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ALERT! Put the Heat on NIKE In ful



Subject: Re: ALERT! Put the Heat on NIKE  In fully agreement over here, and will post our Nike articles. Nike sucks!

from Dawn Star, Paris 

Latin American Support Committee wrote:
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>                    ALERT! Put the Heat on NIKE
> 
> Labor rights work has been advancing at a dizzying pace.  The
> level of media coverage is amazing.  Struggles previously known
> only to a limited number of activists suddenly have become
> household words.  Among these, the NIKE campaign has moved to
> center stage.
> 
> Recent events:
> 
> * A Canadian group, Development and Peace, volunteered to monitor
> conditions to verify NIKE's own "code of conduct" at NIKE-
> contracted facilities.  Rebuffed, Development and Peace collected
> 86,500 petition signatures urging NIKE to reconsider.
> 
> * An unprecedented shareholder resolution asking for independent
> monitoring of NIKE production facilities will be presented at the
> upcoming NIKE stockholder meeting.  This resolution is sponsored
> by a member of the Interfaith Center for Corporate
> Responsibility, a coalition of 275 Protestant, Catholic and
> Jewish institutional investors.
> 
> * The June issue of Life Magazine carries an article on Asian
> child labor by Sydney Schanberg (author of The Killing Fields).
> The article's prime example:  Pakistani children stitching
> together NIKE soccer balls under miserable conditions for only
> pennies an hour.
> 
> * Television hostess Kathie Lee Gifford called upon other
> celebrities to take responsibility for the conditions under which
> consumer goods associated with their name are produced.  She
> specifically cited Michael Jordan, who earns $20 million a year
> from NIKE.  NIKE PR flack Donna Gibbs retorted that Gifford's
> appeal was a bad-faith effort to avoid negative press for
> herself.
> 
> * Campaign for Labor Rights contacted NIKE to suggest that
> negotiations begin between NIKE and the relevant parties, so that
> an adequate system of independent human rights monitoring can be
> established.  NIKE challenged Campaign for Labor Rights to
> demonstrate that anyone can do a better job than NIKE's
> privately-contracted firm.  U.S.-based Press for Change is now
> drafting a guideline for monitoring, to be submitted to NIKE
> within days.
> 
> * Meanwhile, NIKE continues to be the focus of escalating media
> scrutiny.  New York Times columnist Bob Herbert disclosed that
> NIKE outsources in Vietnam, where the minimum wage is $30 a
> month.  Herbert contrasts that pay with the earnings of NIKE
> cofounder and CEO Phil Knight:
> 
> "I asked Nike last week what he was worth.  After hemming and
> hawing about such incidentals as his $864,583 salary and $787,500
> bonus in fiscal 1995, a spokesman got to the real deal:  his Nike
> stock.  Hold onto your sneakers.  Knight's stock is valued at a
> breathtaking $4.5 billion."
> 
> * Press for Change has committed to bringing to the U.S. a young
> woman fired from a NIKE production facility in Indonesia.  Her
> offense? -- trying to organize a union, fighting for other labor
> rights and protesting violations of the minimum wage law.
> International standards list formation of labor unions as a basic
> human right.  Press for Change hopes for a presentation by the
> Indonesian during the clothing summit being organized by U.S.
> Labor Secretary Robert Reich and scheduled to take place in
> Washington, DC on July 16.
> 
> WHY NIKE?
> 
> NIKE prides itself as a leader.  It refuses to take the lead in
> human rights.
> 
> NIKE advertising trades on the issue of women's empowerment.
> Young women in NIKE's Indonesian production facilities suffer
> physical abuse and sexual harassment.  When they seek
> empowerment, through unionizing, they are threatened and fired.
> 
> NIKE gets a lot of good press by contributing hefty sums to
> schools.  Meanwhile, the children who toil long hours assembling
> NIKE soccer balls in Pakistan are deprived of their childhood.
> 
> NIKE's Phil Knight says that he would like the world to think of
> Nike as "a company with a soul that recognizes the value of human
> beings."  NIKE is ever on the lookout for more repressive
> countries in which to relocate its production facilities.  When
> Taiwan and South Korea began to democratize in the 1980's, NIKE
> used the promise of even lower-wage labor to entice many of its
> contractors to shift their operations to Indonesia and China.  A
> story in the New York Times in March told of the union organizer
> at an Indonesian NIKE production facility who was fired and then
> "locked in a room at the plant and interrogated for seven days by
> the military, which demanded to know more about his labor
> activities."
> 
> 
> INDEPENDENT MONITORING
> WHAT IT'S ALL ABOUT
> 
> NIKE hires a company to monitor its code of conduct.  When asked
> for a copy of the monitoring report, NIKE refused.  Secret
> reports are not independent reports.  Corporate-contracted
> monitoring is not independent monitoring.  Truly independent
