Nike and sexual harassment
The Jakarta Post's editorial Postcard from a factory (Feb. 26, 2001) notes that no sane mind could accept the terrible conditions in Nike contract factories in Indonesia, as described in a recent report from Global Alliance. Unfortunately, the editorial neglects to mention one of the most interesting findings in that report.
Page 6, Section 2, of the Global Alliance report notes that 40 percent to 60 percent of women in companies in the United States reported experiencing some form of sexual harassment in the mid- 1980s. By contrast, less than 8 percent of the more than 4,000 workers surveyed by Global Alliance in nine Nike contract factories in Indonesia, 83 percent of whom are women, reported having experienced sexual harassment.
The Global Alliance report states that the situation in Indonesia "cannot be compared to Western culture because the level of awareness about issues of sexual harassment and right of female workers is much lower in Indonesia than in America and Europe" (p. 28). If, despite this lower awareness, the incidence of sexual harassment in Nike contract factories is indeed lower than the incidence of sexual harassment in the American workplace, this is a remarkable accomplishment.
Tolerance for sexual harassment must be zero throughout the world. Nonetheless, credit should be given where credit is due.
The Post's editorial astutely notes that conditions in Nike contract factories may be typical of factory conditions throughout Indonesia. In at least one respect, however, Nike contract factories seem to be quite different from the average Indonesian factory. According to the Global Alliance report, the average pay reported by the more than 4,000 Nike contract workers surveyed in mid-2000 was Rp 538,000 per month.
Comparable data from the web page of Indonesia's national statistics agency shows that the average wage of manufacturing workers in medium and large factories in Indonesia in June 2000 was only Rp 88,000 per week, or Rp 352,000 on a monthly basis. Thus workers in Nike contract factories, most of whom are young women with no previous employment experience and with limited formal education, earn 53 percent more than the average industrial wage in Indonesia. Apparently Nike workers constitute something of a labor elite in Indonesia.
Should Nike eventually decide, under pressure from organized labor in the United States, to stop sourcing footwear in Indonesia, one can only wonder where these young women would look for alternative employment. Their main alternatives might be to work as housemaids or rural laborers, activities where working conditions and pay are unlikely to be superior to those in Nike contract factories. But on a more positive note, the supply of housemaids to professional families in Jakarta might increase in Nike closes up shop.
LINCOLN ROSNER
Tangerang