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Nike: Just Don't Do It
Daruka Krishna Das writes "Jonah Peretti turned Nike's corporate creativity against itself in a stand against third-world exploitation labor. Peretti's protest made use of the swoosh brand's Nike iD Web site, which allows customers to "build your own" sneaker, complete with a word of your choice, or "iD," printed on the side. For his iD, Peretti selected "sweatshop," which generated the e-mail exchange archived on Jockbeat's Web site here."
That he planned on using his Nikes so much that he could have been a sweat manufacturer, making enough to sell off. Hence, a "sweat shop".
Might have fooled the suits long enough to allow the order.
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Bleah! Heh heh heh... BLEAH BLEAH!!! Ha ha ha ha...
Our government doesn't touch Nike's corporate decisions. That's a private sector thing there bud not a government problem.
Not only that, but picking "sweat" on one shoe and "shop" on the other results in the following error, as does "child"/"labor" but not "child"/"labour" (for those of us who spell correctly) or "cheap"/"labor":
So what if I'm an althetic teenaged girl wanting to convey my two favorite hobbies on my shoes? An expecting mother, perhaps? Bah!
ian.
ian
don't do it. Seriously. Force yourself to hold it until your 10 hour day is up. No way, no how are you to get up from your desk. You must sit there for hours, doing the same repetitive motions over and over.
Want a drink of water? Yeah right.
You are also not allowed to talk to your co-workers. No chatting on the phone, even if it is a call from your mom saying your dad just died.
You are expected to be at work at all times. You are not allowed any time off for any reason. Miss one day and you are fired.
Think I am making this up? This is just a small sample of what it is like to work in a sweatshop.
*Now* please call me a liberal and tell me I am full of shit.
If you don't like the shoes Nike will make for you, or allow you to make, buy from another company.
Unless, of course, your real reason to "culture-jam" Nike is to get your name in print...
sulli
RTFJ.
A company thata relative of mine works at operates several factories in China. They pay a multiple of the prevailing local wage -- in fact, the Chinese government actually prevents them from paying more. I wonder how often that happens?
- - - - -
Napster-to-go says "Fill and refill your compatible MP3 player", which is a lie. It's not MP3. It's WMA with DRM.
A company that a relative of mine works at operates several factories in China. They pay a multiple of the prevailing local wage -- in fact, the Chinese government actually prevents them from paying more. I wonder how often that happens?
- - - - -
Napster-to-go says "Fill and refill your compatible MP3 player", which is a lie. It's not MP3. It's WMA with DRM.
Holding a "candle to the dark" would consist of employing adults who are past school age to work at wages which would allow them to send their children to school. That isn't happening.
And absent multinational labor, local economies exist for local markets.
Stop to think for a minute. Why are these children working for Nike? Surely their parents would rather have them playing in the yard or going to school. There is quite a simple answer these childeren work for nike because their parents cannot provide for them and they would otherwise starve.
Why can't their parents earn enough to feed them (working at Nike or otherwise)? Their countries are overpopulated, have no infrustructure, and the population is completely unskilled and uneducated; hence the amazingly low price of labor. Just by being there, Nike is improving conditions for the simple fact that they need an infrustructure to move shoes from the factories to the ports. The Nike factories are pumping american money into the local economy through payroll, supplies, and factory costs. Hell, globalization as a form of third-world aid seems to be the only kind that does any good!
People either chose to work for Nike of their own free will or are forced to work by their governments. If by their own free will then they obviously thought that working for Nike, no matter how seemingly horrible, provides them a lifestyle that is better than it was beforehand; therefore Nike is improving their life while it provides you shoes. If their government is forcing them to work at Nike then doesn't it seem more prudent to focus efforts on changing the governments to a more free society rather than attacking Nike who if they closed shop would just be replaced by someone else?
I personally challenge those people who believe that the third world is exploited by american corporations to fly to one of these third world countries and see how much worse off the people who don't work for Nike are. You cannot comment on the living conditions of these workers without seeing the living conditions of their neighbors who aren't working at Nike. I spent 3 months in Haiti, and let me tell you these people would give anything for the chance to work 18 hours a day and put food on the table.
-- Greg
Slashdot, would a spell-checker for posting be too much to ask? It's not rocket science!
Well, I might ask what's served by defending them for it.
Because they're improving the lives of the poor? What's not to defend? Yes, they don't provide American-quality wages, but they are providing jobs that are better than what was there before. No matter how greedy and evil the companies themselves are, this is a Good Thing. Bad jobs is better than no jobs.
The improvement of working conditions in the US had nothing to do with Upton Sinclair and little to do with labor unions or labor laws. The biggest driver of increasing wages was competition for labor-- there were more jobs than workers, and so wages rose.
The fundamental cause of this is accumulation of capital-- nations with large capital stocks and good infrastructure will tend to pay higher wages because their workers can produce more. Labor unions and labor laws at best provide short-term improvement, and do nothing to change the underlying economics. Had a $5/hour minimum wage been instituted in 1900, it would have destroyed the US economy. Wages are driven up by market forces, not government intervention.
So while overseas conditions seem repugnant to us, bellyaching about it isn't going to improve things. What those people need is jobs-- even bad jobs are a good start compared with no jobs at all. As as more factories are opened, competition for labor will begin to drive up wages, as happened in Taiwan and South Korea.
Are corporations greedy and profit-seeking? Absolutely. But that doesn't mean that they are necessarily harmful.
Please keep firmly in mind that you are looking at the world from the perspective of the richest nation on Earth. We are privileged to be at the pinnacle of the world economy, getting nice fat paychecks for highly technical work, short hours, and extremely generous benefits. Obviously the conditions of poor workers is appalling from our perspective.
But what you have to keep firmly in mind is: what's good for those workers? The fact that their wages seem pitifully low to us doesn't necessarily mean that those workers are being treated unfairly. It might be that if forced to raise wages, corporations would be unable to turn a profit and would leave those countries.
Don't let your moral revulsion cloud your judgement. Pursuing policies that eliminate sweatshops may just kick third world workers into even deeper poverty. Focusing on the evilness of the corporations deflects attention from what really matters-- the interests of the poor. If sweatshops are so terrible, what do you propose to do about it? And how do you prevent your policy from simply causing those corporations from closing up shop and making the poor even poorer?
I bought from NikeID, and my ID is of course, Linux. Lots of pictures and a review are here
Linux: Because a PC is a terrible thing to waste.
James Brents
Nike made a tactical error by refusing this guy's request. When they said no, he gets a juicy e-mail exchange where he gets to needle them over this issue, and everyone's reading it.
Now, if Nike had made the shoes, he'd have some shoes that said "sweatshop". Big Fucking Deal. He could show them to his friends. Ooh. Or he could put pictures on a webpage, which would leave us saying "photoshop". Instead, they played right into his hands.
By Just Doing It (tm), Nike would win on several fronts. They'd deprive this guy of ammo. They'd appear hip and postmodern. Their personalization scheme would feel more "free". All while selling sweatshop-produced shoes for $100+/pair.
I just hope their marketing idiots don't figure this out.
OK, fine, asshole, what do you propose? That we just let people starve because we don't want to feel bad that someone might be making less money than us? I'm not saying that Nike should get a medal for a great deed of humanitarianism, but your blind emotionalism doesn't change the fact that people in sweatshops *is* an improvement over people starving on the streets.
There are *still* millions of people who are so poor that they can't even afford the basic necessities. If a sweatshop opened in one of those countries and provided some of them with work, would you denounce them for "enslaving" them? Is it better to let people starve than to give them crappy jobs?
The problem is that Nike now has a vested interest in making sure that things don't get better.
Sure they do. But in most cases they can't. In most cases where they "shop around" for lower wages, it's because competition has driven up wages and working conditions in the previous country.
If they can get the governments in those countries to hold down wages by force, that's absolutely a bad thing, but I see no reason to believe that's the norm. And if that's the case, it's government corruption-- not sweatshops per se-- that we should be criticizing.
You mentioned child labor laws-- this is a good example of letting the perfect being the enemy of the good. In wealthy Western countries, it's perfectly reasonable to demand children not work. But if you're talking about a country where children have to work to stay alive, it's far from clear that banning it is a good thing. Would I like a world in which no child had to work? Absolutely. But I'm not going to condemn children to even deeper poverty so wealthy Americans can soothe their consciences.
Your claim is essentially that it is better to be a good slaveholder than to oppose slavery.
No, my claim is that it's better to light a candle than to curse the darkness. Sweatshop owners might be motivated by greed, but as a side effect they are improving conditions in the third world. I'd love it if conditions improved, but the fact that conditions are poor doesn't justify taking the jobs away.
The question isn't whether sweatshops meet American labor standards. If that were the requirement, we would condemn third-world workers to poverty in perpetuity. The question is whether sweatshops on net help or harm the poor. I don't see how you can claim that they hurt them. Again, poverty existed long before the greedy corporations arrived on the scene. It's absurd to blame them for it. Bad jobs at lousy wages is better than no job at all, yet sweatshop activists seem to believe that until coroporations are willing to pay a "living wage" the third-world poor shouldn't be allowed to have any jobs at all. I think that's a cruel and destructive policy.
So download the page and edit the HTML to expand the field limit back to 12 characters. Fix the <FORM> tag to point to the fully qualified URL at Nike. Then load the locally edited page into your browser, fill it out, and click submit. If their server admins fell into the "trusted client" trap, it'll work.
