From: Tim Connor <tconnor@nlc.net.au>..
(CCC: Tim Connor has been involved in the Nike campaign since 1995)

22 Feb. 2001, Nike admits abuse of workers, Tim Connor

You may or may not have seen press coverage of the new Nike-funded Global Alliance report into conditions in Nike factories in Indonesia. In case not.. I include below a copy of a report in last Friday's Sydney Morning Herald... The report can be found in full on the Global Alliance website at.. http://www.theglobalalliance.org.

Our response is that there is nothing new in the content of this report. It.. has been well documented that workers in Nike contract factories are.. verbally and physically abused by supervisors, suffer sexual harassment and.. are forced to work overtime. We've been doing research and putting out.. reports with similar findings for the last five years (see.. http://www.caa.org.au/campaigns/nike/other.html ).

What's new about this report is that because Nike paid for it they can't.. deny it and ignore it. When we released a major report on conditions in.. Nike factories in Indonesia in September last year (see.. http://www.caa.org.au/campaigns/nike/association) Nike's PR department said we had.. "the right issue, but the wrong company." They can no longer deny that we.. have the right company.

While it is good that Nike has finally paid a reputable research.. organisation to look at conditions in its Indonesian factories, a one-off.. investigation where Nike influences what questions are asked is not enough... Two of the key issues in Nike factories are low wages and denial of the.. right to have unions. This new Nike sponsored report does not investigate.. whether wages are high enough to meet workers basic needs (!!!) and Nike asked.. the researchers not to interview union representatives, closing off a.. source of information about abuses of union rights. Research which was.. genuinely independent would have looked at these issues. We are campaigning.. for regular factory monitoring by monitors who have been selected by human.. rights organisations.

Sincerely, Tim Connor.. Coordinator, NikeWatch Campaign, Community Aid Abroad-Oxfam Australia.. Phone: 61 2 9698 2394 (Also contact Cazz Green, 61 3 9289 9444)

(!!!)

The email I just sent contained the following sentence:.. "This new Nike sponsored report does not investigate whether wages are high.. enough to meet workers basic needs."

I accidentally sent the email before I'd finalised the wording of that.. sentence, and as it reads now it is somewhat misleading. The Global.. Alliance report did indicate that over half the workers in the focus groups.. said that basic monthly salaries are not adequate to meet workers' cost of.. living. The point I wanted to make is that there was no attempt to assess.. what sort of wage is needed to meet workers basic needs and to compare that.. with the wages they are receiving. Monitoring organisations such as the.. Workers Rights Consortium and Social Accountability 8000 require such an.. assessment, Nike and the Global Alliance do not...