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ALERT! Put the Heat on NIKE



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                   ALERT! Put the Heat on NIKE


Labor rights work has been advancing at a dizzying pace.  The
level of media coverage is amazing.  Struggles previously known
only to a limited number of activists suddenly have become
household words.  Among these, the NIKE campaign has moved to
center stage.

Recent events:

* A Canadian group, Development and Peace, volunteered to monitor
conditions to verify NIKE's own "code of conduct" at NIKE-
contracted facilities.  Rebuffed, Development and Peace collected
86,500 petition signatures urging NIKE to reconsider.

* An unprecedented shareholder resolution asking for independent
monitoring of NIKE production facilities will be presented at the
upcoming NIKE stockholder meeting.  This resolution is sponsored
by a member of the Interfaith Center for Corporate
Responsibility, a coalition of 275 Protestant, Catholic and
Jewish institutional investors.

* The June issue of Life Magazine carries an article on Asian
child labor by Sydney Schanberg (author of The Killing Fields). 
The article's prime example:  Pakistani children stitching
together NIKE soccer balls under miserable conditions for only
pennies an hour.

* Television hostess Kathie Lee Gifford called upon other
celebrities to take responsibility for the conditions under which
consumer goods associated with their name are produced.  She
specifically cited Michael Jordan, who earns $20 million a year
from NIKE.  NIKE PR flack Donna Gibbs retorted that Gifford's
appeal was a bad-faith effort to avoid negative press for
herself.

* Campaign for Labor Rights contacted NIKE to suggest that
negotiations begin between NIKE and the relevant parties, so that
an adequate system of independent human rights monitoring can be
established.  NIKE challenged Campaign for Labor Rights to
demonstrate that anyone can do a better job than NIKE's
privately-contracted firm.  U.S.-based Press for Change is now
drafting a guideline for monitoring, to be submitted to NIKE
within days.

* Meanwhile, NIKE continues to be the focus of escalating media
scrutiny.  New York Times columnist Bob Herbert disclosed that
NIKE outsources in Vietnam, where the minimum wage is $30 a
month.  Herbert contrasts that pay with the earnings of NIKE
cofounder and CEO Phil Knight:

"I asked Nike last week what he was worth.  After hemming and
hawing about such incidentals as his $864,583 salary and $787,500
bonus in fiscal 1995, a spokesman got to the real deal:  his Nike
stock.  Hold onto your sneakers.  Knight's stock is valued at a
breathtaking $4.5 billion."

* Press for Change has committed to bringing to the U.S. a young
woman fired from a NIKE production facility in Indonesia.  Her
offense? -- trying to organize a union, fighting for other labor
rights and protesting violations of the minimum wage law. 
International standards list formation of labor unions as a basic
human right.  Press for Change hopes for a presentation by the
Indonesian during the clothing summit being organized by U.S.
Labor Secretary Robert Reich and scheduled to take place in
Washington, DC on July 16.
 
WHY NIKE?

NIKE prides itself as a leader.  It refuses to take the lead in
human rights.

NIKE advertising trades on the issue of women's empowerment. 
Young women in NIKE's Indonesian production facilities suffer
physical abuse and sexual harassment.  When they seek
empowerment, through unionizing, they are threatened and fired.

NIKE gets a lot of good press by contributing hefty sums to
schools.  Meanwhile, the children who toil long hours assembling
NIKE soccer balls in Pakistan are deprived of their childhood.

NIKE's Phil Knight says that he would like the world to think of
Nike as "a company with a soul that recognizes the value of human
beings."  NIKE is ever on the lookout for more repressive
countries in which to relocate its production facilities.  When
Taiwan and South Korea began to democratize in the 1980's, NIKE
used the promise of even lower-wage labor to entice many of its
contractors to shift their operations to Indonesia and China.  A
story in the New York Times in March told of the union organizer
at an Indonesian NIKE production facility who was fired and then
"locked in a room at the plant and interrogated for seven days by
the military, which demanded to know more about his labor
activities."

 
INDEPENDENT MONITORING
WHAT IT'S ALL ABOUT

NIKE hires a company to monitor its code of conduct.  When asked
for a copy of the monitoring report, NIKE refused.  Secret
reports are not independent reports.  Corporate-contracted 
monitoring is not independent monitoring.  Truly independent
monitor is done by human rights groups situated in the countries
where the production takes place.  Independent monitoring puts
its findings in the public domain.

