Nike Stakeholders Meeting

On the 22th of September, when international Nike shareholders are trying to have their meeting in Hilversum (Holland) They will be confronted with people from the Clean Clothes Campaign, inviting them to attend the alternative Stakeholders meeting. This is what is on the agenda.

On the agenda:

Nike workers are

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

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

Underpaid - Indonesian workers making Nike clothes are still struggling to survive on as little as $US1 a day.

In Indonesia an economic crisis has seen a steep rise in inflation and a drastic fall in the value of the rupiah. In response to appeals from campaign groups Nike has required their Indonesian sport shoe contractors to increase wages above the legal minimum. In those factories where this policy has been implemented it has improved the ability of workers to deal with the extreme privations of the crisis. Nonetheless the fall in the value of the rupiah has been so great that these new wages are still less, in US dollar terms, than workers were being paid before the crisis. The wage increase has not been extended to clothing contractors. This month a delegation from the US visited the PT Nikomas Gemilang factory in Indonesia. Workers reported (and the factory management confirmed) that Indonesian soldiers were being deployed in and around the factory during wage negotiations.
Workers must be paid a living wage that is sufficient to meet basic needs and provide some discretionary income. Doubling Nike's Indonesian workers wages from 10 to 20 cents/hour would cost the company a mere $20 million/year--the equivalent of what Nike spent on its sponsorship of the Brazilian soccer team, and less than 3% of Nike's advertising budget, according to a Sept. 1998 wage study. Why can't Nike ensure that their workers earn enough to cover three nutritious meals per day?

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

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

Nike talks about meeting it's corporate responsibility goals -- but it still doesn't deal with the basics!
Nike's corporate responsibility goals make no mention of wage requirements, support for organising and collective bargaining, or limits to overwork.

Millions spent on PR and other diversionary tactics don't change the agenda:

HOURS, WAGES, AND THE RIGHT TO ORGANISE
And real independent monitoring and verification of labour standards