Nike provides worldwide list of factories to address abuse issues
Nike provides worldwide list of factories to address abuse issues
Agence France-Presse, Washington
Sports equipment giant Nike Inc. has published a detailed list of
more than 700 factories it uses worldwide -- more than half in
Asia -- to counter allegations it accepts poor labor standards.
It said it ran training programs to combat sexual harassment
and that the incidence of use of children below legal working age
was low.
"Our industry is at a crossroads...By being open with this
list, and by providing the depth and breath of information in our
Corporate Responsibility report, we hope it will encourage others
to join collaborative efforts," the company said in its report.
Nike, the world's leading footwear maker, has come under
criticism over labor practices in the factories of some of its
suppliers, notably in Asia.
In September, it paid US$1.5 million to settle a California
lawsuit alleging it had made deceptive statements about working
conditions in its overseas factories in its advertisements.
Nike has lately stepped up efforts to establish common
standards at its contract factories to resolve labor disputes and
demonstrate greater corporate responsibility.
In its latest report, Nike admitted that the work at its
factories "can be repetitive and/or challenging, and that the
overwhelming majority of jobs in these factories are entry-level
positions".
While the report said "verbal harassment" was the most common
form of harassment found in its contract factories, sexual
harassment was also a problem, although "very difficult to
discover".
Nike's compliance teams, it said, had found that "even after
intense training, sexual harassment is still not an easily
understood concept" that can best be addressed in the long term
through "confidential grievance systems ... because they allow
workers the right to communicate incidents of harassment and
abuse."
It said that in China, where it had 124 contract factories,
Nike had worked with local non-governmental organizations "to
develop reporting systems for employee grievances" including
"grievance boxes, a hotline, e-mail addresses and access to the
labor union offices".
On the hiring of under-age workers in overseas factories -- a
very sensitive issue in the United States, Nike said that the
most frequent complaint was associated with "improper age
documentation", with some factories failing to meet company
standards either because of "careless human resource management
practice", or by falsification of age documentation by the
worker.
However, it said that in its 2003 and 2004 audits of 569
factories "we found five workers who were hired below the local
legal minimum age standard".
Nike said that while it continued to work hard to discover and
prevent child labor from occurring, "the low incidence rate
suggests that this is not a common practice within our contract
manufacturing base".
Topping the list of 704 Nike contract factories around the
world, as of April 1, are China with 124, Thailand (73), United
States (49), Indonesia (39), South Korea (35), Vietnam (34),
Malaysia (33), Sri Lanka (25), Japan (22), Mexico (20), Portugal
(20), Taiwan (19) and India (18).