Essay on Nike: The Sweatshop Debate

The factories are also known for providing very poor living arrangements for the workers to live in through the extent of their contracts. There has been evidence found of individuals being forced to live in extremely overcrowded and dirty quarters with poor bathroom facilities. Workers and organizations all around the world have tried to push the Nike corporation to put a stop to these sweatshops, but none has prevailed. In some of the factories that Nike owns, the workers have attempted to form a union to protest the conditions of their contract, but they have never succeeded. The Nike corporations fight the unions by shutting down the factories and relocating the jobs to a different non-unionized factory (Bain). Nike has been criticized ever since the start for allowing these conditions to continue, and to this day, this problem is still

Nike started to open up manufacturing factories in countries like Indonesia, Pakistan and Vietnam. Due to the wants of Nike to increase their revenue they tried to outsource the labor of their products since labor work in the US is very high and expensive. This was a bad idea due to that Indonesia pays their workers extremely low wages. Pakistan doesn’t have an age limit for them to be able to legally to work so many children in Pakistan were making

A positive impact of Nike’s offshoring strategy was that it allowed Nike to meet the growing market demand of its customers that resulted from global economic growth. It created convenience so customers in other parts of the world could easily acquire Nike’s products and increased customer satisfaction as a result. Moreover, their strategy had a positive impact on the quality of the products offered in various markets. Since labor in Asian markets was able and very willing to meet the quality standards of Nike’s demands in order to retain production contracts, they could meet the expectations that Nike customers presented (Locke, 2002).

Legally the company has done no wrong doing, and the types of environments that these sweatshops are located in are normal within the countries cultures. The main issue in this case is the ethical responsibility of Nike to ensure that the workers work in humane work environments, and are paid wages that they are able to survive on (Vann, n.d.).

The company Nike operates in over 50 different companies. This makes them a very large global company. Nike makes all kinds of products including gym shoes, clothing and apparel, equipment and accessories. “In 2004, Nike products were manufactured by more than 800 suppliers, employing over 600,000 workers in 51 countries” (Locke, Kochan, Romis & Qin, 2007, p. 6). Nike came under fire because of their workers that work outside the United States. In other countries, labor laws are unlike those within the United States. Large corporations often exploit the fact that they can pay laborers significantly less outside of the United States. Companies may also provide less than favorable working conditions to its labor force outside of the United States.

In many ways, it seems obvious to me that Nike should be held responsible for working conditions in foreign companies where products for Nike are made. In my opinion a company is not only responsible for itsʼ own employees but also for the employees that produce for them even though theyʼre not in their own company. I think that every part of the supply chain is partially responsible for the entire supply chain. As Nike is the

For years, Nike has been sourcing from factories that seek to meet the company 's minimum standards for good labor performance. The policy of Nike is to evaluate potential contracted factories before they enter the supply chain. Throughout their business relationship with Nike to assess compliance with high standards of social and environmental performance, including country-related risk for issues including forced labor, human trafficking and slavery Nike (n.d).

Not only does Nike have a responsibility to be in compliance but also the host governments have a responsibility to protect the citizens who live and work in these countries. The enforcement of

Another attack on Nikes practices came from the Global Exchange in 1997 when they published a report on the working conditions from 4 factories in Southern China. According to their reports in one of the factories, owned by a Korean subcontractor, workers as young as thirteen were working for a mere ten cents an hour for up to seventeen hour days in complete silence. Talking while working was prohibited and violators were fined anywhere from $1.20 to $3.60. Global exchange stated that these practices were in violation of Chinese labor law, which states that no child under 16 may work in a factory. Also that the minimum wage requirement was $1.90 for an 8 hour day. Though once again Nike defended themselves and assured that the monitoring systems they had in place was in fact working and that most, if not all, of the issues were addressed. Global exchange though obtained a confidential report of an audit stating that thousands of young women were working more than 10.5 hour days, six days a week, in excessive heat, noise and foul air. Also many workers suffered from skin or breathing problems and many were not

Most people are familiar with the Nike logo. Most people also know that Nike is a multi-million dollar company that sells name brand shoes worldwide. Millions of pairs of Nike shoes are sold daily, but what people don’t know about Nike shoes is how and where they are made, who makes them, and how Nike spends its money in this process.

American business should not be permitted to claim it is an ethical firm if it ignores unethical practices by its international suppliers. For the purpose of this assignment I will use the Nike Company to highlight its unethical practices. Despite the popularity of Nike in the American market, it has been accused of exploiting employees abroad. The corporate social responsibility stipulates that a company should maximize its profit and minimizes its cost in operations and manufacturing, also at the same time benefit the community it operates in. This paper will further elaborate on the global strategy employed by Nike Company as it outsources its goods and the unethical issues its

They should be responsible for the legal, social and philanthropic aspects of its subcontracted factories. They are not paying their employees the legal minimum wage, caring about the working conditions and welfare of these employees and just not taking into consideration the well-being of others. Ten years ago, the company had been subjected to negative press, lawsuits, and demonstrations on college campuses alleging that the firm’s overseas contractors’ subject employees to work in inhumane conditions for low wages. With the introduction of the fair labour association and worker rights consortium, Nike is slowly trying to improve the working conditions on subcontracted factories and hopefully in 10 years, they would be able to re-establish themselves as a morally acceptable company.

NIKE, Inc. is a multinational corporation, found in 1965 as Blue Ribbon Sports by Bill Bowerman and Phil Knight. It is headquartered at Beaverton, Oregon, US. Nike works to design, develop, manufacture, market and sell apparel, footwear, equipment, accessories and services. BRS was renamed Nike in 1971.

The modus operandi of the major apparel corporation has been a controversial issue for the longest time. After a while, it has become evident that whenever Nike moves its operation between countries, it has been to a place with an abundance of lower wage workers (Herbert, 1996). Doing business with independent contractors which are notorious for unethical practices is legal but not

The main ethical issues were that there were sweatshops were being underpaid, there were children working in sweatshops, and some factories were violating health laws which exposed employees to harmful chemicals. When looking at all of these from an outside perspective one can see that Nike allowed these to happen because they did not care for the quality and rights that humans have. In the United States, these would never occur because of US Labor Laws to protect people, but in these third world countries there are no regulating laws.