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NIKE
CASEFILE, NOVEMBER 1999
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CLEAN CLOTHES CAMPAIGN, ESTHER
DE HAAN & VIVIAN SCHIPPER
- Introduction
- Nike: Company Profile
- Independent monitoring
- Labour conditions
- Wages
- Overwork
- Right to organise and collective bargaining
- Health and Safety
- Appendix 1: NIKEs
Revised Code of Conduct January 1999
- Appendix 2: On May
12, 1998, Phil Knight announced six new initiatives
to improve factory working conditions and increase opportunities
for people who manufacture Nike products.
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1. Introduction *1)
"Sport long ago ceased to be just sport; it has become money,
power, politics, fashion, and one of the most potent sales vehicles
in the world. Film stars and rock stars may be a matter of taste
but Michael Jordan, supreme American basketball star, good guy and
super hero, transcended taste. He was just it!" *2)
"How much can you say in a 60-second commercial?"
asked Nike's boss Phil Knight. "If you've got Michael Jordan,
you don't need to say anything."
The competition is about buying stars, teams, and entire sports.
Nike's Brazil may have lost at the World Cup to Adidas's France
but it couldn't lose at Wimbledon - Sampras and Agassi are both
endorsed.
Although Nike is still the number one in sport shoes shoes and
spoerswear, it is slipping somewhat and Adidas is gaining ground.
*3) The market is highly competitive
and companies are very sensitive to any tarnishing of brand image.
Nike and Adidas in particular have spent an enormous amount of their
revenues on sponsoring celebrities.
Fear of a damaged brand image is why pressure and campaigning by
consumers against human rights violations in factories producing
for these brands can have such an important effect on the labour
policies of these major companies.
That $100 shoes are being made in Indonesia by people earning $1.20
a day is a familiar fact that has achieved critical impact. Nike
has become a name associated not just with cool shoes but with sweatshops.
Knight had to admit that the bad publicity had an effect on the
price of Nike's shares.
*1)Much use has been made of: Marlies Filbri,
"The Sporting Goods Industry, Company Profiles of Nike, Reebok,
Adidas, Puma", SOMO, August 1999
*2)The Express, "This morning the doors open with a Swoosh
on something really wicked", August 10, 1999
*3)Hoovers Company Profiles, <www.hoovers.com>
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