Heck, you could theoretically expand the input limit to whatever size you want; certainly large enough to send them the DeCSS code :-).
Schwab
Editor, A1-AAA AmeriCaptions
"SWETSHOP" # Ok, we need lowercase to
"CHILDLBR" # unfuck the lameness filter
"KATHYLEE" # to let this post get through.
"KIDWORK" # I find it worth posting, and
"$.05/hr" # the caps are to make sure
"LBRUNION" # the the "ell" character shows.
--
--
"Outlook not so good." That magic 8-ball knows everything! I'll ask about Exchange Server next.
If I have to choose between a sweatshop and starvation, that really isn't much of a choice, now, is it?
Sure beats the choice between starvation and starvation.
-- Greg
Slashdot, would a spell-checker for posting be too much to ask? It's not rocket science!
It would take a fairly long discussion to explain the economics of comparative advantage. Here's the basic argument.
Every dollar worth of shoes that gets shipped out of the local economy means one dollar that comes into the local economy. That dollar will be spent by *someone* in exchange for American goods and services.
So, the question is, does the value of the labor that went into the shoes outweigh the value of the goods and services that got purchased with those wages? More specifically, let's suppose that from the perspective of the poor country the labor was *more* valuable than the American goods and services.
If this were the case, then the market price for goods produced with local labor would be lower than equivalently-valued goods from abroad. And so the locals would use their dollars to bid up the price of the local products, and the price of overseas goods and services would drop until they were equally valued.
Trade benefits both countries in a transaction. In order to convince third-world workers to work for them, they must offer more value to them than is available in local jobs. And that extra value represents a net inflow of resources to the country, counterbalancing the loss of labor. So the economy as a whole benefits from the trade.
This is a basic premise of economics, which even extremely liberal economists would agree with. Free trade doesn't benefit one country at the expense of the other. By specialization and comparative advantage, both economies benefit.
It's amazing how many times on Slashdot I will read a post which completely misreads the definition of a corporation as an individual. Cluestick: It's not.
The lawmakers are not completely stupid. It's not corporations that are criminaly liable but their officers - as it should be. You can't punish a corporation by putting it in prison and you're not really punishing the people really responsible for the crime if you "kill" it. If Nike has committed any criminal offence - including any that deserves the death penalty, it's the people who are responsible for making those decisions who should face the jail time/death penalty. You don't want them to get away scot-free do you? If the United States laws recognize what Nike has done in terms of child labor abuse, I want our government to go after the executives who knew of this and put them in prison besides fining the company.
"Executing" the company means the people who are actually responsible for the crimes get away scot-free (relatively). Corporate charters only absolve the owners of FINANCIAL LIABILITY. Hiding behind the identity of a corporation DOES NOT allow them to get away from CRIMINAL LIABILITY.
Repeat after me: Corporations are treated as individuals only as far as non-criminal rights and responsibilities are concerned.
Mmmm.. Donuts
Of course they are. So is every business in America. That's not the issue.
The questions is: do sweatshops hurt or harm third-world workers? Are they worse off than they were before the sweatshop opened?
Again, corporations didn't create poverty. It was already there long before they came on the scene. They are improving conditions, not because they care about the poor, but simply as a side effect of their greedy, ruthless, pursuit of profits. But they are improving conditions nonetheless. And to condemn improvement in the lives of the poor simply because corporations make money off is absurd. I am not willing to condemn the third world poor to perpetual poverty simply to soothe the consceinces of wealthy Americans. Sweatshops might look cruel and inhumane to us, but for millions of starving peasants it's a ticket out of poverty. What right do you have to tell that peasant he can't have that job because you don't think his wages are high enough?
What I object to is Nike being allowed (by either the US or foriegn contries) to pay people less than a living wage for the area they live in, or to allow a manifestly unsafe work environment.
Even if this leads to those people losing their jobs? The greater the profits of sweatshops, the more that will be built, and the sooner wages will be driven up by competition. It's fine to say that you want wages to be at a certain level. But are you willing to take the risk that companies will simply refuse to operate in that country at all, leaving those people destitute?
If Nike walked away with it's $0.05 an hour jobs, their workers would either go back to begging in the streets from other companies' $0.05 an hour employees, or go back to the local $0.01 an hour jobs.
Either way you're not doing them a favor.
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They can charge it because people are willing to pay it. There *are* shoes available for $10. People choose to buy Nikes at the higher price because for whatever reason they feel it's worth it. I'm not sure I see what's immoral about it.
ALL YOUR
BASE ARE
BELONG
TO US
!!!
Imagine a basketball team with those shoes!!!
Wasn't it Nike who had a (subcontracted) factory of imprisoned illegal immigrant slaves in the US a couple of years ago? I'd be surprised if they were earning more than Bill Gates.
But in general, don't rely on "Market forces" in very poor countries to ensure that people like Nike aren't screwing their workers. In many places, there's very little employment law, not much advice or assistance available for workers, trade unions are often illegal, and it's dead easy for a megacorporation to bully their workers senseless (possibly through the police). Sure, in an information-rich, human-rights-guaranteeing society, you can say "Well if the wages/conditions were so bad the workers would just walk away." A lot of the developing world doesn't work like that.
perl -e 'fork||print for split//,"hahahaha"'
Tom Swiss | the infamous tms | http://www.infamous.net/
Tom Swiss | the infamous tms | my blog
You cannot wash away blood with blood
Short picture: if goods can be relocated and labor cannot, then capital will move the goods to where they can get optimal returns, yet move production to where costs are minimal. Differences in mobility and the cost of mobility throw out the benefits subsumed under the comparative advantage model.
All these models, of course, assume Pac-Man like producer/laborers who do not have to do with local inflation, resource competition, and the increased unattractiveness of local markets in this sort of environment. Nobel economics prize winner Amartya Sen's work "Rational Fools" is the most thorough debunking of these omissions.
Doh!
Sorry about the looser / loser thing. I am taking Japanese class and stuck in the mindset, well, in their words are 'spelled' in their sylabic character _exactly_ how they sound. Odd how lose's long o sounds longer than the 'oo' in loose.
Well, that was too far off topic. I thought I had to explain my brain fart.
I read lots of people talking about the evils of sweatshops and how these people should be payed more, for many ethical and economical reasons. What I don't hear is anyone talking about doing anything about it. Me, I sponser a kid named Nuttapong Kilawong in Thailand. His family is very poor, but because I send $28 a month, he can go to school instead of work everyday. Granted, one kid at a time is only a little bit, but it's something. So, what are you gonna do about the problem of sweatshops?
No it's not, which means it's a good thing that the sweatshop is there. If you were in fact in that situation, and the sweatshop was removed by well-meaning liberals, then your only choice would be starvation.
How to solve most of our problems: 1.Lots of nuclear plants. 2.Cure aging.
However, just considering the practical aspects, child labor doesn't really help poor people. The children make very small wages, in part because they really aren't very productive. They are young and weak and unskilled. Studies have shown that the money lost by sending a child to school is regained in full and then some by the increased skill they will have later in life. Simply being literate and capable of doing math is a tremendous benefit to even an unskilled laborer.
Of course, future wages don't matter if you don't have enough foot now, and if your children's growth is being stunted now, and if one of them will die of a curable disease because you are poor now.
So I can't blame a parent that sends their child to work. But I think child labor is still bad, it's just the unfortunate -- no, the unjust situation that all alternatives are bad. That child labor is sometimes the best alternative doesn't mean that we, as a society, as a species are any less morally implicated.
It's sorta like wearing a leather jacket with stitched on letters that say "a cow was killed so I could wear this". ;-)
Read the EFF's Fair Use FAQ
order it with "" written on it.....
(you need a chinese text translator, also know how to read chinese would help, if you can't read chinese, try babelfish.altavista.com
Not really a plug, but if you want custom shoes without giving your money to Nike so they can shortchange some kids overseas, try these guys.
Customatix
Granted, they may be doing the same thing for all I know, but at least there are other options.
Raptor
Raptor
"Procrastination is great. It gives me a lot more time to do things that I'm never going to do."
I grew up in a third-world country so I believe I'm qualified to comment on this. I'm not aware of the actual labor practices Nike practices so I'm not commenting on Nike in particular but about child labor in general.
Don't get me wrong. I believe that all children should be in school, sheltered and with the opportunity to learn so that they can grow up to be contributors to society at large.
However, the reality of the situation is that in several third-world countries there is rampant poverty. The governments in those countries are not able to provide free education and many times, even if they do, many people can't afford to send their children there because they still need to pay for food and clothing and shelter and the parents can just not afford to do so. This is not an exaggeration. People actually do live like this and I have seen this myself.
From the perspective of the children being employed, this is many times the best thing that could have happened to them. The children who work there don't greet the closing of the factories with jubiliation - to them it doesn't mean being able to go to school - to them it means that their family will go hungry.
None of this defends child labor practices where the children are unfairly exploited - that is not what I'm defending here. Outside of those situations, child labor is not bad, per se because it is often times better than the alternatives.
Mmmm.. Donuts
Let's hear it for the new colors, people! I hope Fox News covers this important new development in foot-related fashion.
This provides some solid information.
Danny.
I have written over 900 book reviews
I wonder if the WAPI would come after me if I ordered a pair that said "Sucks"...