> monitor is done by human rights groups situated in the countries
> where the production takes place.  Independent monitoring puts
> its findings in the public domain.
> 
> NIKE claims that it considers all of its workers to be family.
> Press for Change has documented 60 cases of Indonesian workers
> who have been fired simply for trying to organize a union.  NIKE
> is satisfied with its human rights standards.  The fired workers
> have another opinion.  The child laborers of Pakistan have never
> heard of NIKE's code of conduct.  Family?
> 
> 
> MEDIA SCRUTINY IS NOT ENOUGH!!!
> MAKE YOUR VOICE HEARD:
> 
> Please make one or more of the following telephone calls.  NIKE
> must guarantee basic human rights to the workers in its
> subcontracted production facilities.  NIKE needs to know that
> continuing refusal to abide by such standards will cost it plenty
> in consumer anger.
> 
> NIKE is the leader but it is anything but invulnerable.  NIKE
> invests hundreds of millions each year -- in its image!!!  NIKE
> stands or falls by what the consumer thinks about the company
> image.  LET NIKE KNOW THAT YOU ASSOCIATE ITS PRODUCTS WITH
> EXPLOITATION.
> 
> CALL ONE OR MORE OF THESE NUMBERS
> 
> NIKE Corporate Communications:  (503) 671-3579.  Tell them that
> 
> you want NIKE to negotiate immediately with Press for Change,
> Development and Peace and Interfaith Center for Corporate
> Responsibility, to establish a truly independent system of human
> rights monitoring of all NIKE production facilities around the
> world.  Tell them that you do not intend to buy any more NIKE
> products until you hear from those organizations that an
> agreement has been signed.
> 
> Foot Locker stores corporate headquarters, public relations
> department:  (212) 720-3765.  (You may get an answering machine.)
> Explain that you are calling because NIKE (whose goods are sold
> at Foot Locker) has refused to allow independent human rights
> monitoring of its production facilities.  Tell them that you are
> requesting that Foot Locker cease selling NIKE products until
> NIKE signs an agreement with Press for Change and the other
> organizations involved in the human rights campaign -- and that
> you do not intend to shop at Foot Locker until either they stop
> selling NIKE products or NIKE signs the agreement.
> 
> Athlete's Foot stores corporate headquarters, public relations
> department:  (770) 514-4704.  Explain that you are calling
> because NIKE (whose goods are sold at Athlete's Foot) has refused
> to allow independent human rights monitoring of its production
> facilities.  Tell them that you are requesting that Athlete's
> Foot cease selling NIKE products until NIKE signs an agreement
> with Press for Change and the other organizations involved in the
> human rights campaign -- and that you do not intend to shop at
> Athlete's Foot until either they stop selling NIKE products or
> NIKE signs the agreement.
> 
> 
> LET US KNOW WHAT THEY SAY
> 
> Please send an email to Campaign for Labor Rights
> clr@xxxxxxxxxxx, telling us which of these numbers you called and
> what was the response.  This information is very useful in
> negotiating with NIKE.
> 
> 
> CAMPAIGN FOR LABOR RIGHTS
> Building a grassroots base for labor struggles around the world
> and here at home
> 
> Campaign for Labor Rights, a project of the Nicaragua Network
> Education Fund, is a bridge between local activists and many of
> the major organizations initiating campaigns for labor rights
> around the world and here at home.  We are building a base of
> support for:
> 
> * UNITE (campaign to end sweatshops)
> 
> * National Labor Committee (Wal-Mart and Haiti campaigns)
> 
> * Press for Change (NIKE campaign)
> 
> * Support Committee for Maquiladora Workers (campaign for a
> living wage)
> 
> * several groups working on the Burma boycott
> 
> * and a number of other organizations with important campaigns in
> support of the rights of working people.
> 
> * In coming weeks, we will announce an important new campaign in
> support of maquiladora workers in Nicaragua.
> 
> We promote greater cooperation between solidarity, union and
> peace & justice activists.  We draw the connections between
> Unocal in Burma and in Illinois.  We talk about the connections
> between the Indonesian military government and the Gemala Group's
> union busting activities in Canada and the U.S.  We work to end
> sweatshop conditions, whether in Guatemala or Los Angeles.
> 
> Campaign for Labor Rights keeps you up to date on the rapidly-
> changing labor rights picture.  We provide easy ways for local
> organizations and activists to make their voices heard -- so that
> campaigns can become victories.  Members receive our newsletter
> and action packets throughout the year.
> 
> Please consider joining Campaign for Labor Rights.  Let the
> people around you know about our work.  Let us know about people
> we should be contacting.
> 
> For more information or to receive our brochure, contact Campaign
> for Labor Rights at 1247 "E" Street SE, Washington, DC 20003
> clr@xxxxxxxxxxx   (202) 544-9355 (daytime) or (541) 344-5410
> (evenings and weekends).