IF WE HAD THE RIGHT TO UNIONIZE AND BARGAIN WE COULD IMPROVE CONDITIONS! YOU MUST BE LIVING IN FANTASY LAND! for disinvestment could react to a solidarity campaign by cutting and fleeing from Haiti. It was the Haitian workers who requested that the NLC convey to Disney and its contractors their modest wage proposal (58 cents an hour, up from 28 c.) and their need to have their rights respected."
In the past, the NLC has worked successfully with other giant U.S. apparel companies, such as Liz Claiborne and The Gap, generating popular pressure so that they kept their production in Central America, rather than cutting and running in the fact of human rights campaigns. * To receive Campaign for Labor Rights e-mail Labor Alerts send a message to [email protected] with "labor alerts — all campaigns" in the subject line or specity which labour issues interest: Nike, Disney, Guess, child labour, Guatemala, Mexico, Nicaragua, El Salvador, US farm workers, US poultry processing workers CAMPAIGN FOR LABOR RIGHTS memberships: Send $35.00 to CLR, 1247 "E" Street SE, Washington, DC 20003. For a sample copy of our newsletter, send your postal address to [email protected]
Nike signs multi-million dollar endorsement contracts with sports superstars like Andre
Agassi, Michael Jordan and Tiger Woods. Its advertising budget is US$650 million. Yet a pair of Nikes selling for $90 has a labour cost of $1.20. Seventy percent of all Nike athletic shoes are produced in China and Indonesia.
Nike has also signed with transnational contractors in the Philippines, Thailand and
Vietnam. Seventy to ninety percent of the workforce is female. The vast majority do not make more than $2.50 a day— for which many are forced to work 60-80 hours a week. Independent investigator?
Given the widespread labour abuse by Nike subcontractors in Asia, Nike Chief Executive Officer (CEO) Phil Knight announced last February that he was commissioning an independent investigation of its Asian operations, making all facilities open to a team of inspectors. He hired as the investigator former civil rights activist, mayor of Atlanta and US ambassador to the United Nations Andrew Young, and his recently founded firm, GoodWorks International.
At a June 24 press conference Andrew Young reported the findings of his organisation, saying "What we saw overwhelmingly was good." Nike bought full-page adverts in the New York Times and other major newspapers to publicise the report.
As several researchers have pointed out, Young did not speak the languages of the workers. He accepted Nike's proposal to use their translators - thus violating rules that have been established for the inspection of human rights conditions around the world.'
Bob Herbert, a New York Times columnist who has written extensively on Nike labour issues, charged that Young allowed himself to be given a carefully guided tour: "The kindest thing that can be said at this point is that Mr. Young was naive. He spent just three or four hours in each factory." Young also chose not to consider whether Nike pays its workers the minimum wage, claiming that "determining what is a 'fair wage' in a foreign country is a very complicated process. Just say "No" to Nike
As a high-priced athletic shoe, Nike sells more than its product— it also sells an image: Nike is about cool, about empowerment, for men and women.
One of Nike's strategies for gaining market share to sign contracts with the athletic departments at various universities. The Kentucky Gazette recently questioned the nature of Nike's contract with the University of Kentucky. The basketball coach there now earns $150,000/year from the university and $1 million from Nike. In exchange, Nike's swipe logo appears on university sports uniforms.
INTERNATIONAL INSTITUTE FOR RESEARCH AND EDUCATION
World Bank/IMF/WTO: The Free Market Fiasco
Eric Toussaint and Peter Drucker (Eds.)
• E6/$8.75/45FF. Cheque payable to P. Rousset, IIRE, Postbus 53290, 1007 Amsterdam, Netherlands.
INTERNATIONAL INSTITUTE FOR RESEARCH AND EDUCATION
Lean Production: A Capitalist Utopia?
Tony Smith
£4/$5/35FF. Cheque payable to P. Rousset, IIRE, Postbus 53290, 1007 Amsterdam, Netherlands.
16 International Viewpoint #293
As the Gazette pointed out: "Nike wins two ways. For sharing its gold and silver, Nike receives more than endorsements—it also buys silence. What coach or sports hero paid to promote a product would do the opposite and kill the Golden Goose?"
"In fact," the newspaper continues, "the contract specifically states that Nike has the right to terminate the agreement if the University disparages the Nike brand...or takes any other action inconsistent with the endorsement of Nike products."
What happened in Kentucky has been duplicated in many other universities. Last year, Nike boss Phil Knight, now the sixth richest man in the United States, gave the University of Oregon $25 million for a new law school, 15 professorships and a $40,000 salary supplement for the university president. A few years earlier, he gave an undisclosed sum of money to remodel and expand the library, which now bears his name. Nike also has a $7 equipment and advertising contract with the university's athletic department.
