Nike workers in Indonesia an issue in Olympics

Nike workers in Indonesia an issue in Olympics

JAKARTA (JP): An antiexploitation campaign against Nike sports
shoes at the Sydney 2000 Olympics in Sydney, Australia, has
apparently kept executives of Nike Inc. Indonesia, a subsidiary
of Oregon-based Nike International, extra busy.

None of them could be reached for comment on Monday on a call
made by activists urging athletes competing in the Olympics to
visit Nike factories in Indonesia to see the apparent failure of
the world's giant shoe producer in protecting workers rights in
its Indonesian factories.

"The management is still in a meeting. As usual, we're not
allowed to disturb them," a security guard, Herman, said over the
phone. Another guard added that the meeting could last until 8
p.m.

A staffer of PT Indo Pacific Public Relations, which used to
handle Nike activities here, claimed to be unable to reach any of
the Nike top-level managers.

"They are still in a meeting," the staffer said.

News agencies reported on Monday that athletes competing in
the Sydney 2000 Olympics had been urged by activists to visit
Nike factories in Indonesia to observe how the company exploits
workers.

The activists renewed a campaign against the alleged
exploitation of Asian workers by the international sportswear
giant, releasing a report which documents claims of intimidation
and harassment of union workers and women in companies contracted
to make Nike shoes in Indonesia.

The Community Aid Abroad-Oxfam Australia report, based on
interviews conducted with industrial union organizers in
Indonesian factories, said workers were threatened with violence
if they tried to join unions; that union members were fired for
small mistakes and that women were intimidated into not applying
for menstrual leave by being required to undergo humiliating
examinations.

Tim Connor, the author of the "NikeWatch" report, said Nike
was failing to protect workers rights in its contract factories
in Indonesia.

"Recently Nike has been pushing the line that it has reformed
its human rights practices," Connor said. "The truth is that
(there has been) only very minor and grudging reforms.

"Nike is the biggest company in the sportswear industry ... if
anyone can afford to pay workers enough to eat, enough to feed
their children, Nike is the company," Connor told a news
conference on Monday in Sydney.

In a statement in response to Connor's report, Nike's global
issues manager, Vada Manager, said from its based in Beaverton,
Oregon, the United States, that the company had undertaken to
raise age requirements and wages for workers in Indonesia,
improved factory conditions and published factory monitoring
reports as part of reforms to improve conditions for its workers
in Asia.

"No company has done as much in terms of labor rights, code of
conduct enforcement, age and wage improvements as we have," Vada
said.

"We uphold the Olympic ideal of human dignity," the statement
said. "Those campaigning to eliminate sweatshops are addressing
the right issue, but targeting the wrong company."

Connor said other sportswear manufacturers were equally
responsible for exploitation of workers, but Nike was being
targeted because it was the largest.

Nike has 708 factories operated by contract companies and
employing about 550,000 people in several parts of the world.

In Indonesia, Nike has been operating for almost 12 years with
its 11 subcontractor factories employing 70,000 workers.

Most of the companies, such as PT Pratama Abadi Industri, PT
Astra Graphia, PT Hardaya Aneka Shoes Industry and PT Nagasakti
Parama Shoes Industry, are located in Tangerang, west of capital
Jakarta.

The factories produce between 45 million and 55 million pairs
of shoes per year with only 2 percent going to the local market.
The rest are shipped to overseas markets, particularly the U.S.

In Sydney, Jim Keady, a former soccer coach who left St.
John's University in the United States over a dispute about his
refusal to wear Nike products, said athletes should experience
firsthand the conditions endured by Nike workers in Indonesia.

Keady, who is suing Nike in relation to his resignation, spent
August in Indonesia trying to live on the wage of a Nike worker
-- which he said was about Rp 10,000 (US$1.20) a day.

"You can survive, but you cannot live," Keady said. "It's a
starvation wage. I know, I starved on it. I lost 25 pounds and
spend most of the month painfully hungry and exhausted."

Keady said workers in Indonesia were "absolutely
flabbergasted" when they found out how much athletes were paid
for endorsements.

"They begged us to bring these athletes to their homes to see
how they are forced to live, to see how they are forced to
survive, how they don't make enough money to feed their
children," he said, extending an open invitation to all Olympic
athletes to go to Indonesia.

On its website (www.nikebiz.com), Nike says that its
subcontractors in Indonesia had agreed to increase the monthly
wage of their employees to Rp 300,000 as per April 1, which is
slightly higher that the government mandated minimum wage in
Tangerang of Rp 286,000.

"In addition to increasing the take home pay of their workers,
Nike partners will also provide meal and transportation
allowances.

"The entire value of these packages, not including overtime
and cash bonuses, will exceed the minimum physical need, or cost
of living expenses, Rp 350,000, for the region where the
factories are located," the website says.

Nike, it adds, has worked very closely with our factory
partners in ensuring that workers are paid appropriately, treated
fairly and that their rights and dignity are protected at all
times.

On Dec. 22 last year, some 8,000 workers from two Nike
subcontractors went on a rampage, vandalizing seven cars and
pelting stones at a factory on Jl. Raya Serang in Balaraja,
Tangerang.

The group staged a massive protest beginning at noon to demand
larger holiday bonuses. (bsr)