--
Wooden armaments to battle your imaginary foes!
I hear there's an 8 letter limit now.
So you'd want:
5w8+5h0p
Or something like that.
-AS
-AS
*Pikachu*
Jonah should have ordered bliss shoes..
In Nike's world 'Sweatshop' *IS* an innapropriate slang term.. They prefer '3rd world employment opportunity'.. try fitting *THAT* on the side of your shoe..
air and light and time and space
Hmmmm...what about the simple solution of leaving the factories there, NOT hiring children, NOT beating or intimidating people, paying them a fair wage for their efforts, and letting them work a NORMAL workday instead of 14-16 hr shifts.
The question isn't what's wrong with it. The question is: how are you going to get Nike to do it? I don't think you can.
If you were to mandate a minimum wage, maximum hours, no child labor, etc, the reaction would be very simple-- they'd close up their third-world factories and move back to the US. What's the point of enduring poor infrastructure, unstable government, poorly skilled workforce, long shipping costs, etc when there's no cost advantage?
I'm not claiming that this calculation is a good thing, but that's what would happen. Putting a factory in the third world isn't cheap. Corporations won't do it unless they stand to make a profit from it. If you take away the few advantages the third world has (primarily low wages) you take away any possibility of those workers competing and condemn them to perpetual joblessness.
Are corporations greedy and ruthless? Perhaps, but so what? No law or boycott is going to change that. The question is: what's good for workers? If we make life miserable for corporations that run sweatshops, are they going to improve their factories, or are they simply going to pack up and go elsewhere where the infrastructure and education is better?
Imagine your child dies in some shoe press after a backbreaking 10 hr shift - would you really understand some chubby well paid American saying,
For every child who dies in this manner, there are dozens who die on the streets from malnutrition and lack of medicine. Sweatshops, no matter how distasteful to us, are the first step toward alleviating their suffering. I'll turn the example around on you: if someone's child is on the verge of starvation, are you going to tell him "sorry, you can't work in that sweatshop because they make you work long hours and don't pay enough."
You act like everything was rosy until the evil sweatshop came in and made all those children work. Children were dying from poverty long before Nike came on the scene. Even granting that they could and should drastically improve their facilities, the simple fact is that they *are* better off than they were before. Given that Nike is in it for profit, not the interests of its workers, what's served by criticizing them for providing jobs for poor people?
After finishing upon reading Mr. Peretti's emails to Nike, I decided to pursue the same mission. Upon arriving Nike's website, it was easy to navigate to the build your own shoe section. I customized my running shoe and was ready to enter "sweatshop" in the iD box. "Sweatshop" was immediately rejected on the website. It didn't take a series of emails like it did for Mr. Peretti. Since the incident Nike came across with Mr. Peretti, Nike has limited the character limit to 8. Notice, "sweatshop" is 9 characters and would not even fit. I then entered the word "swetshop" and it was declined! I was very surprised. The word was even mispelled. To make sure it wasn't a bug, i entered "swetposh" and it accepted the iD. I find this behavior very peculiar. Nike must be really embarassed over the amount of sweatshops it owns. They will do anything to protect their Evil Empire!
I like to read what my opponents have to say. It's a good way to keep an active mind and not doze off. But I had to stop after reading the quote below. To summarize, he says
"Stop bothering me with reality! I don't want to think about it. I want to dream about paradise!!"
I got an e-mail today that included the same question I have heard a thousand times, "If Nike weren't in Indonesia, what else would those people be doing?" I guess the rhetorical response I posted a few days ago to address this question didn't quite satisfy everyone. I wondered why not? I also wondered why people always tend to ask this question with a "worst case scenario" approach. "If they didn't have those jobs they would be starving." Is it possible to consider a scenario that sees the possibilities of a better world and not a worse one? Is it possible to dream? [Is it possible to give a real answer to a real question?] Isn't this what the human spirit is all about?
It dawned on me that perhaps it is necessary to invite people to do this. Perhaps it is as simple as that; asking people to imagine a world where all human beings live together harmoniously. And once they have imagined it, ask them to take it a step further and act on it. We can do it. We can change the world! It is only a matter of asking a different set of questions and then working to find the answers to them. The first thing that must happen is the discarding of the question that does nothing to improve the situation of our brothers and sisters here.
"If Nike weren't there, what else would those people be doing?"
Hear me now... this question will no longer be asked. It limits the possibilities. It limits our ability to dream. It limits our commitment to establishing a world where all persons live freely and are granted the dignity that is their human birthright. How do we begin to change this situation?
Ganked from nikewages.org
8-11-00
"What else would those people be doing?"
"What else would those people be doing?" I have been asked this question so many times. It has almost become the litmus test for whether or not what we are doing here has any meaning. I know that there are a few people who ask the question with genuine concern for the workers. "If they weren't doing this, would they be able to survive? Would they be OK? I'd be worried about them."
Then there are the majority of people that ask the question, "What else would those people be doing?" These are the people who want to feel OK about actively or passively contributing to the horror that is the workers' daily reality. They ask the question meaning, "Hey, those people are desperate, they should be happy they have those jobs. If they weren't doing this they would be starving, so they should feel lucky that they are making the little they are making from Nike." My gut reaction when I hear this is to want grab them by the collar and say "You self-righteous, privileged, #$%@! Is there a heart beating in that chest of yours?" To these people, if the question "What else would those people be doing?" is not answered, it justifies the exploitation in some warped way.
To be very honest, I do not know what the workers would be doing if they weren't working for Nike. How many of us would be able to answer that question for ourselves let alone thousands of people? What would you be doing if you weren't at your current job? There are a lot of factors to figure in aren't there? What would happen to the workers if Nike did not provide these jobs? Again, I do not know. But I do know what would not happen to them.
* They would not be working 10-15 hour days and not making enough to eat.
* They would not be screamed at and humiliated when they weren't meeting their production quota.
* They would not be forced to work overtime.
* They would not be threatened verbally or physically for trying to form unions.
* They would not have healthcare plans that do not meet their basic medical needs.
* They would not work 48-hour shifts when production quotas were high during American holiday seasons.
* They would not have their water supply polluted by factory waste.
* They would not have their once fertile farmland covered by factories.
* They would not be at the mercy of American companies that worked hand and hand with one of the most brutal military dictatorships in history.
* They would not have their economy dominated by foreigners that want to exploit their current situation and keep them oppressed for financial gain.
* They would not be reduced to cogs in the machine that feeds American greed and consumption.
* They would not be making American athletes and coaches rich from their sweat.
* They would not be helping to maximize American shareholder's profits.
* They would not have their hope taken away.
* They would not be dehumanized.
What else would they be doing? Once again, I'm not sure. Do I have to be? Most likely they would be poor and desperate, much like their reality now. They give so much to us in America. They give their hearts, their lives, their sweat, so we can be rich, in-style, comfortable, better athletes... They give us all of these things. But it isn't enough, we want more, we want to exploit them AND not feel guilty about it. So we smugly ask the question "If you weren't working this hard to serve our selfish wants what else would you poor, dirty, uneducated Indonesians be doing?" In asking this question we take from them the one thing they have left, their dignity.
ALLYRBSE
RBLNG2US
All your children are belong to us.
--
ALL YOUR KARMA ARE BELONG TO US
"You're right," Fisheye says. "I should have set it on 'whip' or 'chop.'"
Now I'm an asshole because I believe people should be treated fairly?
No, you're an asshole because you use emotionally loaded terms and examples designed more to ridicule me than to make a real point. And "unfuckingbelievable" doesn't seem to me like a respectful response.
What I PROPOSE is a living wage for people working their assess off so you/he/she can have all the newest/latest/most expensive brandnames plastered all over your bodies.
And how do you propose to accomplish that? You're just going to mandate it by government fiat? That's not likely to work. Although since you seem more interested in beltling me than seriously discussing the issue, I don't expect you to understand this.
Maybe you ought first do some research into the REAL conditions these people are working under, and how much money they receive for this work - and how that money translates in their economy.
Did you even read my post? The question isn't whether they make "enough" money. The issue is whether they make more money than they would without the sweatshop.
If you cannot see why these practices are unethical and undesirable you must be wearing blinders.
And if you can't see that the world cannot be made over by government fiat, you should study some economics.
First, where else would they go? Nike has to make shoes, it is their job. If they don't do that, they go out of business and default on all their sponsorship contracts. If people won't buy shoes made by workers earning a living wage, they are not a viable product and don't deserve to be produced. But I don't think that will happen. Like I said, Nike might have to raise prices, or pay sports figures less for endorsments, but they will still stay in business.
What would be bad for them is not all shoe companies had to operate on an even footing--if they were held to higher standards than other companies--that is why we need laws and governments for this sort of thing, rather than relying on the goodwill of individual companies.
Too many people don't pay attention in economics class, and all they get out is "humans are rational, self interested parties." This is a questionable hypothesis to begin with, largely misunderstood, and ignores the more important thesis "market forces drive a free market economy". By manipulating those market forces, it is possible (within limits) to control a "free market" economy. Depending on the means and the ends, such manipulations can be monopolistic behavior or collusion (bad), other times it is optimization, and good.
Neither are particularly related to Soviet socailims where the market was driven by government quotas, not supply and demand.