Students and faculty have organised to put pressure on Nike, saying that Nike contracts should not be renewed as long as the company allows its contractors to engage in labour abuse. The Associated Students at the University of California's Irvine campus have voted to boycott Nike, becoming the first major US university to "say 'No' to Nike." 1. In 1980 the International Law Association established Notes the Belgrade Minimal Rules. Rule number 10 stipulates that analysts should provide all of their own experts.) The Campaign for Labor Rights will send a Nike action packet free via e-mail ([email protected]). You can subscribe to the Campaign for Labor Rights newsletter for $35 a vear in the US. S50 elsewhere. Also check Global Exchange's web page for Nike campaign alerts: www.globalexchange.org/watch/campaigns/nikecampaign . html Other sources include Nike in Indonesia (6 issues a year for S20, contact Jeff Ballinger, Press for Change, P.O. Box 161, Alpine, NJ 07620, fax: +1 201-768-5812 and IndonesiaAlert! ($4 issues a year for $12, 1880 Jackson St. #301, Oakland, CA 94612).1
ISN'T THAT AMAZING? THE
HARDER THEY WORK, THE POORER
THEY GET, AND THE RICHER ¡ GET!! OINK, OINK! 05-;
Walt Disney sub-contractor pulls out of Haiti
H.H. Cutler, the Walt Disney Company's largest subcontractor in Haiti, plans to shutdown its operations in the poverty-stricken country this September. About 10% of the country's assembly sector workforce would loose their jobs. This would be a devastating blow to those workers and their families, given Haiti's extreme poverty and 80% unemployment.
H.H. Cutler currently employs 2,300 workers, earning starvation wages as low as 28c an hour. Quotas are high, and conditions miserable. Using the pretext of a "slump in demand," H.H. Cutler is in fact responding to criticism from human rights and labour groups for its policies of worker abuse. By relocating its factories to China and Indonesia, the company will not only pay cheaper wages (6c to 13c an hour), but benefit from greater levels of impunity, weaker trade unions, and even less scrutiny from Human Rights observers.
Batay Ouvriye, an independent Yes to human rights! A Leading up to a National Day of Conscience on October 4, 1997, and a Holiday Season of Conscience in November and December, the National Labor Committee (NLC) is distributing petitions on which up to a million people are expected to sign their names demanding that the President and the U.S. Congress say "Yes! to Human Rights and No! to Sweatshops.
The petition states that "We the People...believe that in our global economy, human rights protections are every bit as important as corporate rights." It calls for wages to be tied to the basic cost of living and for workers to be free to organise to defend their rights. It will be presented to the White House Sweatshop Task Force which will be reporting to the President at the end of the year with its final agreement which will establish industry-wide human rights standards for the first time.
In order to show public opposition to corporate use of sweatshop manufacturing, on October 4th, there will be simultaneous actions in hundreds of cities and communities stretching across the entire country (and around the world) -vigils, candlelight marches, interdenominational services, leafleting, music, demonstrations, ringing of church bells, street theatre and much more. Students, from grade schools to universities, will be asked to play a major role.
On October 4, the coalition will announce the Holiday Season of Conscience, providing consumers the opportunity to shop with their conscience.
workers' organisation in Haiti, has called for immediate protests to urge H.H. Cutler not to pull out of Haiti and to meet the Haitian workers demands for a living wage, improved working conditions, and the respect of workers rights to organise. This call is backed by the USbased Disney/Haiti Justice Campaign. "It should be made clear to H.H. Cutler and to the Walt Disney Company that a pull out would lead to an immediate call for an international boycott of both Disney and H.H. Cutler products. Companies cannot be allowed to pull out just because they are faced with international criticism and attempts by workers to organise for their rights. "* Phone, fax, mail or e-mail your protest to: Thomas Austin, President, H.H. Cutler, 120 lona Ave. SW, Grand Rapids, Michigan, 49503 USA. Phone: 616-4599101. Fax: 616-459-2133 Michael Eisner, CEO., The Walt Disney Company, South Buena Vista Street, Burbank, CA 91521 USA. Phone: 818560-1000. Fax: 818-846-7319 For more information contact: The Disney/Haiti Justice Campaign, P.O. Box 748, Village Station, New York, NY 10013 USA. Phone: 212-592-3612 lo to sweatshops! In the midst of the shopping season, the coalition will release a list of the companies with the worst record of human rights violations.
Charles Kernaghan, Director of the National Labor Committee, said in announcing the petition drive, "There is an enormous decency in the American people who would never knowingly purchase products made by children, or any exploited worker, forced to toil under sweatshop conditions for starvation wages. Our job is to help create a vehicle to free this voice of decency on the part of millions and millions of American people. If we do our job right, we will create a social movement which will put a human face back into our global economy."
The actions are sponsored by a broad coalition of religious, human rights, labour, student, women's and grassroots organisations, including (along with the NLC) the Union of Needletrades, Industrial and Textile Employees (AFL-CIO, CLC), the United Methodist Boards of Church and Society and Global Ministries (Women's Division), the Presbyterian Church (USA), the People of Faith
Network, Independent Congressman
Bernie Sanders, and the State Senate of
Vermont among many others. *
Order petitions and brochures from the National Labor
Committee, 275 Seventh Avenue, 15th Floor, New York, NY
10001; Tel: (212) 242-3002 or download from the NLC website: www.nlcnet.org
Campaign for Labor Rights memberships: Send $35.00 to
CLR. 1247 "E" Street SE, Washington, DC 20003. For a sample copy of their newsletter, send your postal address to [email protected]
17