VN news: more on Nike's mistreatment of Vietnamese workers

[Dam Son <son@fermi.phys.washington.edu>]

   Brutality in Vietnam
   Nike Gets Heat for Conditions At Contractor Plants in Asia

   Friday - Mar 28, 1997 [40]... Back to headlines

   _[INLINE] Brutality in Vietnam _

   By BOB HERBERT

   ''That was horrible,'' said McClain Ramsey, the chief spokeswoman for
   the Nike footwear empire. ''That was definitely horrible. Nike is
   definitely outraged that that was allowed to happen in a factory. I
   know that the manager has already been suspended. Nike has called for
   a full investigation, as have the authorities. That was just totally
   outrageous. I mean Nike is completely horrified.''

   Cynics might say that Nike is horrified that the story got out. But
   give Ms. Ramsey the benefit of the doubt. For whatever reasons, Nike
   wishes the incident had never occurred.

   On March 8, which happened to be International Women's Day, 56 women
   employed at a factory making Nike shoes in Dong Nai, Vietnam, were
   punished because they hadn't worn regulation shoes to work. Factory
   officials ordered the women outside and made them run around the
   factory in the hot sun. The women ran and ran and ran. One fainted,
   and then another. Still they ran. They would be taught a lesson. They
   had worn the wrong shoes to work. More women fainted. The ordeal
   didn't end until a dozen workers had collapsed.

   Thuyen Nguyen, a Vietnamese-American businessman who has been studying
   conditions at factories that make Nike shoes in Vietnam, wrote in a
   report released yesterday: '' Vietnamese all over the country were
   outraged that on International Women's Day, when most companies in
   Vietnam give women workers flowers and other gifts, 12 Vietnamese
   women were so abused they had to spend the day in the emergency
   room.''

   Mr. Nguyen, a partner in a financial services company in New Jersey
   and a former vice president of the Bankers Trust Company, became
   interested in the treatment of workers in factories that make Nike
   products in Vietnam after watching a television report last fall about
   the abuse of such workers.

   He contacted a number of organizations familiar with the plight of
   foreign sweatshop workers. And he called Nike. Nike officials invited
   Mr. Nguyen to tour a factory run by one of its contractors in Ho Chi
   Minh City. Mr. Nguyen accepted and the tour took place early this
   month.

   On the surface, conditions in the plant seemed more or less
   satisfactory, although the workers appeared tired and Mr. Nguyen got
   the impression they were afraid to speak candidly to him. What Nike
   officials probably did not expect was that Mr. Nguyen would return
   later and, on his own, talk to workers away from the intimidating
   grounds of the factory. He would then go on to investigate conditions
   at plants run by three other Nike contractors.

   What he found were the same kinds of demoralizing and debilitating   
   abuses that a wide array of Nike critics have been spotlighting for a
   long time. Nike set up shop in Vietnam because labor there is even
   cheaper than in Indonesia. But apparently not cheap enough. Mr. Nguyen
   found that in some cases Nike contractors in Vietnam didn't even
   bother to pay the locally established minimum wage. And even when the
   minimum is paid it is not enough to cover the cost of three meager
   meals a day.

   He found that the treatment of workers by the factory managers in
   Vietnam (usually Korean or Taiwanese nationals) is a ''constant source
   of humiliation,'' that verbal abuse and sexual harassment occur
   frequently, and that ''corporal punishment is often used.'' He found
   that extreme amounts of forced overtime are imposed on Vietnamese
   workers. ''It is a common occurrence,'' Mr. Nguyen wrote in his
   report, ''to have several workers faint from exhaustion, heat and poor
   nutrition during their shifts. We were told that several workers even 
   coughed up blood before fainting.''

   Rather than crack down on the abusive conditions in the factories,
   Nike has resorted to an elaborate international public relations
   campaign to give the appearance that it cares about the workers. But
   no amount of public relations will change the fact that a full-time 
   worker who makes $1.60 a day is likely to spend a fair amount of time
   hungry if three very simple meals cost $2.10.

   Nike has hired former United Nations representative Andrew Young to
   oversee -- and presumably attempt to improve -- the conditions in the
   factories of its contractors.

