Just doing it: Jim Keady vs Nike

Jim Keady is a former assistant soccer coach from St. John's University. While coaching, Keady was also doing a research paper on Nike's labor practices for his MA in theology. Citing Nike’s use of sweatshop labor, Keady began to publicly protest the university's relationship with Nike. He also refused to wear the equipment Nike provided the University. On May 12, 1998 Keady was given an ultimatum by university officials, "Wear Nike and drop this issue publicly or resign." Keady was forced to resign.

In May 1999, Keady offered to work for six months in a Nike shoe factory in south-east Asia to dispel the myth that "these are great jobs for those people." Brad Figel of Nike’s Labor Practices Department responded, "We are not interested in your offer". So, Keady and project assistants Leslie Kretzu, and Mike Pierantozzi did the next best thing ... read from their diary below.

"Starving for the Swoosh" by Jim Keady

8-9-00

I really can’t remember that much about August 9th, it’s all kind of a blur, for most of the day I felt dizzy, weak, and completely drained of energy. I do remember buying a bar of soap early in the day for 1,800Rp ($0.21). I thought I had gotten the cheapest brand, I found out later that I could have gotten the bottom of the barrel brand for 1000Rp ($0.12). I’m not sure if that extra 800Rp ($0.09) would have made a difference; my hunger was beyond anything I may have been able to purchase with it. Wanting to stay clean would cost me.

By late afternoon I had reached a point of hunger and exhaustion I have never experienced before in my life. I was not physically able to bring a one-liter bottle of water to my lips without it shaking violently in my hand. Living on a Nike sweatshop wage has forced me to neglect my body, and my body is fighting back. I hope my mom doesn’t read this.

How do the workers survive putting in 7-15 hour days of manual labor and having this little to eat? How can they keep a shard of their dignity? How can they or any human being be expected to feel human when each day is an exercise in injustice and humility? I almost passed out from hunger today. I live on a Nike sweatshop wage. There is nothing else to write.

"One’s neighbor must therefore be loved, even if an enemy, with the same love with which the Lord loves him or her; and for that person’s sake one must be ready for sacrifice, even the ultimate one: to lay down one’s life for the brethren." (Pope John Paul II, Sollicitudo Rei Socialis, 1987)

"Sickness in Solidarity" by Leslie Kretzu

8-14-00

We've entered a new phase of the project. The energy reserve that I had for the first two weeks is depleted. Each day is a struggle. Of the foods and drink I can afford, nothing is appealing to me at the moment. Not surprisingly, I got sick. I have a headache, a fever, nausea and my lungs feel like I've been chain-smoking Marlboro Reds while sitting in front of a Mack truck's exhaust pipe.

I spent the majority of today lying on a paper-thin reed mat on an uneven cement floor covered in shelf paper. I self-diagnosed the beginnings of Dengue Fever, Malaria, or Typhoid, from Lonely Planet's three-sentence summaries. All the feelings of entitlement that have ever coursed through my veins awakened. There was no way in hell I was going to stick to this starvation wage. I was sick. This didn't count. I was going to get what I needed and just … not count it. Project time was on hold indefinitely. How could I not get juice and medicine? This is what I NEEDED!

I started walking out the door, headed for the corner store where I would get what I could to make me feel somewhat better. Feeling guilty and blatantly looking for validation, I shouted out to my project team, "You think this is OK, don't you? I mean, I'm SICK." The response: "It's your call. (pregnant pause) What would Fitri do?"

What would Fitri do? Fitri my new best friend? My new soul sister? Fitri, who lives in a box in a poor, dirty, overcrowded neighborhood in the Adidas factory ‘prison complex'. What would Fitri do? I don't know, but I think she'd actually go to work.

Though if she could take the day off, I suppose she'd be in that one small, smelly, congested room she shares with two other women … lying on a paper-thin reed mat on an uneven cement floor covered in shelf paper, without the money to buy what she really needed. And she wouldn't have a choice.

This was the greatest test yet — when I absolutely felt like forgetting about the poverty simply because I could. I wanted fresh orange juice, toast, cherry-flavored cough drops and Tylenol. I had a small "juice box" of orange drink, one dose of Tylenol, and lots of water. Three gulps of orange drink was 2500 rupiah, or about 30 per cent of the daily food allowance living on this basic wage. Two Tylenol was the same price. I could afford one meal at the cheapest place we've found yet, and that was it for the day. A small vitamin-less orange drink, 2 Tylenol, and one meal of rice and vegetables.

This is what I came here for. To live in solidarity with the poor and exploited. To experience the injustice here and tell it in my language to my tribe who CAN make changes because of opportunities they've been given. To take the American-born opportunities and privileges that my ancestors struggled for, and

now use them for people still struggling. I can tell you this from the depths of my soul, with more passion than ever before: No one should have to live like this. We need to make serious changes. And everyone is responsible.

"FEAR, INC." by Michael Pierantozzi

8-24-00

Fear is the great motivator. The fear of losing your job. The fear of losing your ability to support your family. The fear of being hung out to dry by your company in an economic situation that’s desperate at best, even for the gainfully employed. Yes, fear is the greatest of all motivators, greater than money, greater than power, greater than entire army of Tony Robbinses.

