Nikes Unethical Sweatshops By George Burke, Kristine Irwin, Bozhong - - PowerPoint PPT Presentation

Nike’s Unethical Sweatshops

By George Burke, Kristine Irwin, Bozhong Liu, Byren Malone, Phillip Rodriguez, Yawen Fan

• 1970--Remove factories from where people asked for Higher Wage

Rate

• 1990--Sell Goods From the Sweatshop

Nike is just making profits!

BACKGROUND

Nike products are made in sweatshops where workers are treated terribly.

• Up to 15 Hour Days
• 6-7 days a week
• 13-20 cents an hour

Slums are equally bad

• Open sewers that flood during rainy season
• Giant Cockroaches and Rats

Ethical Lens:

• Nike was just acting in the results lens.

Everything they did was just focused on making a profit.

What were the ethical issues?

The company supervisors pay off political leaders Rubber is burned in field where children play Children of workers don’t go to school, community is stuck in this cycle

It gets worse

Stakeholders

The Trouble-Makers The Victims Activists

• Nike Inc.
• Upper Management, CEO Phil

Knight

• Nike Contractors, Supervisors
• Workers in Vietnam, China,

Indonesia, Taiwan and South Korea

• Communities surrounding Factories
• Workers mainly young women
• The 1992 Barcelona Olympics
• Athletes (Sponsored, like Michael

Jordan, Collegiate Athletes)

• Investors and Shareholders
• Companies associated within Nike’s

Supply Chain

• Fair Labor Association
• Worker Rights Consortium
• United Students Against

Sweatshops

• Team Sweat
• Feminist Groups
• College Students
• Individual Activists: Ballinger, Kathy Lee

Gifford, Andrew Young

• Consumers all over the world,

especially in the America

What Nike did…

• Did not pay much attention to manufacturing companies
• Focused on lowering costs
• Denying use of sweatshops

What Nike should’ve done…

• Evaluate outsourcing manufacturing companies carefully
• Taken human rights and legal requirements into consideration
• Admitted the use of sweatshops from the beginning
• Label products sweatshop free

Outcome…

• Sweatshop workers would live a better lifestyle
• Nike’s public image would have not taken such drastic downfall
• Nike would have higher credibility in the public eye
• Public would be willing to pay higher prices due to sweatshop free labels

Ethical Alternatives and Alternative Impacts

• 2005 Nike began to publish complete list of factories it contracted

with conditions and pay rates for each

• Started to acknowledge social responsibility
• Most ethical outcome would be to decrease or stop outsourcing to

eliminate problem

• Strict labor laws in US to protect workers and ensure fair wages
• Company wants to make most money possible

Best Outcome

• Corporate decisions are heavily criticized by the public
• Being clear and transparent provides companies a better public

image

• Actions always have consequences
• Owning up to consequences provides credibility

Lessons Learned

• Nike’s use of sweatshops was unethical
• Using sweatshops in order to increase profit can hurt a

company’s reputation

• Worldwide companies like Nike are under the public

scope and need to behave accordingly Thank-you!

Conclusion

http://www.businessinsider.com/how-nike-solved-its-sweatshop-problem-2013-5 http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=M5uYCWVfuPQ http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nike_Sweatshops http://sweatshopsandnike.blogspot.com/2009/07/nike-sweatshops.html http://www.rarasuperstar.com/archives/6230/nike-sweatshops http://www.glogster.com/softpretzelexperience/sweatshops/g-6mqv6bs59vrs960q59dbsbt

http://www.theguardian.com/business/2010/dec/12/british-high-street-sweatshop-probe http://www.rstreet.org/op-ed/the-case-for-boycotting-the-sochi-olympics-and-the-rio-ones-too/ http://www.teamsweat.org/2009/05/07/more-consumers-join-the-fight-against-nikes-sweatshops-2/ http://steverunnerblog.blogspot.com/2010_04_01_archive.html http://arteknyc.wordpress.com/tag/nike/

Bibliography