NIKE claims that it considers all of its workers to be family. 
Press for Change has documented 60 cases of Indonesian workers
who have been fired simply for trying to organize a union.  NIKE
is satisfied with its human rights standards.  The fired workers
have another opinion.  The child laborers of Pakistan have never
heard of NIKE's code of conduct.  Family?
 

MEDIA SCRUTINY IS NOT ENOUGH!!!
MAKE YOUR VOICE HEARD:

Please make one or more of the following telephone calls.  NIKE
must guarantee basic human rights to the workers in its
subcontracted production facilities.  NIKE needs to know that
continuing refusal to abide by such standards will cost it plenty
in consumer anger.
 
NIKE is the leader but it is anything but invulnerable.  NIKE
invests hundreds of millions each year -- in its image!!!  NIKE
stands or falls by what the consumer thinks about the company
image.  LET NIKE KNOW THAT YOU ASSOCIATE ITS PRODUCTS WITH
EXPLOITATION.

CALL ONE OR MORE OF THESE NUMBERS

NIKE Corporate Communications:  (503) 671-3579.  Tell them that

you want NIKE to negotiate immediately with Press for Change,
Development and Peace and Interfaith Center for Corporate
Responsibility, to establish a truly independent system of human
rights monitoring of all NIKE production facilities around the
world.  Tell them that you do not intend to buy any more NIKE
products until you hear from those organizations that an
agreement has been signed.
 
Foot Locker stores corporate headquarters, public relations
department:  (212) 720-3765.  (You may get an answering machine.) 
Explain that you are calling because NIKE (whose goods are sold
at Foot Locker) has refused to allow independent human rights
monitoring of its production facilities.  Tell them that you are
requesting that Foot Locker cease selling NIKE products until
NIKE signs an agreement with Press for Change and the other
organizations involved in the human rights campaign -- and that
you do not intend to shop at Foot Locker until either they stop
selling NIKE products or NIKE signs the agreement.
 
Athlete's Foot stores corporate headquarters, public relations
department:  (770) 514-4704.  Explain that you are calling
because NIKE (whose goods are sold at Athlete's Foot) has refused
to allow independent human rights monitoring of its production
facilities.  Tell them that you are requesting that Athlete's
Foot cease selling NIKE products until NIKE signs an agreement
with Press for Change and the other organizations involved in the
human rights campaign -- and that you do not intend to shop at
Athlete's Foot until either they stop selling NIKE products or
NIKE signs the agreement.

 
LET US KNOW WHAT THEY SAY

Please send an email to Campaign for Labor Rights
clr@xxxxxxxxxxx, telling us which of these numbers you called and
what was the response.  This information is very useful in
negotiating with NIKE.
 

CAMPAIGN FOR LABOR RIGHTS
Building a grassroots base for labor struggles around the world
and here at home

Campaign for Labor Rights, a project of the Nicaragua Network
Education Fund, is a bridge between local activists and many of
the major organizations initiating campaigns for labor rights
around the world and here at home.  We are building a base of
support for:
 
* UNITE (campaign to end sweatshops)

* National Labor Committee (Wal-Mart and Haiti campaigns)

* Press for Change (NIKE campaign)

* Support Committee for Maquiladora Workers (campaign for a
living wage)

* several groups working on the Burma boycott

* and a number of other organizations with important campaigns in
support of the rights of working people.

* In coming weeks, we will announce an important new campaign in
support of maquiladora workers in Nicaragua.

We promote greater cooperation between solidarity, union and
peace & justice activists.  We draw the connections between
Unocal in Burma and in Illinois.  We talk about the connections
between the Indonesian military government and the Gemala Group's
union busting activities in Canada and the U.S.  We work to end
sweatshop conditions, whether in Guatemala or Los Angeles.

Campaign for Labor Rights keeps you up to date on the rapidly-
changing labor rights picture.  We provide easy ways for local
organizations and activists to make their voices heard -- so that
campaigns can become victories.  Members receive our newsletter
and action packets throughout the year.

Please consider joining Campaign for Labor Rights.  Let the
people around you know about our work.  Let us know about people
we should be contacting.

For more information or to receive our brochure, contact Campaign
for Labor Rights at 1247 "E" Street SE, Washington, DC 20003  
clr@xxxxxxxxxxx   (202) 544-9355 (daytime) or (541) 344-5410
(evenings and weekends).