On SUNDAY, MAY 18, we drove from Seattle to Bellingham, Washington—just south of the Canadian border. In the car were: former Nike worker Cicih Sukaesih, translator Beth Drexler and tour organizer Trim Bissell of Campaign for Labor Rights. Our destination was the home of Anita Rayburn, a student at Western Washington University and member of the Cezar E. Chavez Student Organization for Labor Solidarity. The event that evening was an activist potluck.

The student labor solidarity group already has been doing fine work on the Nike campaign, as well as on other labor struggles. In March, they organized a roving protest which involved leafleting outside 7 stores selling Nike products in 5 cities (Bellingham, Burlington, Bellevue, Seattle and Olympia, Washington), all in just 3 days! At some stops, they were joined by large numbers of local activists.

The potluck Sunday evening was a chance for Cicih and the local activists to meet and a chance to discuss campaign strategy.

The next day, MONDAY, MAY 19, 40-45 people attended a noontime presentation and heard Cicih tell about conditions in the Nike factory where she worked.

After the presentation in Bellingham, we headed back down to Seattle for an evening presentation organized by the Northwest Labor and Employment Law Office, the University of Washington Women’s Center, Everywoman’s Network/Institute for Global Security Studies and the Asia Pacific Task Force/CCGS. A number of the organizers for this event were women who had attended the NGO summit at the women’s conference in Beijing. The event was attended by some 50 people. The translator was Achmad Budiman.

Some of the women who heard Cicih speak committed themselves to following through on local activities in the Nike campaign, particularly the October 18 international mobilization.

On TUESDAY, MAY 20, we headed south to Olympia. Now our party was Cicih, Trim and Rev. Max Surjadinata, who flew out from New York on short notice to serve as translator for the remainder of the tour.

In Olympia, Cicih gave a presentation at Evergreen State College, where last year, activists organized protests at a Nike-sponsored golf tournament. A special feature of that protest was the use of giant shadow puppets, inspired by the Indonesian tradition. At Evergreen, 40-45 people turned out to hear Cicih.

After that presentation, we headed further south down the freeway, to Portland. There, we spent two nights at the home of Max White, founding coordinator of Justice: Do It Nike, an Oregon coalition of several human rights and labor groups. When White first started his Nike protests, he stood alone outside the Portland store, handing out leaflets. Now the Portland group has grown and several people have stepped forward to share the leadership responsibilities—some of them relatively new to activism but moved by the plight of Nike’s workers and inspired the Portland group’s tenacity.

On May Day of this year, Justice: Do It Nike brought out hundreds of protesters at Portland Nike Town. It is doubtful whether anyone got into the store to shop during that event, which was the group’s official call for a boycott of Nike. Some local groups have called for a boycott, some not. For Justice: Do It Nike, May 1 was transition day to an official boycott. That protest also featured giant shadow puppets, including one of Nike CEO Phil Knight (a shadow in his own time), with a sign saying, "Phil Knight makes $4,526.00 a day. An Indonesian Nike worker makes $2.50 a day." From the smile on the puppet’s face, Phil appeared to find the discrepancy a happy—or perhaps amusing—thought.

On WEDNESDAY, MAY 21, Cicih spoke to classes at both Franklin High School and Cathedral Middle School, as well as speaking at a Nike Town rally and press conference attended by 55-75 people. Another featured speaker at the rally was Irv Fletcher, President of the Oregon AFL-CIO, who drove up from Salem (Oregon) especially to show his support. Fletcher has been on Nike’s case ever since the company closed out its last factories in the Northeast, where he used to live. Fletcher stated: "Nike shut down its last U.S. factory in the early 1980’s. I haven’t bought a Nike shoe since then and I don’t intend to buy any until the company either brings back some of its factories to the United States or else starts treating its foreign workers fairly."

On THURSDAY, MAY 22, Cicih made presentations at another class in Franklin High School plus in Lincoln High School. During Cicih’s school presentations in Portland, she was able to meet a local student coordinator for Amnesty International and other student human rights activists. The Portland group has put much of its energy into reaching out to students, who are Nike’s most cherished market. The school presentations tended to be particularly satisfying. Most students have not yet been numbed by cynicism. When Cicih related her story and described conditions and events in the Nike factory, her younger audiences were appalled. And then they wanted to know what they could do to help bring about change.

After the Portland schoolroom events, we headed back up the freeway, almost to Bellingham again—to the town of Anacortes, Washington. We spent the evening divided among the homes of two students who in recent months had cofounded an organization in their school, STAHRs: Students Taking Action for Human Rights. The students had the help and inspiration of their teacher, Susan Waterworth. In the morning (FRIDAY, MAY 23), one of the families hosted a breakfast for the 25 student members of STAHRs, plus some parents and faculty.

Then we headed to a presentation at Anacortes High School. Because the large auditorium already was booked for a practice, a more-than-capacity crowd of about 300 students and townspeople packed a smaller auditorium to hear Cicih tell her story.

Then we hurried back down to Seattle for the final event of the tour. That afternoon, Cicih (joined some of the other participants who had been at the international retreat for workers hosted by the Northwest Labor and Employment Law Office) spoke at a workshop which was part of a labor teach-in sponsored by the University of Washington.

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Cicih Sukaesih has returned to Indonesia, where she continues to work with other fired and displaced shoe workers in surveying current conditions at Indonesian shoe factories. They do this work as part of an ongoing monitoring effort organized by 9 nongovernmental organizations (NGOs) which have banded together to provide this badly-needed monitoring.

The Indonesian Shoe Monitoring Network (ISMN), as the group of 9 NGOs is called, have offered to provide truly independent monitoring of Nike’s Indonesian factories. Nike contemptuously dismisses their offer, casting doubts on their motivation, their objectivity and their capacity for such a project. Thus, ISMN monitoring currently has to take the form of worker interviews conducted outside the factories.

It is worth noting that a successful precedent for just such monitoring as ISMN proposes already exists—in Central America. As a result of a campaign organized by the National Labor Committee, a grouping of human rights and religious organizations monitors conditions at the Mandarin factory in El Salvador, which produces clothing the Gap clothing chain. The alliance of monitoring groups has gotten high marks for fairness and ability. Notably, even management at Mandarin credit the monitors for significantly improving communication and morale in what had been an extremely tense working environment. Experience proves it: Truly independent monitoring does work!!!

It is just truly independent monitoring that Cicih Sukaesih—and the entire Nike campaign—seek...and insist upon as a goal of this campaign. If you have been moved by the stories of wages and conditions at Nike factories in Indonesia, Vietnam, China, Haiti—please contact Campaign for Labor Rights and find out about organizing leafleting events and letter writing activities in your community.

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