnet.org.

Friday-Monday, October 2-5: Simultaneous national conferences in Washington, DC on 1) The WORLD BANK AND the INTERNATIONAL MONETARY FUND and other institutions whose policies have promoted the global sweatshop; and 2) INTERNATIONAL DEBT. The conferences will have some joint workshops. Contact 50 Years Is Enough: U.S. Network for Global Economic Justice at (202) 544-9355, wb50years@igc.apc.org and Jubilee 2000/USA at (202) 783-3566, coord@j2000usa.org.

Monday-Sunday, October 12-18: National week of actions protesting INS RAIDS. Contact National Network for Immigrant and Refugee Rights: (510) 465-1984 nnirr@nnirr.org.

Saturday, October 17: NIKE mobilization. Focus on Foot Locker and other stores selling Nike products. Contact Campaign for Labor Rights: (202) 232-5002 clr@clrlabor.org. As a lead-off for the national event, on Thursday, October 15 there will be a massive shoe return at the 57th Street Nike Town in Manhattan - organized by a coalition which includes settlement houses, organized labor and other groups. Contact mikegitelson@hotmail.com.

Friday, October 30: HAN YOUNG action day in Los Angeles, Chicago, New York City and possibly other cities. Probable focus on Hyundai Motors dealerships and Mexican consulates - focus is subject to revision pending new developments in Tijuana. Contact Democratic Socialists of America's Youth Section: jkaxthel@midway.uchicago.edu.

Friday and Saturday, December 4 and 5: Human rights tribunal in New York City to consider sweatshop practices of DISNEY, NIKE and other companies. Possible simultaneous national day of action to protest Disney sweatshops in Haiti. Campaign for Labor Rights will post information as plans develop.

Thurs., Dec. 10: Human Rights Day. More activity in WAL-MART/corporate disclosure campaign. Contact the National Labor Committee: (212) 242-3002. Web site: www.nlcnet.org.

LIVING WAGE CAMPAIGN TARGETS NIKE

More than 40 representatives from a number of organizations around the United States held a summit in the San Francisco Bay Area July 17-19 to plan a multi-faceted campaign aimed at winning a living wage for apparel and shoe workers around the world. They were joined by representatives from worker rights organizations in Mexico, Central America, the Caribbean, Canada and Europe.

The first corporate focus of the campaign will be Nike. There were several reasons for this choice. The living wage campaign will be in solidarity with Nike shoe workers, who for years have been rising up to protest their miserable wages. Nike markets its products globally. Nike already is the focus of a major international campaign which has affected the company's reputation and affected its sales. The Nike campaign has solid links with shoe workers in Indonesia, Vietnam and (to a lesser extent) China. Unlike the garment industry, the sport shoe industry has a very limited number of major players, making it realistic to plan on moving one by one through the entire industry. Nike also produces garments, with factories in the United States, Central America and other regions of interest. (Action around Nike clothing factories will be undertaken only in consultation with the workers whose jobs are at stake.)

NIKE SHOE RETURN IN NEW YORK

In New York City, a growing coalition of settlement houses, organized labor, youth organizations and other groups plans to return old Nike sneakers at the posh Manhattan 57th Street Nike Town store on October 15. The New York event will be the lead-off for the third international Nike mobilization, which takes place on Saturday, October 17.

The Settlement House Youth Nike Give Back campaign started as a way to empower youth in the Edenwald public housing in the Bronx: "We understood that one of the reasons that youth felt the need to wear expensive sneakers and clothing was a need for power and status within their community. We strove to teach the youth about using a collective voice and community organizing as a way to gain power." Youth participants developed these demands:

• Nike needs to pay all of its workers a living wage.
• The price of Nike sneakers must come down.
• Nike must give back more to the inner city community.

INDIANA JWJ PROTESTS NIKE

Indiana Jobs with Justice plans to leaflet the RCA tennis tournament in Indianapolis on August 22. Nike is one of the main sponsors of this tournament, and has huge contracts with many of the top players who will be there, such as Sampras and Agassi. For more information, contact awesthue@indiana.edu.

NIKE PROTEST IN EDMONTON, ALBERTA (Canada)

On June 21 (Fathers Day) 20 members of Citizens Concerned about Nike protested at the annual Hoop It Up competition at the West Edmonton Mall, Fathers Day. The activists included students, members of the Edmonton East Timor Alert Network (ETAN) and trade unionists. They pointed out the gross disparity between the wages of Nike production workers in Asia and Nike's athlete endorsers. "Many young basketball players we talked to, as well as those interviewed by the media, were aware that Nike uses sweatshop labour and said they were opposed to it. " For more information, contact plawiuk@junctionnet.com.

