Sweatshops Issues: Nike And Child Labor

The sneaker manufacturer began in 1972 by owners Phil Knight and Bill Bowerman. After their initial meeting at the University of Oregon in 1957, the two formed a lesser known shoe company that eventually evolve to Nike. The company was able to go public in 1980 after one short year of acquiring “50 percent of the U.S. running shoe market” (Parnell, 2008 p. 334). Although Nike has surpassed many of their competitors, such as Adidas, it did not come without controversy. Consequently, their strategic plan of utilizing cheap labor has cost them the reputation of being child labors in violation of human rights for their financial gains.

As such, it applied cultural relativism to justify the use of child labor, unsafe labor practices, and near slave labor in its factories. Since then, Nike has been a driving force to ensure fair labor practices across the apparel industry. In 1999, Nike was a key contributor to the establishment of the Fair Labor Association, an organization that is “…dedicated to protecting workers’ rights around the world” (Fair Labor Association, 2016). Today, Nike continues efforts to ensure that contract factories comply with its Code of Conduct to improve labor standards in overseas factories (Nike, 2016). Because of Nike’s efforts to expand and enforce social responsibility at its factories and given the lessons learned from its sordid past, it is unlikely that Nike would resort to any of the straw men fallacies. However, given the pressure by investors to expect solid returns, one hopes the company continues its altruistic social responsibility efforts while veering away from the Friedman Doctrine and its assertion that “… the only social responsibility of business is to increase profits” (Hill, 2011).

Nike has a very sophisticated sustainability strategy. The strategy is based on company’s prospects for future, to ensure that the company remains profitable and reputable, taking into consideration the social responsibility of the company (NIKE 2013). For instance, the strategy is supposed to ensure that the company gains a stable supply for the raw materials for the product manufacturing that will ensure stable supply of the products in the market at favorable prices. The strategy also targets make the company responsive to environmental concerns, aiming at reducing environmental pollution through emissions to the atmosphere (Charter, 2001). The strategy outlines the company

Unfortunately, the same factor that contributed to Nike’s exponential growth (low-cost labor and production) also contributed to hurting Nike’s public image as a leader in “athleticism, health and fitness, and innovative marketing and design” (Locke, 2002). Nike was criticized for unethical practices by their subcontractors, which included underpaid workers, poor working conditions, child labor, and abuse (Locke, 2002).

The highly recognized name brand—Nike— fails to notice the faults that are happening in factories that are violating a few disturbing rules. The company’s reputation has decreased due to demands and claims Nike; implying that they utilize sweatshops to produce more products at a lower pay. The company has been sued numerous times for abusing and exploiting their employees in factories for years. Another problem that Nike has faced throughout the years was making employees work in poor environments that affected the health of many— which contributed to being abused by the manager for not going to work. Nike distributes and sells merchandise of high quality for a high value. The company is giving the satisfaction of quality service to their

Internationally recognized companies such as Nike make use of sweatshops and aid in the exploitation of labor workers in many parts of the world. A sweatshop is an industrialized provision that is known to have poor working conditions, infringement of labor law, and long hours coupled with low wages. In today’s world, sweatshops are prevalent all across the globe; however they raise the most concern in developing nations. Nike is one of the world’s most renowned sportswear companies, but has been involved in several controversies in relation to the possibility of them making profit out of sweatshop labor. In the late 1900’s most Nike products were manufactured in countries like South Korea and Taiwan, however, this changed when the labor

Regarding the most controversial social and yet throughout the history of NIKE to the end of 2020 is expected to have only topics contract factories that demonstrate a commitment to their employees and include protection and workers ' rights, issues health and safety, and a progressive movement toward defining the approach of the "just wage" proposed by the fair Labor Association.

NIKE denies some ethics of social responsibility and makes the company's reputation suffered, which forced the NIKE to change its

Nike supports recycling efforts with its Reuse-A-Shoe program. Started in 1993, it collects old shoes, processes them into sports surfaces, basketball courts, playgrounds and running tracks, and donates them to needy communities (Ferrell, et al,. 1998).

As a leading company in footwear industry, Nike believes they have the responsibility to conduct their business in an ethical way and also expects the same of its business partners. Moreover, Nike focuses on working with long-term, strategic suppliers that demonstrate a commitment a safe working conditions to their employees (Nike, Inc., 2014).

What labor standards regarding safety, working conditions, overtime, and the like, should Nike hold foreign factories to: those prevailing in that country, or those prevailing in the United States.

They have created more sustainable products such as t-shirts made of recycled polyester and recycled plastic bottles. Recycling old shoes into new ones. Nike started numerous charities and has donated millions of dollars to organizations to help repair Nike's image. Nike must continuously work towards the enforcement of their corporate social responsibilities that they have presented to their suppliers at the same time they must remain competitive in the market place.

During the late 80s and early 90s Nike was faced with a series of labor strike back at home due to unethical labor practices by its independent countries in third world countries. It is well known for Nike to outsource almost all its production from third world countries at cheap prices and sell them in U.S. market at an abnormal profit. The company began outsourcing its products from Japan where labor was competent and wages were very low. The living standards were raised which prompted Nike to outsource its products from Thailand, Pakistan and Indonesia since wages in these countries were extremely low and labor for these products were competent due to rapid development of the Japanese economy. The outsourcing of footwear products from Asian countries enables Nike to earn high profits and enjoy a competitive advantage over its rivals in the footwear industry. The company invests the high profits realized in marketing its products through celebrities. For instance, Michael Jordan was used to advertise the positive image of Nike Company (Lipschutz and James, pp. 87-96).

Nike could have observed the ethical and social guidelines of how an organisation should be managed. They should not have hired minors under 16 to work. And instead of purchasing two shoe-manufacturing facilities in the United States, Nike could have just purchased one plant and see how their operations went before thinking about purchasing another plant. When the firm finally saw success in 1980, eight years after the company was founded, and became the largest athletic shoe company in the world, they could have finally purchased the shoe-manufacturing plants in the United States and it would probably have been a success, without having the need to subcontract factories and

Nike took responsibility and created stringent benchmarks for production associations - the Code of Conduct (CoC). While CoC became a need and necessity as it was evident that there still was more to be carried out to direct and deal with the inventory network. Nike constituted the CR Board. It also disclosed the locations of the source factories and manufacturing plants. Nike took measures to match the expectations and published its progress reports. This signalled Nike’s tough stand against these issues and that Nike takes is very seriously to strictly adhere to the best practices and find the solutions. This has resulted into transparency. It has empowered Nike to better fathom the issues and shape more fitting