It's always highly suspicious when people are fighting for some supposed victims, and you NEVER GET TO HEAR from the "victims" themselves.
The only people raising this issue are rich westerners. The workers themselves are never asked. Think about why that could be.
qualifies as a hack - and I'm glad to read that MIT students still believe in social engineering.
--- Jump!! Fire!! Bullet time!! - Lego version of the Matrix
Heres a good picture of a nice Nike related T-shirt that may interest some of you!
someone provide mirrors for the pic please!
Non-Deterministic Finite Automata
I'm also pretty sure he didn't send a donation. :)
Tell me what makes you so afraid
Of all those people you say you hate
Neither laws nor unions are the primary driver of increased wages. Rather, wages are increased as a result of competition between employers for workers.
Don't believe me? The local McDonalds pays $7/hour. Explain to me how either the government or organized labor caused that to be higher then the minimum wage. If it happens here in the US, what makes you think it's any different overseas?
Won't market forces deal with this evenutally? The problem seems to be that the 'sweatshop' jobs are coveted for their comparatively high income levels and low availability. As more companies do this, the dependance on any one 'sweatshop' will decrease, meaning people will have the option of changing jobs, which means the really bad employers won't be able to hire people as readily and will have to improve their conditions?
Time to enter reality - the are no market "forces". This is one of those stupid metaphors the right wing uses to make it sound like economics is a hard science. It's not, it never will be, it's a soft science, with models and predictions only slightly more rigorous than the other soft sciences.
Your so-called 'forces' produce the results you expect them to under a limited set of conditions:
-zero market entry cost
-an extremely large number of producers and consumers
-perfect information available to all agents
-no collusion or government intervention for any agent
-all agents act in a perfectly rational manner
Under these conditions the supply and demand curves would predict prices, wages, and other good distribution with perfect accuracy. These conditions never exist, but some economic situations come close. The further you get from the assumptions of the market model, the less likely 'market forces' are to work.
None of the needed assumptions is remotely valid:
-zero market entry cost
It costs an awful lot of money to open an overseas sweathsop. I think there's a pretty serious barrier here.
-Extremely large number of agents
Maybe. But how many sweatshop operators are there in any particular corner of nowhere? At a global level, the number of agents interested in running sweatshops might approximate a true market, but you still have geographic monopolies and oligopolies that have absurd amounts of bargaining leverage.
-Perfect information to all agents.
Definitely not
-No collusion or government intervention.
This is the big problem. It's illegal to strike in these countries. Try starting a union, or demanding better working conditions, and you'll end up dead. If you have a one-sweatshop town and a second sweatshop opens, do you really think both sweatshops will engage in a wage bidding war? They'll make an agreement to keep wages at $.07/day. This deal is better for both of them. In the US, we call this price-fixing, but in developing countries they call it business as usual.
-All agents are perfectly rational
Do you really think a sweatshop boss confronted with demands for higher wages is going to start drawing supply schedules and demand schedules and find the intersection like a good little economist would? He's gonna hire a death squad...
I think 'market forces' and the 'law of supply and demand' are about as applicable here as classical mechanics and Newton's laws are at relativistic speeds. Sure, we can them to try and describe conditions and predict future conditions, but our predictions are just wrong.
If yous stop to think about it, it's amazing you'd expect markets to correct this situation. Some people refuse to believe that markets ever produce grossly suboptimal results. The "Markets are Always Optimal" school of thought isn't a hard science, it isn't a soft science, it a fucking ideology - an article of faith. You apparently accept even when it's completely wrong.
I did some research on my own shoes. They're Converse, blue, you know, the skate type. The label inside the shoe told me "Made in Macau". I've never heard of Macau, let alone know where it is. I went to the Converse website to find out more. Let's have a look at their "studentinfo" (sic)
http://www.converse.com/info/studentinfo/manuf.htm l
- "...Converse Inc. is the largest U.S. manufacturer of athletic footwear due to its Lumberton, N.C.
..."
- "Lumberton employs approximately 890 people and is the largest employer in Robeson County, NC.plant"
- "Converse manufactured over 10 million pairs of the canvas Chuck Taylor All Star in 1992; 50 percent of which were shipped to overseas markets."
Hmm that's strange, they're producing from the U.S ? There's nothing about Macau in there. It seems to be an All American shop.Let's do some more research and read a bit of the financial info on their website. Hmmm this SEC filing looks interesting. It seems to go to the sec.gov site, but no hits on the query they gave us. Try hitting the link for yourself to see what I mean.
Grmbl, let's see what google gives us. Hey another link to the SEC site. And this one does mention Macau !
http://www.secinfo.com/dS997.7433.htm
"We utilize independent producers located in the Far East, particularly China, Taiwan, Macau, Vietnam and the Philippines, to manufacture approximately 64% of our footwear."
Well, 64% eh, that's quite a lot. I wonder how many sweatshops that is.
Converse, Stay True (tm)
90% of the cost of a pair of shoes to nike does not go to manufacturing wages. You're paying for materials (and R&D for the same?), but mostly marketing, marketing, marketing.
I suspect a small reduction in advertizing, or (gasp!) a price increase of a few dollars (which really isn't going to hurt any of us overweight americans) would provide enough available funds to pay a living wage to a 3rd world factory worker.
If mom and or dad could get one tenth of the US minimum wage for their blood and sweat, then junior probably wouldn't have to work at all.
However, Nike's management team would rather have nice bonuses, and their Ad firm wants to spend far more than necessary on advertizing.
(DISCLAIMER: All facts presented here are actually assumptions, and statistics are made up)
He should have ordered a pair that said "Sweat" and another that said "Shop". Mix and Match and boom you're done.
"The words of the prophets are written on the Slashdot walls."
In as much as corporations are "natural persons" under Federal law, Nike must be held to the same standards that other individuals are held to: Nike must receive the death penalty for its crimes against humanity.
Nike has engaged in countless acts of child labor abuse. They've not only failed to produce any benefits for the society that gave them corporate status; they've actively harmed that society. And other societies. It makes the US look like one evil corporate behemoth instead of the peaceful land of freedom our forefathers envisioned and drafted in our Constitution.
When individuals kill other individuals, they receive the death penalty. When corporations do the same, they get to keep teh proceeds and profits? Even serial-killers are denied that right under most state laws.
Anti-trust law is good and all, but it doesn't go far enough. Nike must receive the corporate death penalty (having its charter of incorporation burnt and its board members tried for criminal activities) not because they've harmed other corporations (as antitrust law concerns itself with) but because Nike has harmed actual living and breathing human beings.
Corporations like Nike have no place in any modern civil society. They are as good as dead.
Read the rest of this comment...
You are so blindsided by the idea that "providing jobs" is going to be an economic fix, that you are missing the fact that jobs are only as meaningful as 1. the wages the produce and, more importantly 2. the availability of local goods (esp. food) that can be bought with those wages. What is good for those workers is that people are producing food and goods locally at a price they can afford. The proliferation of sweatshops does nothing to make this happen - the economic benefits occur elsewhere.
Second, most of Robert Owen's findings apply to assembly lines equally well. In this case, a well-maintained robot arm is going to produce more than a poorly-maintained one, on a per-dollar basis, simply because it is capable of performing close to it's theoretical best. Whereas one that's not been oiled for a decade, and has half of its servos shorted, is not going to do nearly so well. Sure, it's -cheaper-, but so what?
The equation you need to look at is this one: Real Cost = Total Expendeture - Total Productivity, where Total Expendeture = Base Cost of Work + Cost of Obtaining Labour + Cost of Maintaining Labour, and Total Productivity = Work Achieved + Worker Self-Enhancement (ie: learning how to be more effective, on their own).
Last, you ask for URL's. What's stopping you from going to Altavista and punching in +"Robert Owen" +"Manchester"? Now, I've no problem with people critisising what I write, but self-admitted ignorant critisism, with no self-motivation to find out for yourself?
Now, if you'd asked nicely, I'd have put them in as a hyperlink. As it is, you'll need to cut and paste. There's no gain without effort. Making it trivial for you would achieve you nothing. But if it's worth the work, for all that the work is trivial, you might actually profit some.
It's a small world and it smells funny; I'd buy another if it wasn't for the money; Take back what I paid (SoM)
While I don't know that this is specifically true for Nike, it is not generally true for US and multinational corporations that have farmed out their production to the "export zones" of countries like Malaysia and the Philippines. Many of these companies routinely flout even the feeble labor laws of the countries where they set up shop. Because of "incentive programs", they generally pay no taxes. Workers are forced to buy company housing at rates that don't leave them much "take-home pay".
Read No Logo by Naomi Klein.
The difference between theory and practice is that, in theory, there is no difference between theory and practice.
Do you really believe that Nike will give up the cost-effectiveness of making shoes in Indonesia just because people 'browbeat' them. I'm not asking them to give their workers western wages, just western conditions. The cost to them would be relatively small and their sales would go up. For example I spend around $200 a month on clothes and suchlike and at the moment, Nike don't see a penny of this. My money may be a drop in the ocean, but then I'm not the only boycotter. A mere 500 people like me would see Nike losing $1million worth of sales a year. So you're right - Nike doesn't care about me in particular but throwing away $1 million of sales doesn't sound like good business sense to me.
It does depress me to hear people say 'what's the point?'. If that had always been the attitude, the US would still be a British colony, African slaves would be still be picking cotton and only rich men would have the vote. Nothing may get changed thanks to my protest, but guaranteed nothing would get done, if I just carried on buying Nike.
