A Nike factory worker in Indonesia would have to toil for 139
years to earn what golf star Tiger Woods gets in a day. But the
billion dollar sports gear giant rejects charges of bad work practices.
Foreign editor P.T. Singam examines the issue.
TIGER Woods earns the astronomical sum of $100,000-plus a day
in sponsorships from sports goods king Nike. But in a small town
in Indonesia where Nike sneakers are made, 23-year-old Julianto
is jobless simply because he dared to ask for a raise on his meagre
wage of $2 a day.
It seems grossly unfair and immoral that a golfer promoting
Nike should get so much money while the factory worker whose sweat
went into making the sneaker or sporting apparel with the famous
swoosh logo should be rewarded with so little.
Julianto would have to work 139 years to earn the money Woods
makes in a day. And he worked out that Woods' daily income would
be enough to pay 50,000 factory workers.
The former Nike worker, however, does not begrudge Woods. He
knows Woods is a star with big earning potential and wishes him
well. But he hopes Woods and Olympic stars such as Americans Michael
Johnson and Marion Jones as well as Cathy Freeman and Shane Heal
will embrace the Olympic spirit by talking to Nike about improving
the lot of the factory worker.
Julianto, amiable and friendly with a ready smile, came to Perth
recently, sporting a black T-shirt with the words Just Stop It
- a mockery of Nike's Just Do It slogan.
Below the Just Stop It slogan was an upturned version of the
swoosh logo that adorns the sporting gear of thousands of athletes
at the Games.
Julianto, who wore Indonesian-made rubber-soled shoes, confided
that he had never worn a pair of Nikes. It is not that he dislikes
them, but he says it is not the right thing to wear when so many
factory workers are finding it difficult to make ends meet.
Julianto was in WA to plead his case for Nike factory workers
on the final leg of an Australia-wide Olympic campaign, supported
by Community Aid Abroad-Oxfam which has been fighting for the
past five years to get Nike to give a better deal to workers making
its products.
The shame campaign is aimed at giving factory workers the right
to form unions and negotiate collectively, refuse overtime, and
a rate of pay that will enable them to earn enough to provide
adequate diet, housing and health care for their families.
Julianto, the eldest of six children of farmer parents, left
his home in Purwerejo, Central Java, after finishing high school
in 1997 to take up a job making Nike shoes at the Nikomas Gemilang
factory in Serang, West Java, about two hours by bus from Jakarta.
As he tells it, the joy of finding a job soon evaporated as
he endured the tough conditions in the factory of 23,000 workers.
With a wage of about $2 a day, he had to work overtime six days
a week. "Just to survive, you have to work a lot of overtime,"
he said.
"In my section (the hot press section making outsoles), we
usually worked 53 hours a week. Many workers also did other jobs
after hours. In the sewing and assembling section, people worked
between 60 and 70 hours a week.
"On top of that, Nike says it gives workers free accommodation.
But it does not talk about the crammed conditions. I had to share
with 12 people a room that would take only four people and we
slept on wooden floors without a pillow or even a mat.
"Workers are under pressure to reach unreasonable job quotas.
If they don't reach the quota, they have to stay behind without
extra pay until they finish. "Many workers are often punished
for failing to reach quotas. They are made to clean the factory
and the toilets or are humiliated. Sometimes supervisors swear
at workers and call them 'dog', 'bitch', 'pig' or 'stupid'."
In September 1998 a group of workers formed an unofficial organisation
to discuss work problems but it was not until last October that
they organised themselves and demonstrated for better pay and
conditions.
The demonstration brought warnings and threats from the management.
"We were warned that if we continued to organise workers,
we would have to resign or we would be attacked by hired thugs,"
Julianto said.
"I was called away from my work and taken into an office
and there were two managers and a soldier from the Indonesian
army. They were very angry. They shouted at me and slammed the
table. They told me to disband the workers' committee, but I refused.
"I was warned that I would be taken to the police or be
visited by hired thugs if there was another demonstration at the
factory. The same thing happened to my friends."
Julianto said he and his friends buckled under management pressure
and resigned from their jobs last April.
He now works in a friend's food stall in exchange for food and
is leader of the Nike Workers Solidarity Forum, which is fighting
for Nike employees. The forum had up to 500 members when it started
but half of them dropped out because of intimidation and fear
of job loss.
Apart from a reasonable wage - 'probably close to $4 a day"
- Julianto is pushing for better health and safety conditions.
He has suffered health problems working in high temperatures
and inhaling chemical fumes. And he said accidents were common,
with at least one worker losing a part of his or her finger in
the cutting machines or the hot press every week.
Many women gave up their entitlement to menstrual leave because
they were forced to undergo humiliating physical examinations.
Julianto's claims of poor conditions are supported by former professional
United States soccer player and coach Jim Keady, who spent last
month in Indonesia trying to live as Nike workers did.
"I was hungry and exhausted and I lost 25 pounds,"
he said. "You cannot live on $2 a day. You can survive, but
you cannot live. It is a starvation wage."
Keady lost his job as a coach at New York's St John's University
over his refusal to wear Nike products and is locked in a legal
dispute with Nike.
He said many Indonesians were flabbergasted when they learnt
how much athletes got in endorsements. "The real heroes are
the workers. They face more hardships and overcome more obstacles
than any athlete I have ever met," he said.
Julianto and Keady's claims are documented in a Community Aid
Abroad report released in Sydney this month to coincide with the
Olympic Games.
Tim Connor, the author of the report Like Cutting Bamboo, appealed
to Olympians to follow Keady's lead and talk to Nike. Anti-Nike
activists say the worker misery stories are repeated in Nike factories
around the world, from El Salvador and Guatemala to Thailand,
Vietnam, China, Bangladesh and Pakistan.They cited the case of
an El Salvador worker who worked 12 hours a day but could only
afford to buy milk for her daughter once a month.
