By James F. Tracy
Arizona Daily Wildcat
November 6, 1997

UA should examine Nike's human rights record

Editor:

I am writing in response to your array of articles concerning the Arizona Athletic Department's inking the recent deal with Nike. Unfortunately, a number of issues that neither the UA or Nike want for the students and community to know or think about have been elided in the reports.

Granted, Nike maintains a set of lofty standards concerning the treatment of its overseas labor force and, in October 1996, the company set up a department to monitor subcontractor factories. Nike maintains that the four points made in the company's 1992 "Code of Conduct" are still upheld: "Nike does not tolerate underage labor; Nike subcontractors may not pay less than the minimum wage; Nike does not tolerate abuse of any form; Nike encourages and supports programs that benefit worker health and well being." Recent reports, however, indicate that Nike's subcontractors, 75% of which are in Southeast Asia, frequently violate even these basic tenets.

According to a 1995 account in MULTINATIONAL MONITOR, Indonesian employees claimed that "[w]orkers go to dangerous machinery without even a week's training" and the loss of appendages is common. Workers were also unaware of Nike's Code of Conduct.

Nike CEO Phil Knight was quoted in April as declaring that "[t]he real breakthrough today lies in the area of third party monitoring" of overseas factories, as if the concept were just recently devised. Yet the NATIONAL CATHOLIC REPORTER noted that "in 1996, the Development and Peace Organization sent 86,000 petition signatures to Nike and 77,000 to Levi Strauss asking for independent monitoring of their factories. Both companies refused."

In April, 1997, Nike retained former U.N. Ambassador Andrew Young and his consulting firm, GoodWorks Interntational. Yet Young's sanguine report concerning Nike's overseas labor practices released June 24 was questionable primarily because, aside from being PAID by Nike, Young spent only a few hours in each factory he visited while constantly being attended to by Nike employees. Apparently, this is Phil Knight's idea of independent monitoring.

By signing such a deal with Nike, the University of Arizona is complicit in the abuses and deceit that even Nike is not able provide a suitable answer for. This is indeed just one example of the larger trend of globalisation which seldom if ever has to be socially accountable to those it benefits or devastates.

James F. Tracy

Media Arts Graduate Student