So I should say nothing and give Nike my money in the hopes that one day they might do something. Your argument reminds me of the '97 UK election when one of Labour's pledges was to reinstate the minimum wage, which had been abolished by the previous government, leading to local sweatshops. The business community were up in arms; prices would rise and workers would have to be laid off. Three years after the minimum wage was reintroduced, unemployment and inflation are both at thirty year lows. I don't doubt that similar arguments were used against giving our ancestors rights at work.
Finally, Nike do open factories in more developed countries. There are few to no western factories in Southern Africa (with the exception of South Africa) because it has been racked with war for decades. On the other hand, China, Indonesia, Thailand and Mexico have been relatively stable for decades, but the possibility of upheaval should be taken into account when companies prop up tin-pot dictators like Deng Xiao Ping or President Suharto.
ROTFL!!! At one time Jim Crow may have been government sponsored, but now it is a social and cultural thing, not a political thing.
What the hell are you talking about? Jim Crow was abolished in the sixties. Yes, there are still some racist white people, but conditions *have* improved. And most of the things that are holding minorities back are still government-run: public schools, minimum wage, discriminatory "not in my backyard" zoning laws, etc.
Jesus, first you are talking about government then you jump to unions. Do I need to remind you that unions are not the government?
No, my point (which perhaps I didn't make clearly) was that unions are given their priviledged position by law. If the majority of the union votes for a particular policy, they can dictate those terms to the minority, and it's an "unfair labor practice" to hire those who don't like the contract the union negotiated. Without those labor laws minorities would have been able to negotiate seperate contracts with employers and probably would have gotten better deals.
Were you asleep in History class? Do you even know the history of Affirmative Action? To blame the federal government is bogus.
You didn't address my point that prior to the 1960's at least the government was the primary means of perpetuating racism in society. In the South we went straight from Jim Crow to affirmative action and anti-discrimination law-- the free market option was never tried. To blame the market for the conditions of minorities is still ludicrous.
As for affirmative action, if it works so well, why are minorities still worse off than whites?
if no applicants apply at $5 but lots do at $7, then the effective prevailing local minimum wage is $7
That's kind of the point, isn't it? Is that such a hard concept to understand? The "effective minimum wage" rises when there are more jobs than workers. You claimed that only governmetn intervention would make employers pay higher wages. Obviously that's false.
By definition, minimium wage jobs do not require much education or training, so this statement is false.
Simply having a job is a step up the job ladder of sorts. Even a burger-flipping job gives you experience showing up for work on a regular basis, following directions, operating a cash register, etc. More importantly, once you have your first job, you can get references for future jobs. "Unemployed for 5 years" doesn't look good on the resume.
As for your ranting about the minimum wage, do you have an actual *argument* as to why it doesn't lock the least skilled out of the job market, or do you prefer to simply belittle me and accuse me of being part of some vast right-wing conspiracy? If you're not bright enough to understand elementary economics, I'm probably wasting my time explaining it to you.
Your last couple of paragraphs don't deserve a response. You are making a large number of stupid assumptions about my motivations and beliefs. I'm not in the mood to debunk a bunch of mindless ad homs.
Nothing may get changed thanks to my protest, but guaranteed nothing would get done, if I just carried on buying Nike.
This is where I believe you're wrong. The conditions of third world workers will improve because once the excess labor is all hired up, companies will start raising wages to compete for workers. By boycotting companies who use sweatshops, you are discouraging them from opening factories overseas, and so you are delaying (if not outright preventing) this from happening. If anything, we should be encouraging companies to open sweatshops, thus hastening the day when all workers in the third world have jobs, and factories are forced to raise wages.
The problem is that as long as the only reason they pay the higher wages is because you disagree with them, they'll work hard to find ways of getting the cost savings and sell you the shoes-- they'll try to lie to you. And boycotts will only do so much. If you demand too much from them and the boycott is widespread enough, they *will* close up shop and move elsewhere.
Market forces, on the other hand, don't have either of these downsides. They will cause every sweatshop to be improved, and will work even if no American consumer pays any attention to it. And the wage growth made possible is unbounded-- it *is* possible that they'll approach American-styly wages as the infrastructure improves and the workforce gains experience.
The boycott option is a short-term fix, while market forces are a long-term solution. My harm is that the former will slow down the operation of the latter, thus delaying jobs and higher wages for everyone so that a few workers in Nike plants can have higher wages now.
I'm not by any means arguing for apathy. I don't dislike boycotting because I don't there's anything we can or should do. I dislike it because I think it does harm to the prospects of third-world workers, by taking away choices and slowing the inflow of capital into poor regions.
You are assuming he actually EXPECTED his order to be filled. A foolish assumption, IMHO. The article called it a culture jam, and thats just what it was. A way to get Nike to do just what it did and expose their hypocrisy for the (internet) world.
And if one went out and got a leather jacket at a second hand store and did just what you mention, it would be kinda funny and ethically legitamate. (or if someone wasn't an ethical vegitarian and just wanted to make irony points.)
Kahuna Burger
...will work for Chick tracts...
But why should children have to work to stay alive? Because sweatshop owners won't pay their employees enough to support themselves, let alone their children. Don't argue that the companies can't afford to.
OK, so what's your proposal? You claim that companies can afford to and should provide living wage jobs for every third world worker. Fine. What policy do you propose that will accomplish this goal?
You're setting up an entirely unreasonable scenario: that the evil corporations you loathe so much will spontaneously raise wages out of the goodness of their own hearts, or that wages can be raised by government fiat. This is simply false.
Again, poverty is not a new thing. It was not created by multinational corps. So if governments can raise standards of living by fiat, why didn't they do it long ago? Given that they haven't done so in the past, what makes you think more of the same will lead to any better result? It's fine to express your moral outrage, but what do *you* propose we do about it?
Just customize it to the Personal ID of "5w34t5h0p"
;)
I guarantee that everyone here would "get" it, and that nike almost definitely wouldnt have it in their filters.
GPL'd web-based tradewars themed space game
I recently saw a British documentary where the TV crew infiltrated a factory run by Gap, supposedly a sweatshop, in Cambodia.
The conditions didn't seem too bad to me - the factory was well lit and clean. The working conditions were probably far superior to the bulk of the jobs you could find in cambodia.
They discovered a few instances of underaged labor, and the company was forced to send the children back to the villages - which makes one wonder whether the documentary crew really did the children a favor, since they lost their job - and it would probably be only a matter of time before they found their way back to the city to find employment.
In all the years I've been reading Slashdot, I've never been so disgusted by the reactions of posters, most of them posting along the lines of " Nike is not responsible for sweatshops/poverty, they were already there in the first place ".
At one point, someone says "If Nike would be forced to pay decent wages, and not hire children, they would move back the factories to the US".
Well, thanks to multilateral trade agreements, tariffs barriers are falling down, and the result is the free movement of merchandise. Countries no longer have to face protective tariffs and whole industries are sucked offshore.
What would be needed is free trade but with tariffs. Each country could be given an indice, proportional to it's standard of living, and, most importantly, proportional to the level of it's democracy. Tariffs could then be levied according to the differences between the indices of each trading country.
This would, of course, discourage trading between countries with different levels. So, the tariffs levied would then go to the poorer country, but administered by an entity that's outside the jurisdiction of the country, so to ensure that there is no embezzelment by corrupt authorities. Of course, any country that would resist that external administration's efforts would face an instant trade embargo.
--
Market forces work very well in highly skilled occupations where there are fewer staff than workers. That isn't the case in the semi- and unskilled area where there are many many more people than jobs. Market forces are unlikely to ever solve this, that's why government legislation was required in the 19th century to end the practice in the west. Look at the result - after a mere hundred years centuries of abject poverty are gone, and we've enjoyed the fastest period of technological growth in history. The arguments against ending worker exploitation have always been that the extra cost would cost so much that factory owners would have to lay off staff. It didn't happen then and it wouldn't happen now. The Chinese government isn't about to improve things, but there's nothing stopping Nike or Gap, except that it isn't economical. What I and others are trying to do is make it more economical to do this by not buying their products.
If market forces had always been allowed to run rampant in the west, slaves would still be picking cotton, children would still be working in dangerous conditions and women would be paid a great deal less than men. The market never takes a long-term view, it only cares about what sells now. But making workers richer means more profits in the future for a small profits hit now.
Nike is different than Fly-by-Night Chinese Clothing Corp who don't have any investment in your goodwill. Once Nike is convinced that it's cheaper to ensure that their (indirect) employees are reasonably treated by North American/ European standards, it could have a domino effect on the treatment of near-slave workers elsewhere in the third world.
If you don't care about human rights elsewhere in the world, you don't have to do anything about Nike. On the other hand, if you refuse to do anything to support somebody else's human rights, there's going to be that much less human rights karma available to help you when you (or your kids) get arrested for doing something like making their own DVD.
Just remember: The people most likely to be opressed by human right violations are generally at their weakest. If you ever have your rights violated, chances are that you're going to be needing the help of others to get out of the pickle.
That's the main reason why some people care about the human rights of others. We're setting up the principles for the defence of our own rights.
--
Free Software: Like love, it grows best when given away.
"Bad jobs are better than no jobs"
WRONG! If all parties were perfectly aware of the situation, you would be right.