Workers in Thailand and Vietnam had complained of severe health
problems, including coughing or vomiting blood while at work.
Last May, a day after a Washington rally of President Bill Clinton
and former US presidents urged the US Congress that China be accepted
into the world trading system, Chinese rights activist Harry Wu
reacted by holding up a Nike shoe and saying: "Don't lie
to me."
Mr Wu, who survived 19 years in a labour camp, said Chinese
workers in factories making American goods were paid less than
subsistence wages and got one day off a month. They were often
paid less than state workers.
On the other hand, Nike, which last year made a $965 million
profit with the help of 708 factories and 550,000 workers worldwide,
rejects the charges and insists its supplier outlets are observing
responsible work practices.
In extensive statements and reports on its Web site, Nike says
Keady and other activists have chosen the right issue but are
targeting the wrong company.
"No other company has done so much in terms of labour rights,
code of conduct enforcement, age and wage improvements as Nike,"
it says.
"Nike does not claim that these factories are perfect or
that these jobs are ideal. Our goal is continuous improvement
of the factories where our products are made and of the lives
of the individuals who work in them.
"Mr Keady did not go to Indonesia with objective research
intentions but rather to target Nike by making predetermined alleged
findings consistent with his already espoused beliefs.
"Spending one month in Indonesia is not sufficient to understand
the vast and complex issues facing the more than 200 million Indonesian
citizens."
Nike's Web site carries worker profiles, which paint a happy
picture of the Nike workforce.
One worker is reported as saying that he joined the Nike factory
because it provided a higher salary, a clean mosque, three free
meals a day and access to the free factory clinic even for his
wife and child.
Anton Syafei (not the real name of the worker) works from 7am
to 3.30pm Monday to Friday and 7am to noon on Saturdays.
"The factory requires overtime until 5pm Monday to Friday
and sometimes requests workers to work longer when there is an
export target to reach," the Nike report says.
"Although the factory allows him to decline his overtime
if he has other things to do, Anton prefers to work this overtime
because his wife is unemployed and he can use the extra income."
Nike also says it has signed United Nations protocols on labour
standards and contracted accountancy firm Pricewaterhouse-Coopers
to monitor work conditions at factories.
But Community Aid Abroad and Tim Connor are not impressed.
They say the worker profiles are dubious because the names are
fictitious.
"The company says it has changed the names to protect the
worker, but who are they protecting them from," Connor said.
"The worker is a Nike employee and could not be victimised."
Advocating an independent monitoring program for the factories,
Connor said results of Nike's monitoring were not a true reflection
of work conditions because the company dealt only with supervisors,
not workers on the floor.
This is a bitter debate that has raged for nearly five years
and will not go away quickly.
Even Nike, which has fallen foul of at least three universities
in the US over alleged exploitation of workers, acknowledges that.
Despite criticism from labour organisations, Nike has supported
the Global Compact - a United Nations-backed declaration of principles
(see box), not a legally binding code of conduct, promoting human
rights and sound labour practices.
In welcoming the Global Compact, Nike chief Phil Knight said:
"In many ways, Nike has become a fitting symbol for what
is right and what also needs fixing in an increasingly interdependent
global economy.
"We are small by multinational standards. That means Nike
and thousands of other companies have a monumental task defining
what our global responsibility is, and how to act on it, in dozens
of host countries."
UN Secretary-General Kofi Annan, who moved last year to establish
a new partnership between the world body and business, said that
without accountability, world business credibility could not be
achieved and the global economy would remain fragile and vulnerable.
With accountability, global markets could operate with a human
face rather than simply as a system to return short-term financial
rewards to investors, he said.
Yes, the Indonesian worker's right to a living wage is as much
about globalisation as is the right of companies to trade globally.
It is about corporate responsibility and about social equality.
But how do multinationals balance corporate responsibility to
shareholders with social responsibility to workers in developing
countries?
Reconciling the two is difficult when companies are driven by
profit and pressure groups and host governments have their own
agendas.
Social groups would argue that Nike, as a market leader, should
set the standards for workers.
Nike could probably afford to double the wage of the factory
worker, above the recommended minimum wage. But that would likely
trigger an explosion in wage demands, which in turn would plunge
a country such as Indonesia into further economic turmoil.
The result: foreign investors would stay away, fewer people
would be in jobs and the country would be poorer.
Critics of Western trade unions believe the unionists, and their
"naive" student supporters, actually want this to happen
so manufacturers would return to home base to create new work
for their members but at a higher cost.
Questions also have to be raised about the policies of governments
in developing countries, where the worker is most often neglected.
Indonesia has its rules on foreign investment, labour conditions
and a minimum wage.
But it has a poor track record of adhering to them. A system
of patronage has encouraged corruption among government officials
and led to poor monitoring and enforcement of rules.
Since the fall of president Suharto two years ago and the emergence
of a new democracy, it is easier for people to form unions.
But resistance to them remains strong among local companies,
many of which are entrenched in their authoritarian ways.
It is time the Indonesian Government reviewed the employer-labour
relationship and set guidelines in line with today's trend for
business to display greater social responsibility.
Julianto deserves to be paid a living wage. But any action to
achieve that would have to come from within the country.
Pete Stone, of Community Aid Abroad in Perth, agreed. "Nothing
will change until Julianto's group is stronger," he said.
"Until 60 per cent of the workers in a factory are organised,
Julianto and others like him will achieve very little.
"Community Aid Abroad is committed to helping Julianto
and others to reach that level."
