Philip H. Knight

Chairman and CEO

Nike Inc.

One Bowerman Drive

Beaverton, OR 97005

Dear Mr. Knight:

The Jakarta (Indonesia) Post reported that on April 22, 1997 (when the ink was barely dry on the Presidential task agreement on sweatshops, to which you are a signatory) 10,000 workers went on strike from an Indonesian factory producing shoes for Nike. The workers were protesting the contractor’s attempt to cheat them out of a 20 cent per day increase in pay (mandated by the a new minimum wage level in Indonesia) by cutting a $7.75 monthly attendance bonus already being paid to workers.

On April 4, 1997 the Sydney (Australia) Morning Herald reported the findings of a researcher who recently concluded an 8-month study of Nike operations in an outlying part of Indonesia. The young women making shoes for Nike work an average of 11.5 hours per day and are fired immediately if they take sick leave. One young woman who collapsed from exhaustion died when factory managers failed to provide her any medical attention.

On March 28, 1997 New York Times columnist Bob Herbert reported that 56 women employed at a factory making Nike shoes in Vietnam were ordered to run around the factory in the hot sun because they hadn’t worn regulation shoes to work. "The women ran and ran and ran. One fainted, and then another. Still they ran. They would be taught a lesson.... More women fainted. The ordeal didn’t end until a dozen workers had collapsed." This incident occurred on March 8 of this year—International Women’s Day, a day when most companies in Vietnam give women workers flowers and other gifts, but these "12 Vietnamese women were so abused they had to spend the day in the emergency room."

On December 15, 1996 the Grand Rapids Press reported that Nike produces some of its clothing in Haiti, where experienced workers are paid as little as 30 cents an hour.

In the November 3, 1996 issue of the Washington Post, Australian scholar Anita Chan described Chinese shoe factories—producing for Nike and other companies—where supervisors submit workers to a military style of control.

On October 17, 1996 the CBS "48 Hours" program exposed Nike labor abuses in Vietnam, including: beatings, sexual harassment and forcing workers to kneel for extended periods with their arms held in the air.

In June, 1996 Life magazine carried a story by Sydney Schanberg depicting children sewing soccer balls for Nike in Pakistan for 60 cents a day.

On March 16, 1996 the New York Times reported an incident in which a worker was locked in a room at a Nike shoe factory in Indonesia and interrogated for seven days by the military, demanding to know about his labor activities.

These are but a tiny portion of the carefully documented news stories demonstrating a systematic pattern of abuse in your overseas production facilities.

How have Nike senior management reacted to these revelations? Nike spokespeople attack those who reveal the truth and they pass off this pattern of abuse as merely isolated incidents. Nike management shrug their shoulders: "We’ve already dealt with that." In fact, Nike deals with such incidents ONLY when Nike’s critics take these incidents to the public—the very critics whose reporting Nike tries to taint.

It was only because of Nike’s critics that the company agreed to end its use of child labor in Pakistan. Indeed, every specific reform (or promise of reform) made by Nike has been a direct result of pressure from Nike’s critics. While Nike has addressed a very limited number of specific abuses, the company contemptuously refuses to permit truly independent monitoring.

Nike’s production workers have the right to:

• a living wage
• working conditions consistent with human dignity
• freedom to unionize without governmental repression
• monitoring of their workplace by organizations approved by the workers, to ensure that their rights are being respected
• redress of claims by workers who were fired for protesting wages and working conditions

Nike has made vague promises of instituting an independent monitoring system sometime in the future. Nine Indonesian nongovernmental organizations (NGOs) have offered to provide truly independent monitoring of Nike shoe factories in their country. If Nike would agree even to a pilot monitoring program by these NGOs, I would take this as a sign that the company is beginning to clean up its act. I have no confidence in monitoring by Nike’s handpicked agents, such as that currently being done by Ernst & Young (an accounting firm).

While Nike continues its public relations manouvers, the company is not dealing at all with the issues. Mr. Knight, Nike has a problem which your public relations department cannot solve. Nike has a human rights problem.

Until I hear from reputable human rights organizations that Nike is serious about cleaning up its act, count me as one more supporter of the Nike campaign.