However clearly Nike holds the upper hand. Nike knows about the health risks due to the fumes from glue that bonds the sole to the rest of the shoe. The workers don't. Nike knows they can make the employees work for longer hours than promised, with no immediate retribution. Sure, the employee can quit but they won't get their last paycheck, etc. Nike knows they can physically abuse their employees -- not likely to be part of the initial employment agreement, nor is it likely to be legal in the country of employment. Nike knows they can lie to the American public about the conditions, and get away with it for the most part.
All of these cases are instances where the employee doesn't have perfect knowledge -- and thus can't be expected to make a rational decision. Economics classes assume perfect information. This doesn't mean one can see the future, but it does mean that all parties know all current information. I have a BS in Economics, and while it does help me analyze problems, I am careful of the assumptions an economics analysis requires.
Nike isn't the only guilty shoe and apparel manufacturer -- its just the biggest. Want to stop an evil gang? Take out its leader.
PS -- LIVINGWAGE is 10 characters, and it was accepted as a iD for the ZOOM XC iD (a running shoe).
Support a few technologists in Washington.
I'm just putting up the figures for anybody who's interested in the actual wages (as opposed to charity ads, etc) of someone over here.
I don't fully agree that if the multi-nationals left, we'd be worse off. Large corporations usually equate to massive corruption. There's also the effects of globalization and the forcing of third world countries to open up their markets, while the US refuses to drop tariffs on imports FROM these same countries.
Yes, in time our economy may develop to a point where we'll be able to compete. But due to the influence of First World governments and multinationals, that may never happen. All they want is sources of cheap raw materials, and masses of consumers for their goods.
LOL!
:)
o wing.mov
Check this one out. It's been dubbed over with real voices
http://members.optushome.com.au/geoffebb/misc/zer
The implication that a multinational corporation abusing cheap labor in a poor country has only one effect (namely, providing any sort of job), is very, very stupidly simplified.
Your right. It is pretty stupidly simplified. They also build infrustructure, because they need it to transport shoes and raw materials around; they decrease unemployment by using some percentage of the population who'd otherwise be jobless; they improve the local economy, because their new factory needs to be built, their employees fed, and their goods transported. It's a pretty good deal for the host country.
But as I can tell by your nick you prefer the mass seizure of private property, and mass kill-offs of excessive or unsympathetic populations, and the forced labor and poverty of those remaining that were halmarks of soviet russia and red china. Let the populations admire bronze statues of their leaders while they stand in long lines waiting for bread huddled together because there's no heat. To the motherland comrade!
-- Greg
Slashdot, would a spell-checker for posting be too much to ask? It's not rocket science!
Rader
Order Two pair. One with "Sweat" and the other with "Shop" and put one on each foot.
"God fights on the side with the best artillery." - Napoleon, Marshal of France - speaking truth to power
What human rights did Nike violate? They provided jobs, which workers voluntarily accepted. How does that harm workers?
It would certainly be nice if they provided better jobs, but I don't see how it qualifies as a human rights violation when you offer someone a crappy job-- even if it's an undeniably, horribly crappy job. The bottom line is that if the worker felt he was better off without the job, he's welcome not to take it. So from his own perspective, he's better off.
The rhetoric of "slave wages" is nonsense. Paying a low wage is not slavery. Slavery is being forced to work. Calling third-world workers slaves (unless they really are being forced, in which case I'd agree it's wrong) trivializes the concept of slavery.
More to the point, it obscures the real issue, which is what's better for workers? You can label it slavery if you want, but the fact remains that third world workers are better off than they would be without it. Using loaded words doesn't change the issue.
I find it intriguing, that moments after this story was posted, the html "wizard" that allows consumers to build their own Nikes was suddenly changed ever so slightly, and I mean ever so slightly - suddenly the textbox to enter your "id" was limited in size to 8 charachters. Just one shy of the 9 chars in the word "sweatshop".
And to prove this was deliberate I checked the cache of my second pc which coincidentally had visited just this site a few days ago. The text limit was 12 chars on what was otherwise identical HTML.
Fascinating.
Unfortunately, I can still think of plenty of regrettable things (to Nike) that fit in 8 chars or less (per shoe).
I recommend we all place an order right this moment for a pair of shoes with "goatse" in the left shoe and ".cx" in the right one.
They have a defence. It is legitimate, but the taste it leaves in your mouth is foul.
The defence is this: they exploiting companies don't actually employ the workers being exploited. What they do is look for contracters who can deliver lots of product cheap. These contractors are unscrupulous and treat the worker like crap. Nike (and others) can just say "we hired them, but have nothing to do directly with the workers". This is true, in its own, twisted way.
The moral arguments raised by this are endless. I'm sure you can guess what they are.
If you haven't read No Logo, do so. It is a great read.
Woz
Just because the standard of employment in those countries is poor doesn't give Nike the right to employ young children in dangerous, unhealthy environments for a wage that is a patheticically small percentage of what their labor is worth to the company. How about holding huge multinational corporations to a higher standard instead of comparing them to the average employer in Pakistan.
This is a bowel disruptor, and you are just full of shit. - Spider Jerusalem
You seem to be proposing that things are the way they are and we shouldn't be challenging these multinational corporations to change, that we should work to maintain the status quo
No, my proposal is that market forces will drive up wages, just as they did in Britain in the mid-nineteenth century, America in the late-ninteenth, Japane, Korea, Hong Kong, and Taiwan in this century. What drives wages is no unions or laws but competition for workers. By discouraging sweatshop formation you slow this process down and harm workers rather than helping them.
My proposal is that multinationals start paying their workers a working wage
That's not really a proposal. Are you saying that non-working wages should simply be outlawed? What happens if multinationals just fire their workers and bring production back to the states? How do you enforce this?
As you've said, multinationals aren't going to do this on their own.
Actually I believe they will. It just won't be out of the goodness of their hearts or the browbeating of US activists. They'll raise wages because they have to to keep their workforce from going to another employer.
Living in a third world country right now (but yes, going to bail soon) I can say that your $1/day figures were pulled out of someone's a$$.
A dishwasher at a local restaurant makes somewhere around $2 a day (along with free board and lodging). Mind you, this is just a dinky little canteen, not a 5-star hotel restaurant. I believe this is the same rate as day labor. Carpenters, plumbers, and other more skilled manual workers make around twice to three times that (i.e. $4 to $6 a day).
Employers are required to pay minimal medical insurance, etc, and are traditionally expected to treat the employee as a (albeit distant) member of his family, which means providing medical help, loans, and other benefits (which can vary widely from employer to employer).
From the price of food, yes, maybe I can feed a family of four on a dollar a day, but that would mean two, sometimes only one meal a day, and we'd be eating a whole lot of rice and dried fish (sometimes just rice and salt).
I make about $8 dollars a day, teaching at a state university (finished a Masters, thank you very much). A programmer in the city can expect anywhere from $15 to $50 (I'd been offered $40 as a VB programmer at a large multinational bank).
Multinationals pay way better than local companies, obviously. Unfortunately, the really plum jobs (director of IT, etc) go to foreigners (no matter that some of the locals have better qualifications). Sometimes the only way to go up is to migrate to a foreign country, get a citizenship, and come back and work for that company as a citizen of a first-world country.
People who work in sweatshops, contrary to common knowledge, are usually high-school graduates. Some are BS degree holders (I've a cousin with a Commerce degree who worked at the Reebok plant for a while, before she shipped out to HK to work as a maid). Hell, the guys at the local McDonalds are all working their way through college.
Children working are few and far between, although yes, some of the stories of workplace harrassment and exploitation are true (esp. for women workers). I'd say most of the exploitation is in the blatant manipulation of governments (i.e. bypassing local ownership requirement laws by setting up trust funds, misuse of employee pension funds, etc) rather than in child labor. But it's exploitation nonetheless.
One quick observation: If the kids working at Nike are suddenly making more than the local doctors, you just totally screwed the economy to hell.
This viewpoint ignores the complexities of economics in developing countries. All corporate entities have a responsibility to those they hire, it's not as simple as I will pay you x for y work.
In a civil society ethics enters the picture. Ethics being that a companies operations should be benificial to the local population as well. Look into the history of corporations for more info on this.
The problem with sweatshops is that they keep these people from bettering themselves. By paying them little cash, forcing them to work for extremely long hours and openly and forcefully opposing unionization, these companies turn the their workers into citizens who are unable (lack time and money) to better their community.
Employing underage workers (the starving Vietnamese kid) is completely immoral. By providing a dead-end alternative to education, the corporation (as well as the collaborative or complacent local authorities) are condeming a generation to the same conditions as their parents. These people would be better off as farmers who owned their own land and worked for themselves, as it was before European colonialism and the Red Scare of post-colonialism (why do you think so many rational people thought communism was a good idea?).
Americans and most Europeans would be in the same boat had it not been for legislation that dictated basic working conditions and terms. Child Labor Laws, unions and minimum wage/max hours laws are what allowed the middle class in this country to grow in flourish.
Any philisophical discourse or study into sustainable democracy and civil societies show that the most important factor is a large, independent middle class, who can collectively counter-balance the large capitalists, ensuring that no one has to much power. Sort of like the 3 branches of the US gov balance each other. If you look at the history of any developed country, a strong middle class was an essential component.
