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Anti-Nike Activists Just Do It
By Suganthi Singrayar
April 15, 2026, TuesdayNext time you see Nike's familiar swoosh on U.S. basketball star Michael Jordan's hat, just think how much the sneaker giant paid him to wear it. And then work backwards to find out how Nike made so much money.
Women workers employed by Nike subcontractors in Vietnam, for instance, earn a below-minimum daily wage of $ 1.60 to produce thousands of pairs of shoes a day. Every shoe then retails for between $ 100 and $ 200 in a Sydney store.
A recent slew of academic research and investigations by labor activists have revealed the extent of under-wage labor, demeaning conditions, and breach of safety laws on a global scale in sweatshops around the world.
One report on Nike factories in Indonesia by Australian academic Peter Hancock, "Nike's Satanic Factories in West Java," describes a Nike factory as "a very large high-security prison."
Another report, "Sweating for Nike" by the Australian group Community Aid Abroad, reported failure by Nike's subcontrators in Indonesia, Vietnam, China, and Thailand to uphold worker rights.
A U.S. businessman of Vietnamese origin, Thuyen Nguyen, in a report on Nike factories in Vietnam, describes an overworked, underpaid, and highly stressed workforce made up of mostly women.
To be sure, Nike is not the only multinational company to exploit Third World workers, and probably isn't even the worst. But activists say that being the market leader and a major employer of low-wage labor in Asian developing countries, where Nike goes other manufacturers follow.
Nike has not commented publicly on the three reports yet, but last year it developed a code for its subcontractors. The company says subcontractors are bound by local laws, and adds that without its factories thousands of jobs in countries like Vietnam, Burma and Indonesia would be in jeopardy.
Says Nike's Asia-Pacific Regional Director, Tony Peddie: "Neither Nike not any of its subcontractors are in a position to dictate the labor laws of any country."
Yesterday President Bill Clinton announced a new Code of Conduct to stop sweatshop labor in the Third World. The new code was agreed to by activists, labor unions, and international manufacturers like Nike and Reebok. It stipulates a guaranteed minimum wage pegged to local conditions and a maximum 60 hour work week with one day off, and bars employment of minors.
Compliance would give manufacturers the right to put a "no sweatshop" label on their garment or shoe products. But activists say the measure still does not go far enough and expressed concern about monitoring of the Code.
In 1997, Nike will have an expected revenue of $ 4 billion. Its secret is the astronomical mark-up on his lucrative product: a sneaker that costs almost nothing to make can be sold for hundreds of dollars. Nike also gives its products an image by signing high-flying sports sponsors.
In Australia, Community Aid Abroad last week launched a consumer campaign against Nike to draw attention to what it says is the footwear company's failure to protect the basic human rights of the people it employs.
The campaign is coordinated with 20 other international groups, including Christian Aid in Britain, the Clean Clothes Campaign in the Netherlands, and NCOSS in Belgium. Among other things, they are urging people to sign protest postcards which the group will deliver to Nike.
Campaign coordinator Tim Connor says the campaign is focusing on Nike in Indonesia because it is the biggest Nike manufacturer. He said they hope that other manufacturers will change their practices if Nike does. But he added that while Nike's treatment of workers is bad, it is not worse than any other company.
Hancock's report is perhaps the most disturbing. "Nike's Satanic Factories in West Java" investigates one of the company's South Korean contractors, Kukje, in Banjaran in Java.
The report is Hancock's doctoral thesis for the Center for Development Studies at the Edith Cowan University in Western Australia. Hancock spent eight months last year in Banjaran doing research among female Nike workers.
His most dramatic find is that companies like Kukje, which had earlier been treating their workers well, suddenly increased their daily quota per worker from 200 to 300 shoes, cut their holidays, and demanded compulsory overtime after getting the Nike contract.
Hancock says Nike would certainly be aware of the conditions under which the subcontractor employed its workers, and that it was Nike itself that "enforced massive changes in administration and production procedures" before the contract was awarded to Kukje.
Another Nike subcontractor in Banjaran, Taiwan's Feng Tay company, employs women below 25 in the most demanding sections of production: stitching. Staff turnover is highest in the stitching section because of high pressure, long working hours, forced overtime and few holidays, Hancock's thesis says.
Women are most vulnerable because they are young, relatively uneducated, usually unmarried, with very little experience in dealing with authority and almost no knowledge of their rights.
Groups like Community Aid Abroad have welcomed the Code of Conduct, but say Nike's guidelines omit important clauses like the right to organize and bargain collectively.
The group admits that in some countries political and legal conditions limit workers' ability to organize and bargain, but says that it is up to the manufacturer to give its workers that right.
Thuyen Nguyen's research says women between the ages of 15 and 25 employed by a South Korean Nike subcontractor in Vietnam are treated "like slaves."
The women were humiliated and sometimes even beaten for poor workmanship. Some women complained they had been punished by being forced to kneel and hold their hands in the air for 25 minutes.
Copyright 2026 LENGTH: 994 words HEADLINE: BYLINE: DATELINE: SYDNEY, Apr. 15 BODY:
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