Copyright 1997 The New York Times Company
Some Youthful Foes Go Toe to Toe With Nike
By DAVID GONZALEZ
NEW YORK -- Adriane Campo could wear a different Nike sneaker for each day of the week. She doesn't belong to any sports teams, she just likes to look good. "Mine glow," she said, showing off a pair of Air Max shoes she received a few weeks ago. "These aren't even the latest ones. This is old." Perhaps a trip to Nike Town is in order for a fashion fix?
"You know, I never been to Nike Town," she said. "They say it's a neat-looking store."
It may not look that neat Saturday if she does manage to get the day off from her after school job and visit the Sultanate of Swoosh at Fifth Avenue and 57th Street. Dozens of young people from 11 settlement houses around the city are planning to dump their old Nikes at the store to protest what they say is the shoe company's double exploitation of the poor. They are part of a growing movement that has criticized Nike for underpaying workers in Asian factories -- about $3 a day in Indonesia, for example -- while charging style-setting teen-agers upward of $100 for the shoes.
Adriane and eight teen-age friends got together last Tuesday at the Forest Hills Community House in Queens, where several youth workers tried to enlist them in the protest.
"Nike is making billions of dollars in America off you guys," said Mike Gitelson, a social worker who helped start the protest. "Let's get this straight, Nike is doing nothing illegal. For us, it is a moral question. You can't make that much money off us and refuse to give your people enough money to live on."
While the profile of the campaign is not as high as the ones that won concessions from the Gap or Kathie Lee Gifford, labor advocates involved in those protests said they expected to turn their attention to the footwear company soon.
"A lot of spontaneous activity has sprung up around Nike all over the place," said the Rev. David Dyson, a Brooklyn minister in a clergy group that reached a deal with the Gap. "We are going to be drawn into this just by the inertia of the thing."
Vada Manager, a spokesman for Nike, said many of the complaints against the company were based on inaccurate information being circulated on the Internet. He also faulted some "fringe groups" for lying about labor conditions at Nike's factories, which he said have passed muster during audits, including a recent review by Andrew Young, the former ambassador to the United Nations.
But even Young's report said Nike could do more. Maybe that is why a few weeks ago Manager visited the Edenwald-Gun Hill Neighborhood Center, where the settlement house protest began.
"Nobody has done more than Nike in terms of leadership," he said. "We took the train to the South Bronx."
Maybe he was caught up in thinking about global markets, since the Edenwald Center is half a mile from the Bronx-Westchester County line. Whatever the case, they set him straight when he arrived.
"I grew up in Alabama," said Jessie Collins, the center's director. "We worked for $2 a day picking cotton. That was at a time when people said they couldn't pay them more because the cotton economy won't let them do this. Or, if you don't want to work for $2 a day you don't have to work. We had no choice. I'm sure the same analogy goes for the people in Indonesia."
A glance at local markets was enough to persuade Dulani Blake to give up on Nike. The $150 for the right style in his size was enough for one or two weeks worth of groceries. Or several months' salary for an Indonesian worker.
"Nike goes to different countries so people can work for cheap," he said. "They know the minimum wage here goes up."
"I told my friends about that and they said they didn't care," Adriane said. "I have friends who spent two weeks of paychecks to buy Nikes."
By evening's end, she seemed intent on not buying any more Nikes. In fact, she wanted to part with some.
"Give them the stinky old nasty Nikes," she said. "What do we say to them?"
Justify the cost of the shoes and the labor, said Leo Johnson, a youth worker from Edenwald. The next step, he said, would be to concentrate on stores, where Nikes dominate the market with a vast selection of styles and colors.
"You got to use the lingo when you're talking about that," Johnson said. "Yo, dude, you're being suckered if you pay $100 for a sneaker that costs $5 to make. If somebody did that to you on the block, you know where it's going."
"Toe to toe," said a teen-ager.
"This is the toe to toe of the future," Johnson said. The sneakers are coming off.
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