Background: Hoop It Up is sponsored by Nike, Spalding, Canadian Tire and the NBA. In Alberta, its local sponsor and promoter is Basketball Alberta, a non-profit amateur association which organizes all levels of basketball competition in the province. In 1997, Basketball Alberta signed a three-year contract for Nike to become its sole apparel supplier. Under the contract, apparel items are not donated by Nike but are being purchased by Basketball Alberta and those teams that it supports.

NIKE FACES CHARGES IN AUSTRALIA

The Textile, Clothing and Footwear Union in Australia (TCFUA) has brought legal action against Nike, Adidas and 11 other companies accused of paying as little as $2 Australian per hour to "outworkers" (workers hired by companies to do sewing production in their own homes). Nike has refused to sign a Homeworkers Code of Practice that sets out minimum standards for the employment of outworkers. An earlier round of prosecutions in 1997 led to a number of retailers and manufacturers agreeing to sign the code. In the past 18 months, the TCFUA has prosecuted 68 companies for approximately 300 breaches of the law. A new Workplace Relations Act introduced by the Australian government will mean that this is the last opportunity for the union to prosecute companies for breaches of the law, as the key clauses protecting outworkers are being removed. For more information, contact Annie Delaney, Outworkers Coordinator TCFUA tcfvic@labor.net.au.

The Fair Wear coalition is planning a demonstraton outside the Nike retail outlet in Melbourne on August 23. The protest will focus on Nike's international production and why the company's refusal to sign the code. Adds Delaney of the TCFUA: "Nike has sent letters to everyone to try to warn against linking them publically with exploitation or risk legal action. But we are pretty used to these types of threats and bids to silence us. Which won't work of course."

PROTEST AT NIKE WORLD MASTERS GAMES IN PORTLAND

"Justice. Do It NIKE!" has planned protests to take place at the Nike World Masters Games to be held in Portland, Oregon August 9 - 22. The coalition has been awarded a $1000 grant from the Resist Foundation to promote awareness about Nike's overseas labor practices. The group will distribute information and also raise funds for the Urban Community Mission (UCM), based in Jakarta, Indonesia. UCM has supported legal challenges against Nike on behalf of fired workers such as Cicih Sukaesih, who has come twice to North America on speaking tours.

For more information, contact lizland@teleport.com. Web site: http://members.tripod.com/~NewHumanist/index.htm (Rumor has it that the first event in the World Masters Games is to see who can commit this entire web site address to memory.)

Also scheduled: On September 18 Medea Benjamin of Global Exchange will be speaking at the City Club of Portland on sports wear manufacturers and their exploitative labor practices. This event has been in planning for almost a year. The City Club made numerous overtures to Nike to send a representative to share the platform for this program but Nike was unwilling to do so.

NIKE MOVES STOCKHOLDER MEETING TO MEMPHIS

Nike has moved its annual stockholders meeting this year far away from its hometown of Portland, Oregon to Memphis. In recent years, protesters have protested outside the stockholder meetings and those with passes have asked pointed questions inside, much to the embarrassment of Nike management. The gathering takes place in mid-September. Hopefully, local activists in Memphis will convince the company that it can run (in its over-priced shoes) but it can't hide. Memphis activists: Please notify Campaign for Labor Rights clr@clrlabor.org of your protest plans for the meeting. Sympathetic Nike stockholders: Please contact us if you are willing to give a pass to an activist so that human rights issues can be raised during the question-and-answer portion of the meeting.

NIKE'S US MANAGER QUITS

According to the August 8 edition of The Oregonian newspaper (published in Portland), Nike has announced that its vice-president and general manager of the U.S. region has resigned about 11 months after being hired by the world's largest maker of athletic shoes. George Porter joins a growing exodus of high-level executives as Nike sales and profits have slumped. Robert Falcone, the company's former chief financial officer, left in January shortly after the company announced that its profits would fall short of sales estimates for the year. Rudy Chapa, vice president of international sports marketing, resigned in June.

NO BONUS FOR PHIL KNIGHT

Bloomberg News reported on August 14 that Nike awarded no bonus to Chairman and CEO Philip Knight for the most recent fiscal year, cutting his pay to $1.68 million. Consumer concern about sweatshop issues, added to Asia's currency crisis and a sluggish U.S. market, slashed Nike earnings 40 percent to $479.1 million. Nike shares fell 20 percent during its fiscal 1998. Knight, including his family and charitable trust, holds a 34 percent stake in Nike.

Like many North Americans, Philip Knight uses two names.

MORE RUMORS OF AIP COLLAPSE

The Apparel Industry Partnership (AIP, the White House task force on sweatshop issues - with representatives from the apparel industry, labor and human rights groups) was due to issue its final guidelines in October. Now 10 months past deadline, AIP members still have not been able to agree. Reportedly, Nike is among the companies stonewalling hardest on core issues such as a living wage and truly independent monitoring. From time to time, rumors circulate that the "partnership" is on the verge of collapse. Meanwhile, undeterred by the AIP's inaction, grassroots activists continue to organize serious pressure campaigns against sweatshop companies such as Nike, Guess and Han Young (producing for Hyundai in Tijuana, Mexico) and to mobilize public opinion around the principles of paying of living wage and disclosing where production takes place.