We don't hate all large corporations simply b/c they are big and scary. We object to unethical and irresponsible behavior that does not benefit the societies they exist in. This goes doubly so for the US governments foriegn poilcies which have encouraged and supported this behavior (send in the Marines on behalf of the United Fruit Company!!). I hope this is somewhat enlightening as to why many of us consider large multinationals to be exploitive and feel the need to at least support protests against them and especially against our own government.
Oh and one more thing, the world might be a safer place for Americans if we acted more responsibly. I don't think as many people would want us dead or call us a Great Satan if their encounters with American people and institutions were not so negative. Then we could cut taxes like nobody's business due to the amount of money we'd save on military spending. (Don't get me started on the fact that we're the world's largest arms exporter).
Arrogance is Confidence which lacks integrity. -- me
We don't tread lightly for fear that corporations like Nike will be offended and withdraw their benevolent jobs. Activists ultimately MAKE these corporations grow a social conscience, by (gasp) doing something about it, despite the scorn they face from a legion of psuedo-intellectual poo-pooing curmudgeons like yourself for it.
This is a nice theory. The problem is that smug jackasses like you destroy the lives of the people you're trying to help. To the extent you accomplish anything, you simply take jobs away from desperately poor people to soothe your aching conscience.
You haven't made any corporation grow a "social conscience," and aren't likely to do so. You haven't substantially improved anyone's working conditions or raised anyone's wages. What you have done is harass companies that are improving the lives of desperately poor people because *gasp* they're MAKING A PROFIT!!! We obviously can't have that.
I think it's *you* who need a free mind. Dismissing people who happen to disagree with you as "reactionary" and therefore "boring" is a simplistic and flawed way of viewing the world. The fact that the majority agree with you doesn't make you right, your smug assertions to the contrary.
First ... Nike never would have processed the order. It says right on the site that they reserve the right to reject ID's.
Second ... The ID can be no longer than EIGHT letters. Sweatshop is NINE, and would never make it through the system.
On a personal note, I think the Idea of custom building my shoes is AWESOME, especially with my nickname on them. Finally, I'm not stuck with the fuckin' ugly colors most Nike's come in these days (I've been wearing Sketchers for that reason). You know the ones ... the shoes that make you look like you're from the future.
However, Nike makes the best shoes I've ever worn, and now that I can get around the color issue, I'll go back to wearing them.
A sweatshop is factory that uses a dominant position (only work available in the area, or "owns" the local government, or employs illegal aliens) to enforce illegal work conditions.
A good summary of the problem can be found in the article "Human Rights Abuses in the Apparel Industry". Search the document for Nike. Nike is responsible for using illegal tactics to withhold pay, to enforced overtime over the legal maximum, and to pay below minimum wage pay. Nike knows about and allows physical and sexual abuse. Nike is breaking the law in these countries.
But apparently because these things happen far away, because the governments is question have problems enforcing their laws, because these workers are desperate for the work, this is acceptable. After all, it "helps keep Nike running shoes affordable for all of us." Apparently the end justifies the means. All hail Nike for abusing human rights in name of cheap sneakers.
Search 2010 Gen Con events
but is it also moral to expect a street orphan on the streets of Calcutta not to work, especially when it is the only way he will make money
How about paying him enough so he can learn at the same time ? Or maybe do a parttime learning/ parttime working setup ? You are so full of shit, read my other post and get a clue.....
Better yet, why does'nt Nike just give some money to NGO's in India working to educate the masses and help them get out of life they are in now.....you are just buying into the FUD that Nike generates!
Non-Deterministic Finite Automata
to all of you who buy the swooshtika propaganda machine and their 'fair wage' please check out the olympic living wage project
http://www.nikewages.org/index2.html
Jim Keady traveled to Indonesia and subsided (barely) on an allowance fixed at the same wages as a Nike factory worker. This is after Nike rejected his application for employment at one of their 'modern' and 'progressive' factories offering fair wages.
Please read this if you still buy the Nike propagated myths offering great jobs to the impoverished masses.
The fact is, that the people involved in the sweatshop system don't exactly have the kinds of freedoms you describe. The crux of your argument seems to rest in the notion that the women and children can leave the sweatshop if they want to. Women and children in particular are traditionally characterized as those most easily bullied on threat of torture into doing things that could easily be otherwise described as torturous. It's absurd to deny that this kind of intimidation takes place, as you can just look at domestic violence figures here in the enlightened US of A. So we can safely say that for all practical intents and purposes these people don't have a choice.
A sweatshop is characterized by the absence of a living wage, unsanitary or otherwise unsuitable working conditions and arbitrary discipline.
If you need examples of the sorts of "arbitrary discipline" that take place in sweat shops, I can provide them. I just wanted to quickly point out how completely off base your argument is.
-rt
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Now, I think it would be GOOD to buy FIVE or SIX STUDEBAKERS
China has a population somewhere in excess of 1 billion people. The rest of Asia is far from underpopulated. You're trying to say that soon there will be a shortage of workers and companies will have to increase wages or face having their employees move to a different factory that pays better?
Yes, I am. If anything, the high populations in the third world are an argument *for* lax standards, because it increases the incentive to rapidly expand production in the third world. Yes, it will probably years if not decades before every Chinese worker has a job overseas. But in the meantime these companies will be raising the living standards of millions of Chinese peasants.
Factory workers in North America typically earn between $10 and $20 per hour, so up to $160 per day. Not a whole lot of math involved in figuring out where the work force deals are.
Except that's not true. Overseas labor is a relatively new phenomenon(last 20 years or so) because it has only recently become cost-effective to hire workers overseas. Third world countries have a host of disadvantages-- poor infrastructure, unstable governments, weak property rights, weak currencies, high shipping costs, poorly educated work force-- that makes building a third-world sweatshop far more expensive and risky than building an American one. Activist pressure will *never* raise wages to American levels or anywhere close to it, because long before they get that high it will become cheaper to move to the West.
If something is hurting the brand (like the swoosh being associated with sweatshops) companies will do what is necessary to protect their image.
OK, but is hurting their brand going to make them improve conditions, or just close up shop? And more to the point, is attacking Nike going to slow down the process of opening additional sweatshops? That's what ultimately going to drive up wages, and I fear that if you subject sweatshop operators to bad PR campaigns, you simply make sweatshops even more expensive, and they'll make fewer of them.
I haven't studied this issue in detail, so I can't give you specific details of the process of rising wages. But I believe South Korea and Taiwan are good examples-- thirty years ago both these countries were nearly as poor as any today, and they raised their standards of living largely by providing a capital-friendly environment and encouraging the building of "sweatshops." Today, there are hardly any sweatshops left because the experience and infrastructure from those sweatshops have been turned to semiconductors and other more high-skilled manufacturing. It does happen, it just takes time.
The campaign against sweatshops is to stop exploitation of poor people, similar to the one in the 19th century that means that workers cannot be treated as paid slaves. I don't want the sweatshops closed, I want them to be safe, and I want the people who work in them not to be compelled to work hours that even IT management would balk at imposing just to put food on the table. Just think how much less poverty there would be if 2 workers were required to do the work instead of one.
Have you been to a sweat shop? I saw where Wilson makes baseballs in Haiti, all hand sewn. Try doing that for 10 hours a day 7 days a week for minimal pay. Even if it is the going rate for that country. Can't Wilson/Nike/any company afford to pay their employees? Sure they can, but why, when they "need" a new Beemer to fill the 4th garage?
Why are we Americans so sure that everyone else would be so greatful to be like us, isn't that a bit presumptuous? Why don't we climb down off our high horse and actually do something, instead of make excuses for the way things are.
How greatful would you be if you were begging and recived a "gift"?
Would you be greatful?
Or would you be ashamed to be in the position you were in?
Hmmm, think about that for a bit.
"No one will smell that."
Governments have raised standards of living by fiat, that's why we have the minimum wage, working hours are limited (at least in Europe - I don't know about the US) and factory owners are required to conform to safety standards. We also have universal healthcare and protection against disability and unemployment. I don't think Nike should be solving all the problems in all the countries, but building safe factories, paying a living wage, limiting working hours and ending child labour can't be that difficult surely?
Yeah right, like it wasn't the law or anything that forced them to change. There is no competition in those markets. There are plenty of poor people to exploit, and they will go on exploiting them as long as western consumers care more about their cool footwear than other people.
OK, but is hurting their brand going to make them improve conditions, or just close up shop?
Are you suggesting that Nike will give up making shoes because a few nasty activists give them a hard time? Or if they close up shop, where are they going to go? The only reason Nike use sweatshops now is because it's more economical. If consumers in the west stop buying Nike because they are abusing their workers then it becomes in their interest to improve conditions. One thing that all the pro-sweatshop people here fail to recognise is that if sweatshop workers are suddenly working 40 hours instead of 90 and children are no longer employed then more adult breadwinners will be required, reducing poverty still further. It may cost Nike a lot but so does good PR in general and they would get a lot of good PR for this.
However, these practices were banned in the UK back in the early-to-mid Industrial Revolution, as too many workers were dying or becoming seriously injured. (As in, losing limbs, eyes, etc.)
Many people rightly feel that if WE oppose such practices, on moral, ethical (or even business) grounds, for our own children, how DARE we consider it acceptable for children in some conveniently remote location!
