Still Waiting For Nike To Do It

In 1998, Nike's CEO and founder Phillip Knight announced in a speech at the National Press Club in Washington DC that Nike would undertake a series of reforms, noting that the controversy over sweatshop conditions had made his company's products 'synonymous with slave wages, forced overtime and arbitrary abuse.' Three years later, this report concludes (hardly surprisingly) that Nike continues to treat sweatshop abuses as a public relations inconvenience rather than a serious humans rights issue. Workers making Nike products are still forced to work excessive hours, are not paid enough to meet the basic needs of their children, and are subject to harassment, dismissal and violent intimidation if they try to form unions or tell journalists about labor abuses in the factories. As ever, it's business as usual in the corporate world.