OP ED: Old Policies of Repression Linger

Indonesia: Foreign investors have the clout and an obligation to push for basic rights for workers producing their goods.

by Jeff Ballinger and Deborah Sklar
LA Times August 7, 1998

[ Jeff Ballinger is director of Press for Change. Deborah Sklar is a human rights activist specializing in Indonesia. ]

The government of Indonesia may have changed recently, but the old policies of repression and top-down decision-making remain in place. That's the message of labor activist Muchtar Pakpahan as he goes around Washington this week. Pakpahan places little faith in new President B.J. Habibie and his Cabinet, and he's urging federal officials not to direct assistance solely through them.

Despite the promise of Habibie, Suharto's handpicked successor, to distance himself from the intimidation tactics of the past, Pakpahan tells of the Indonesian military's threat last month to "cripple" his labor movement. Pakpahan, after being jailed for union activities for more than four years, was thwarted in an attempt to call workers to a meeting in Jakarta.

What's more, Habibie issued a decree last week that limits protests and gatherings to only 50 people, and those must be nowhere near the parliament, the president's palace or military offices. Pakpahan says that under these rules it will be all but impossible to organize a political meeting or protest. And, while Pakpahan chooses his words carefully when talking about the military, it clearly troubles him that troops fired rubber bullets into an angry crowd of protesting shoe workers several weeks ago.

Many common people lost respect for the military over the past decade because Suharto misused the troops. Soldiers were routinely called on to evict farmers from land at the behest of private developers, military units were assigned to strike-breaking duty and constant pressure was exerted by the armed forces on democracy activists, environmentalists and legal assistance teams. Any Indonesian who presented any sort of threat to the rapacious Suharto clan could count on being at odds with the military. As a result, the military today is required to use more force to quell disturbances and employs harsher rhetoric to intimidate perceived troublemakers.

There is striking evidence that Suharto's over-reliance on thuggish military operations was due to the demands of the foreign investment community and even from the World Bank. While at the bank in 1993, Lawrence Summers, currently deputy Treasury secretary, commissioned a study published as a set of political prescriptions that, among other things, encouraged government officials to "insulate" themselves from pluralist pressures and to suppress trade unions. "The East Asian Miracle" became a blueprint for developing nations eager to emulate the remarkable economic growth rates of the Asian "tigers." The book sketches how the suppression of worker rights in countries like Singapore and Korea was a key component of their success and embraces what it calls the "labor trade-off." One of the advantages derived from the suppression of labor unions, the authors explain, is the freeing of government bureaucracies to implement the economic austerity measures and wrenching structural adjustments that open the doors to private investment.

How much of the blame should we ascribe to foreign investors? When Korea and Taiwan started to democratize in the late 1980s and independent trade unions began to get organized, companies like Nike and Reebok pointed their contractors in the direction of Indonesia, which had been in the grip of the Suharto regime since 1967. These contractors, who were from Taiwan and Korea, had become accustomed to the merciless suppression of worker upheavals by troops back home; they brought their "system" with them.

The stakes were incredibly high, since other countries were also desperate to attract the shoe companies. Indonesia grabbed a huge share, increasing shoe exports from $40 million a year to $2 billion a year in only five years. But while U.S.-based shoe companies may have been making Indonesia's trade and investment numbers look great, the young, overwhelmingly female work force continued to struggle for basic rights and livable wages.

The ground is shifting in Indonesia, albeit slowly and painfully. At the same time that the army is violently crushing labor protests, the government has agreed to sign Convention 87 of the International Labor Organization, guaranteeing the right to freedom of association. American companies, however, are still trying to conduct business as usual; U.S.-based corporations are making it clear that they are not ready to tip the scales in the direction of reform.

Both Reebok and Nike, for example, are members of the San Francisco-based group Business for Social Responsibility, and both had representatives at a meeting in Jakarta just before Suharto was booted from office. In all, 12 major U.S.-based garment and footwear producers met in Jakarta under the aegis of the group. But the company representatives refused to meet with an Indonesian trade union delegation to discuss the desperate conditions of more than 2 million young Indonesians making clothes and shoes. These minimum-wage workers have experienced a 50% decline in real earnings over the past 10 months, receiving 55 cents a day, less than a quarter of what they were paid before the Indonesian rupiah crashed.

It's time to level the playing field so workers have a fighting chance to better conditions. This could lead to a truly sustainable stability model built on mutual respect instead of relying on soldiers and intimidation.

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