   ''Mr. Young,'' said Mr. Nguyen, ''has a lot of work to do.''
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   Friday - Mar 28, 1997 [42]... Back to headlines

   _[INLINE] Nike Gets Heat for Conditions At Contractor Plants in Asia _

   NEW YORK (WSJ) -- A million Nike shoes are made each month in Vietnam
   at a human cost that includes 15-year-old girls paid 20 cents an hour,
   sexual harassment and corporal punishment, a labor activist said
   Thursday.

   "Supervisors humiliate women, force them to kneel, to stand in the hot
   sun, treating them like recruits in boot camp," labor activist Thuyen
   Nguyen of the U.S.-based Vietnam Labor Watch said at a Manhattan news
   conference.

   After a two-week inspection of plants in Vietnam that have contracts
   with the world's most successful athletic shoe maker, Mr. Nguyen
   released a 12-page report detailing labor conditions.

   A spokeswoman at Nike Inc. said that, if true, such conditions were
   "appalling," and the company was investigating.

   Mr. Nguyen said about 35,000 workers at five Vietnamese plants -- more
   than 90% young women -- put in 12-hour days in overheated and noisy
   environments making Nike shoes. Though labor costs amount to less than
   $2 a pair, the shoes retail for up to $180 in the U.S.

   For the equivalent of an eight-hour day, the Vietnamese worker earns
   $1.60 -- less than the $2 or so it costs to buy three meals a day,
   said the 33-year-old New Jersey-based investment banker. The workers
   just barely clear minimum wage, said Mr. Nguyen. And for the first
   three months, they are paid below minimum wage, he said.

   "Nike clearly is not controlling its contractors, and the company has
   known about this for a long time," said Mr. Nguyen.

   After he became aware of the alleged abuses while watching U.S.  
   television last year, the Vietnamese-born banker financed his own trip
   to his homeland and formed his New York-based labor-rights group.

   Mr. Nguyen fled Vietnam in 1975 with his family after the fall of
   Saigon that ended the Vietnam War. The family was picked up off a boat
   by U.S. forces, who brought them to the United States.

   Now he's fighting a U.S. corporate power in his native land, which
   produces about 1 million Nike shoes a month for the company, based in
   Beaverton, Ore.

   During his trip, Mr. Nguyen said, he found foreign supervisors at the
   plants who sexually harassed workers. "Even in broad daylight, in
   front of other workers, these supervisors try to touch, rub or grab
   their buttocks or chests," the report said.

   In one plant during an eight-hour period, workers were allowed to go
   to the bathroom only once and to take two drinks of water.

   At another Nike contractor, Taiwanese firm Pou Chen Vietnam
   Enterprise, a floor manager forced 56 women to run around the plant in
   the hot sun as punishment for wearing non-regulation shoes, Nguyen
   said. Twelve fainted and were taken to the hospital, he said.

   Nike spokeswoman McLain Ramsey said the manager accused of making
   women run laps has been suspended.

   "We have encouraged local authorities to do a full investigation," she
   said, speaking from corporate headquarters in Oregon. She said the
   company also has hired the firm of Ernst & Young to conduct audits at 
   the plants.

   "What is Nike's responsibility? These are not our factories," she 
   said. "But we have put in the time and energy and effort to make what
   are in many cases good factories into better factories."

   "It's a slow process," she added.

   Mr. Nguyen's report is the latest in a series of troubles Nike has
   faced with its subcontractors in Vietnam. Last year, a South Korean 
   factory floor manager working for the Sam Yang contractor was
   convicted of beating Vietnamese employees with a shoe.

   Nike has repeatedly come under criticism for not clamping down on poor
   labor conditions in factories in Vietnam and Indonesia that produce
   its line of footwear and apparel.

   In Indonesia, workers making Nike shoes in about 20 plants are paid  
   about 30 cents an hour, said Jeff Ballinger, of Press for Change, a
   nonprofit consumer advocacy group. He joined Mr. Nguyen at the news   
   conference.

   Nike recently hired former U.N. Ambassador Andrew Young and his   
   Goodworks International group to review a new code of conduct for its
   overseas factories.
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