Alesia Hairston
9-22-10
MGT 419 Exploratory Essay I found this essay interesting from the beginning because it gave me a lot of insight on how the whole Nike incident began and how it ended. It made me feel sorry for the Nike Corporation at first but when all the details unfolded I started to look at the situation in a totally different light. Jonah Paretti started off the case by trying to order a pair of customized Nikes that he wanted to order from Nike id. What he wanted on the shoe is the word "sweatshop." Nike ultimately denied his request because it represented inappropriate slang. He replied to the Nike Corporation by saying he wanted to put a picture of the 10 year old Vietnamese girl who makes his shoes on the shoe. Paretti never received a response. Before Nike could blink an eye the situation turned into a public affair that would get many colleges and Universities involved. By now the Nike product has become synonymous with slave wages, forced overtime, and arbitrary abuse. An even celebrity like Kathy Lee Gifford was shocked when she found out her clothing line was participating in sweatshops to produce these clothes. Whether or not these accusations were true the turmoil with Nike and their usage of sweat shops for the production of their shoes had begun. Nike was founded by Philip Knight in1964. By 1980, eight years after the company was founded Nike became the largest athletic shoe company in the world. Nike’s factories are located countries such as Indonesia, Vietnam, China, and Thailand were the labor cost were significantly less than those in the United States. Nike was also accused of only paying Indonesian workers 14 cents to the make the company's Air Jordan’s. They also claimed that Nike’s salary for Michael Jordan endorsements were more than the entire factory workers wages combined. Nike soon faced more controversy when Knight was interviewed and was asked about the ages of the workers stating that it didn’t matter to him that the minimum age of the factory works was twelve. It seems to me that some type of corruption was going on in the early years of the Nike Corporation but the corporation did not know just how bad the treatment of these workers really was. Rumors were also going around about how some workers were punished by running around the shop when the conditions of the shop were very hot. Because of the Globalization that we have in the world today it will also be necessary to outsource to other countries. The reasons being are those corporations can get employees to work for their company at extreme low wages whereas in the U.S it would cost the company a lot of more money. Most companies do not believe this is ethically right but they feel it is the only way to compete in today’s society. It does not bother me that people in other countries are making our products but it does bother me that these kids are working so hard and getting so much less money. I never heard of sweatshops in the U.S. but I’m sure their standards are not this bad. We are more morally conscience about the consequences of ethical standards in companies these days. So many Companies have demolished because they were only worried about their revenue and about the well-being of themselves. As long as the owners are rich, t managers can reap the benefits of Productive and successful of the Nike brand. It wasn’t until recent years that CEO’s are becoming scrutinized for the unethical issues and conflicts that they areinvolved in. Nike even tried to regain their reputation by hiring Maria Eitel to fill the newly created position of vice president for corporation and social responsibility. Although she did seem to thicken the thin ice that Nike was on not everyone was convinced of Nikes new view on the sweatshops that they harbored in foreign countries. In efforts to gain back some of their believers and not loose current fans they raised the minimum age to 18. Some of these efforts did put Nike back in the spotlight but not for any good reasons. In 1996 UNITE (Union of Needdletrades, Industrial and Textile Employees was founded. UNITE launched a "Stop sweatshops" campaign after the Kathy Lee Gifford story broke to the union. Shortly after that the University Organization were founded to raise more awareness of what was going on with these sweatshops. One organization the name of USAS (United States Against Sweatshops) had chapters in dozen of universities. One notable demonstration occurred on the campus of UNC. This case can relate to cases that involving overpaid CEO’s. These type of cases are tied into case 22 because there have been so many unethical issues overlooked. First of all the Founder himself should have known exactly what was going on in the countries. When all of this turmoil occurred his pay was probably not cut or even looked at. It just goes to show that in the end CEo’s and board directors are going to do what they want to do in order to gain the most success possible. This may mean even having to put young people who are not even the legal working age to work. CEO’S may feel that they are doing nothing wrong because they are backed up with facts of the cost of productions and how much these workers and can make if they continue to work in these shops. For some it is a very touchy subject but not a subject they are willing to protest again.