CHRIS BACKLEY/Daily Bruin United Students Against
Sweatshops are demanding that Nike engage in fairer labor
practices, such as improved working conditions.
By Laura Rico
Daily Bruin Contributor
The Nike logo is usually associated with a tongue-wagging,
slam-dunking Michael Jordan or with Tiger Woods swinging a golf
club through the air.
But a coalition of anti-sweatshop college students are hoping to
add unfair labor practices to the company’s public image.
Nike workers at the Korean-owned Kukdong factory in Puebla,
Mexico say their employment was wrongly terminated after they held
a one-day strike two weeks ago to demand better working conditions
and the right to establish an independent union.
Members of the national group United Students Against Sweatshops
said they are disturbed by the charges, since the factory produces
sweatshirts for Michigan State University, Georgetown University
and the University of Arizona.
Cecily Clements, a member of UCLA’s Students Against
Sweatshops, said the UC uses an independent, non-corporate
monitoring group to inspect factories where university apparel is
made.
“The Worker Rights Consortium is an individual monitoring
body made up of 10 people who go out to monitor factories where UC
apparel is made,” Clements said.
“Our goal is to get them to come to factories in L.A.,
which is a huge sweatshop capital of the United States,” she
continued.
Students across the country are organizing demonstrations to put
pressure on Nike to reinstate the fired workers, according to
Mollie McGrath, a University of Wisconsin senior and spokeswoman
for USAS.
“We’re demanding the reinstatement of 25 workers who
were fired just for attempting to organize and for complaining of
rotten, maggot-ridden food,” McGrath said.
Nike issued a statement on its Web site on Jan. 16, in response
to the Kukdong strike and demonstrations.
The statement read in part that the “factory has made
arrangements for workers, who, for various reasons have chosen not
to return to work yet, to return when the situation at the factory
normalizes.”
Allegations of abuse come a year after a monitoring report by
PricewaterhouseCoopers stated the factory’s management had
“established relations with employees that were both flexible
and transparent,” and that “workers felt they could air
their grievances in a fair and effective way.”
For many labor activists, the report calls into question the
legitimacy of using corporate-funded monitoring groups to enforce
fair labor practices in garment factories.
In October, USAS called on several universities and their
licensees to stop using PricewaterhouseCoopers as monitors, based
on a report by Massachusetts Institute of Technology professor Dara
O’Rourke that alleged pro-company biases on the firm’s
part.
USAS is demanding Nike recognize the Kukdong factory
workers’ union, bargain over wages and working conditions,
and drop all charges against workers who participated in the strike
and protests.
According to the statement issued by Nike, the company supports
workers’ rights to organize.
But if Nike does not support the workers and their demands, USAS
plans to get involved with a congressional campaign, McGrath
said.
“People are becoming more aware of the situation, and
following it closely,” she said. “If the problem
escalates further, we will move to a congressional campaign to see
that it’s resolved as soon as possible.”