PRESS CONTACTS:

?National: Trim Bissell??(541) 344-5410

?? Campaign for Labor Rights

?? Jeff Ballinger?(201) 768-8120

?? Press for Change

Store to be leafleted:

Location:

Date and hours of leafleting:

Organized locally by:

On ___________, local activists will distribute leaflets at _____________ in support of the rights of Nike production workers. This action is part of an international campaign being conducted by groups in the United States, Canada, Europe and Australia. The goals of this campaign are that Nike workers should receive:

• 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 brought by workers who have been fired for protesting wages and working conditions at Nike factories

On almost a daily basis, mainstream media report new horror stories about Nike’s overseas labor practices. In spite of a torrent of evidence to the contrary, Nike continues to deny its systematic violations of worker rights and continues its hollow claim that it already has adequate monitoring mechanisms in place.

Campaign for Labor Rights, a US/Canadian project promoting activities in support of international labor rights, has called for coordinated leafleting actions at Nike outlets. Their goal is to pressure Nike into dialogue with representatives of the Nike campaign and nine Indonesian nongovernmental organizations which have offered to monitor conditions in Nike factories in their country.

According to Campaign for Labor Rights national coordinator Trim Bissell:

"Nike has refused to address the issues. The company cares more about its profits than about the well-being of its workers. Nike has a problem which cannot be solved by public relations manouvers. It has a human rights problem."

The Oregonian newspaper (published in Portland, Nike’s hometown) reported that on April 22, 1997 (when the ink was barely dry on the Presidential task agreement on sweatshops, to which Nike CEO Phil Knight is 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 ordeal didn’t end until a dozen workers had collapsed.

On December 15, 1996 the Grand Rapids Press reported that Nike produces clothing in Haiti, where its contractors pay experienced workers 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 program "48 Hours" 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.