We sat down with some Nike workers last week. They sang us a lovely song about Nike. It sounded a lot like the song Nike sings to the American people. It went something like this:

Without Nike we’d be in real dire straits. Nike takes care of me. They take care of my family. They adhere to the code of conduct, they pay us a generous wage, and they give us adequate health care. They treat us with dignity and respect. It was a beautiful, bouncy song that sounded oddly like "Whistle While you Work". I had to restrain myself from tapping my feet.

Ok, so this particular group of workers thought we worked for Nike or one of their competitors. They thought we were just another independent monitoring group of Americans who came to hear the happy Nike song. How could you blame them? Why would a group of white people who didn’t speak their language come to their village with a camera and want to talk to them? They didn’t trust us and rightfully so. No monitoring group had ever talked to them as individuals, much less given them reason to trust. They said when the monitoring groups roll into town, they only talk to the managers, and if they do speak with the workers, there is always a manager present at the interview.

After some coaxing and reassuring that we were on their side, the workers opened up a little. But they were still holding back. They were careful with the words they chose and with the issues they chose to discuss. I watched them look back and forth at each other nervously with each question, as if searching each others’ faces for the right thing to say, to do. You could see the truth wanted to come out but something was keeping them from giving the whole story. Fear. They were terrified. Scared we were going to take our video and run right to their managers. They wanted reassurance that we weren’t going to throw them under the bus. That they weren’t going to end up unemployed, or worse. The local Mafia apparently also plays a role in this institutionalized bullying. They handle all punishment of detractors beyond termination so the factories can keep their hands clean.

After about an hour of prodding without much success, we decided to call it a night. We went home, unsatisfied that we had gotten the whole story. So we had our interpreter translate a couple of articles about Jim’s story and we brought this and some other information to the same group a few days later. When they realized that we were on their side they changed their tune. They talked about how they were grossly underpaid. How they were afraid to speak up about how they were treated for fear of termination, for fear of the Mafia. And they told us that it’s not just the workers who are afraid, but that the entire factory is run on fear. The workers are afraid of their line managers. The line managers are afraid of upper management. And upper management is afraid of the factory owners, who are afraid that if their factory doesn’t make quota, or has workers that organize, Nike will take their business to some other poor country where people will kill themselves for a dollar a day. Throw in the mob to scare the shit out of everyone and you have yourself quite a racket. It’s a dirty business, but it’s incredibly smart in its simplicity. Keep the people down and you’ll keep your costs down.

The following day we tried to get into a Nike factory in Tangerang, the belly of the beast, so to speak. We were turned away, despite Nike’s alleged policy of transparency, and told that we had to speak with someone in Nike’s local office in Jakarta. So on Friday, we went into downtown Jakarta to the high-rise where the office is located, one of the many beautiful, modern buildings that look oddly out of place here. We were let in promptly by security, given security badges, and asked to wait in the lobby. Jim was once again asked to wear the Nike Swoosh because it was on the badge, much to his chagrin. He shoved it deep down in his pocket.

So we waited in the lobby. And waited some more. After about an hour and a half, a young, attractive, Indonesian woman came out and told us that the person we needed to talk to would be in and out of meetings all day, and that we should call at noon to make an appointment. That seemed fair enough. At least security wasn’t throwing us out by the scruffs of our necks. So we left. And called at noon. Our contact was at lunch. We called again. Our contact was in another meeting. We called once more. Still in a meeting. We were getting the standard run-around, so we decided that we would go back and wait. Around 4:00 we ventured over to the Nike offices for the second time that day, where we were again escorted into the lobby. After about 20 minutes of waiting, an attractive woman who looked to be in her early 30s came out into the lobby and greeted us warmly. She was a very gracious American expat named Tammy who hailed from New Orleans. We exchanged pleasantries and then got down to business.

She was aware of our intention of seeing a factory and aware of our project. She told us, with much trepidation, that Nike was unable to grant us a tour due to Jim’s impending lawsuit. She was extremely nice about it. Not the horrible Nike corporate monster we expected. She even looked like she felt sorry for us. And I recognized something else. The look on her face. It was the same look I had seen on the workers’ faces a few days before. There was an obvious uneasiness about her and it looked as though she would rather be anywhere else at that moment but in this lobby with Jim Keady and his band of rabble-rousers. Part of it may have been the fact that I was sticking a camera in her face. But I think it was more than that. Now I could be wrong, but I believe she is well aware of what’s going on in the factories, knows it’s wrong, may even be embarrassed by it, but doesn’t want to say anything because she is afraid it would compromise her position and Nike’s position. She has to know all this exploitation is wrong, this extremely nice woman from the Big Easy. She lives 30 miles from Tangerang.

I wonder if Tammy thinks about the workers while she’s sitting at her desk, or if they visit her in her dreams at night. I wonder how many Nike executives think about the workers, know these people are suffering on behalf of their company and are afraid to speak up about it. I wonder how they rationalize their way around it. I wonder as an advertising copywriter, if I, by some stroke of incredible dumb luck, was offered an interview at Weiden & Kennedy, Nike’s ad agency and without question one of the best agencies in the world. Would I be able to get on the plane to Oregon in good conscience after seeing what I’ve seen?

After we shut the camera off, she relaxed a bit and asked Jim how things were going with the project. She seemed genuinely concerned, even sympathetic.

Jim replied, very matter-of-factly, "Your people are starving. You have to pay them more."

At which point our discussion promptly ended, with Tammy very courteously bidding us farewell, double-timing it back toward the catacombs of the Nike corporate office, and disappearing behind a row of cubicles.