Last, but not least, Mill-Owner Robert Owen (founder of Owen's College, now the University of Manchester, England) proved conclusively that an able, educated, well-nourished, well-treated work-force with adequate breaks and adequate housing will ALWAYS out-produce a crippled, uneducated, malnourished, abused one, with no breaks and poor housing, by MORE than the difference in cost between them.
Nike is foolish. Not for moving to a 3rd-world country, but for making the same errors that post-medieval industrialists did. Serfs make very poor labor pools.
Nike could double their profits, by raising the standards of living & working. This might sound a bit strange, but it's a truth large corporations ignore at their peril. NOBODY works better than their conditions. If you want a workforce that can outproduce a small nation, you give them a reason to WANT to outproduce a small nation, to WANT to be that dedicated.
As Roy Castle once said... "Dedication is what you need."
It's a small world and it smells funny; I'd buy another if it wasn't for the money; Take back what I paid (SoM)
You probably don't believe the MS FUD and PR bullshit, so why are you believing the Nike one????
Because it's true. You describe lots of problems third world workers face, but what you don't mention is that Nike didn't cause those problems. Those countries were poor long before Nike arrived on the scene, and would even poorer if Nike were to close it's "sweatshops" and produce shoes elsewhere.
it's fine to sympathize with how bad conditions are in the third world. But don't blame Nike for those conditions. They are providing jobs that --while we may not think they're good-- are better than most other jobs in the country. It hardly makes sense to demonize Nike for providing jobs for poor people just because they didn't improve conditions enough. Those people would be worse off without Nike, not better.
Well i agree with some of what you said, the part about avg. income in 3rd world nations (developing countries for the p.c.) being under a grand a year. BUT you have got to be kidding me about the bit about the starving kids who dont mind working. Tell me, have you ever met one of these kids you seem to be talking about with so much confidence ? ?
/. readers and NGO's and activists in this area, think a bit, go and read about the lives these ppl. lead!
Well let me tell you something, I have met some of the kids that work for sweatshops, it was not in Vietnam, and not for Nike. I am talking about teenagers who had spent a good part of their youth working in Carpet making factories in Pakistan.... They were these were the lucky ones that got out due to the intervention of NGO's. They were getting paid, yes BUT it was not even enough to feed themselves with a good meal (rice and onions alone is not what i term good) at the end of the day. And you really think its fair for any kid to not be able to go outside and play ?
And if you are wondering why they are working if they are not forced to? The reason is that the parents of these children dont send them to the schools in most causes...... they can make some money if they start working NOW! Take away the sweatshops and you end up with some kids actually getting an education, hell if nothing the kids get to enjoy themselves a bit. Its very easy to see that this is a very vicious cycle and only helps big Corp's rake in the multi-million dollars profits year in and year out!
SO, before you go off on a rant to blame
Non-Deterministic Finite Automata
A clean safe factory in China that pays a living wage and doesn't employ children is still far cheaper than a similar one in the US. I doubt very much that Nike would move all production back to the US just because they had to pay $1 an hour instead of $1 a day. The more people that hit Nike's bottom line by refusing to support their exploitation of the poor, the faster conditions will improve and with the reduction in working hours more people will be required reducing poverty still further.
I remember the '97 election campaign in the UK when one of the Labour manifesto promises was to reinstate the minimum wage that had been abolished by the previous government and had led to the rise of local sweatshops. The business community was up in arms, claiming that prices would rise and companies would have to lay off workers. Three years after it's introduction unemployment is at a 20 year low and inflation is at the lowest point since it was first calculated. I haven't heard why this is, but I would imagine that people being paid a morereasonable wage led to them being better workers and adding value to the company. Doing the same for their workers in the Far East would give Nike some excellent PR and would improve the quality of output from their factories.
In what way would paying a living wage 'destroy' people's lives. Let me just ask a question: how much cheaper are Nike shoes now that their manufacturing costs are substantially lower? Not at all cheaper. So all of the savings have gone to profit. Now if Nike could still make a lot of money by paying people $15 an hour in the US, how is them paying $1 an hour going to cripple them. Their sales won't mysteriously disappear, their profits won't turn into a loss and prices won't have to rise. Nike are not 'substantially improving people's lives', they are just substituting one bad lifestyle for another, and for a small hit in profits they could do so much more. Also, if they reduce working hours to a realistic level of around 40-45 hours more workers will be required, reducing poverty that much more, After all, is this harrassment going to make Nike move back to the US and pay factory workers $15 an hour or is it going to convince them that they are losing customers and therefore pay their current workers $1 an hour and improve their conditions. A win win situation at a relatively small cost to Nike.
No, I'm suggesting that they'll simply open factories in more developed countries, where the costs are lower. They don't have to deal with power outages, civil wars, government corruption, lousy transportation, unskilled workers, or pestering from American activists. Yes, they'll have to pay higher wages, but this will be offset by other costs. And the third-world workers you claim to care so much about will end up with no jobs at all.
Come on. These kids are not abused or mistreated. They're given jobs at a decent wage for where they live, and they are not forced to work beyond their will. Cut Nike some slack ... they are actually doing GOOD.
The third world isn't desperately poor by accident. There are very real reasons why they have a lower standard of living-- poor infrastructure, uneducated workforce, unstable government, etc.
So low wages are just one piece of the puzzle when it comes to deciding whether to open a third-world factory. Low wages are what offsets the other costs that go into building a factory in the middle of an impoverished country that might be in the grips of a civil war in a few years.
All this is really beside the point, though. You can wish all you want that Nike treat their workers better, but the only important question is: what's your protests going to accomplish. I think there's a good case to be made that they'll simply encourage fewer companies to open overseas plants, and thus deprive workers of jobs. You don't run Nike, and Nike probably doesn't care if you disapprove of them.
So in short, yes, I think it's likely that all this harrassment is going to make Nike move elsewhere, if not to the US then to a more developed Asian country. If they are browbeaten into offering higher wages, they might as well get a better workforce and infrastructure out of the deal.
Oh please. Alright then, what if you were an "unskilled" American laborer, not a "lazy" cube-sitter, who wanted an assembly-line job with this stable, reputable American company?
Oh, sorry, you can't, because there aren't any Nike factories in the US. Because the workers there would demand a decent wage, medical benefits, the whole nine yards. They might even -gasp! - organize into unions to demand these concessions. So, thanks Nike for taking these jobs out of the US. Great corporate citizen.
And if you're going to come back with "well, Americans should work as cheap as the East Asians," then tell me: why? When the executives of the company are making millions per year, why should ANYONE be satisfied with a few hundred (or less!) per week? These are the laborers who are physically MAKING the fortune that Nike executives live on. The fact that they receive such a miserably small portion of the compensation is unforgivable, no matter what side of the Pacific they're on. The difference is that here, they'd make some noise about it.
(Incidentally, Nike was targetted by a sketch on "TV Nation" a couple of years ago; Michael Moore went to Phil Knight's office and asked why there are NO Nike factories in the US, and he had the gaul to say that "People in America don't want to make shoes"! Seriously! So this "make your own shoe" promotion is really ironic on that level, too)
Actually, Nike makes excellent products mostly, at least their top models in running shoes are the best on the market, IMHO. However, their child labor practices suck, and for that reason, I'm currently running on a pair of Asics, which are clearly of inferior quality.
Employee of Inrupt, Project Release Manager and Community Manager for Solid
is it also moral to expect a street orphan on the streets of Calcutta not to work, especially when it is the only way he will make money?
Is it moral to expect a child to work long, grueling hours for little pay or benefits, simply because they were born in the wrong country? A job that, incidentally, prevents them from gaining any sort of education, severly decreasing their chances of getting a better job in the future.
Is it moral to say that working in harsh conditions such as sweatshops is third world peoples "choice", when in reality, there is no choice? If I have to choose between a sweatshop and starvation, that really isn't much of a choice, now, is it?
Is it moral to to casually dismiss the exploitations of workers in another country simply because it doesn't affect your life? Your great-great grandfather, who risked his life by striking against harsh factory conditions in the 1800's, so that he might be able to provide a better life for his family, might have something to say about that. So might the tens of thousands of other people in this country's past, who sacrificed their jobs, their dignity, and sometimes their lives, all so you could have some of the things you so obviously take for granted, like health insurance, vacation time, guarenteed work breaks, and high wages.
Why don't you step away from the keyboard for a little bit, look around you, and realize that whatever job you currently hold, whatever eductation you currently have, and whatever possesions you currently own, would not in any way have been possible had it not been for the sacrifices of these men and women who came before you. And now, why don't you go do something to honor those people, instead of shitting on them like you just did with that post.
It looks like Nike altered the site after the fact to only allow eight letters. It used to be 12, apaprently?
If India wants those rules, they'll implement them. If they don't, who are you and I to tell them they must?
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Truth hurts, don't it.
That they are exploiting a bad situation, even if they are acting as the lesser of evils, doesn't keep it from being a bad situations. Your claim is essentially that it is better to be a good slaveholder than to oppose slavery.
As for the 'sweatshop' issue, would they reject a request to put the URL to the story mentioned in this article? What if I spelled 'sweatshop' in another language?
'weatshopsay'
Btw, did Cowboy Neal give Nike permission to use his name on the shoes?
Wow... the possibilities for pissing people off are practically endless! I've got to order my pair of /. (or Cowboy Neal) sneakers today!