ACADEMICS STUDYING NIKE, REEBOK, and ADIDAS - El Salvador, Dominican Republic & Guatemala

NIKE

LATEST NEWS - 8 May 2007

On Tuesday, May 8, Nike will be meeting with other stakeholders in the Dominican Republic to discuss the closure of the BJ&B factory. This facility, a well-known example of the power of worker and student organizing, recently shut down as brands cut and run from one of the few factories in the world that was not a sweatshop. Since the factory shut down, Nike has engaged in a campaign of deliberate deception, hiding the truth about the treatment of workers during the closure process, in an attempt to avoid a discussion about the real reasons for the closure: their unwillingness to support factories that demonstrate real respect for labor standards. Tuesday's meeting is an opportunity for Nike to show that they take codes of conduct seriously, by committing to put orders back into the factory and displaying true respect for workers' rights.

24 July 2006 "BJ&B is a factory in the Dominican Republic that produces Nike baseball caps for universities. Since the factory first opened, groups of workers had attempted to organize a union to improve some of the abysmal working conditions. Every time they did so, the group of workers was summarily and illegally fired. When USAS brought a BJ&B worker to the U.S. in 1999 to denounce these violations, Nike ran a PR campaign to discredit the worker and USAS. In December of 2001, a group of workers was fired again, and this time the WRC was able to assemble an investigative team and document the illegal firings. In the following year, Nike and Reebok acknowledged the problems at BJ&B and began to press the factory to respect the workers' right to organize. Eventually the factory allowed a free and fair election to be held, and workers voted in favor of union representation. In the spring of 2003, management and the union negotiated the first collective bargaining agreement in a factory in a Dominican free trade zone to provide for wages above the legal minimum. Since then Reebok has pulled all of their orders from the factory and Nike has slowly and surely been cutting and running from the factory. While in 2003 there were 1600 workers in the factory, only 350 remain. In the global race to the bottom, BJ&B is being cut out of the industry." source Click Here

EXHIBIT A - Nike Sponsored Reports

• Nike Sponsored Student Report -  Nike Monitoring Final Report: El Salvador Edmund Malesky

Nike Sponsored Student Report -  Report on Factories Producing Collegiate Licensed Apparel March 2000 – Dominican Republic
Karim Chrobog

EXHIBIT B - Mr .Kernaghan

Nike's (November 17, 1998) Response to Mr. Kernaghan and others in the U.S. labor movement  http://nikebiz.com/media/n_statement2.shtml concerning Formosa factory is located in San Bartolo, El Salvador, and manufactures apparel for Adidas, Holloway, Vanity Fair (Lee, Wrangler, and other brands), as well as for Nike.

EXHIBIT C -Formosa Factory Work Conditions

Julia Pleites' testimony on conditions in a Formosa [Formosa is name of a company] factory http://www.nlcnet.org/nike/julia.htm 

See Open Letter on Formosa  by Verité http://www.web.net/~msn/3nike16.htm (Source NikeWatch Campaign of Australia). 

Testimony of Julia Esmeralda Pleites  Formosa Textiles, San Bartolo FTZ, El Salvador  November 17, 1998 http://www.nlcnet.org/nike/julia.htm (Source NikeWatch). 

August 1999 - Inspection Findings for the Formosa Textile Factory - Another damning report on Formosa, this time by Verité http://www.caa.org.au/campaigns/nike/news1.html#august99  - From June 16 to June 19, 1999, two Verité auditors conducted inspections and interviews at Formosa Textile S.A. de C.V. and at Evergreen Industries S.A. de C.V., two garment assembly plants located in Zona Franca San Bartolo, San Salvador, El Salvador. (See more on this at http://www.web.net/~msn/3nike16.htm). 

June 16 to June 19, 1999 two Verité auditors conducted inspections and interviews at Formosa Textile S.A. de C.V. and at Evergreen Industries S.A. de C.V., two garment assembly plants located in Zona Franca San Bartolo, San Salvador, El Salvador. Nike and Adidas's independent auditor, visited the Formosa Textile factory in El Salvador they observed workers who worked to slowly being taken to the middle of the factory floor and shouted and sworn at by supervisors.  This was a standard practice.  The Evergreen factory has produced for ADIDAS since 1997. Last year Evergreen produced 97,000 pieces for ADIDAS, approximately 45 percent of its production capacity. Evergreen currently produces garments for Nike, Wal-Mart, Kmart, and Vanity Fair. Other buyers have included Puma, Holloway, and Eddie Bauer. Six workers reported a case of attempted sexual assault involving a Bengali supervisor at Evergreen in 1998. Eight workers reported a case of physical abuse in Formosa last year between a female worker and a Bengali Supervisor. http://www.web.net/~msn/3nike16.htm  

EXHIBIT D: Nike: New Developments

ADIDAS

• Adidas drops supplier FORMOSA in El Salvador Threat to jobs of needle workers
  The German TV broadcast "Monitor" dated August 13th 1998 had brought the adidas supplier FORMOSA in El Salvador into disrepute. Serious labour rights violations were a matter of daily practice there. About 1000 women produced sports garment in a working week of 60-70 hours for a monthly wage of 240 DM. Women were sacked if they were found to be pregnant. There was sexual harassment.
  
  In a recent letter to the German Clean Clothes Campaign Mr. David Husselbee, adidas Global Director of Social and Environmental Affairs, stated that as from September 2000 FORMOSA has stopped to be a supplier of the sporting goods producer (CCC).

REEBOK