Nike’s Labor Initiatives

David Meggyesy’s Oct. 17 anti-Nike column is an outrageously slanted piece that promulgates false information in paragraph after paragraph. Allow me to set the record straight on Nike’s labor initiatives.

Nike jobs in Southeast Asia are highly sought after and pay wages above the national average.

Earlier this month, Dartmouth University’s Amos Tuck School of Business concluded in preliminary findings from a wage study at Nike factories in Indonesia and Vietnam that workers earn enough to meet their basic needs with money left over for discretionary spending or savings. The study found that the annual per capita income of Nike workers in two Vietnamese factories is $545 and $566, compared with the estimated annual per capita wage of $250 to $300 for the country as a whole.

In 1992, Nike established the sporting goods industry’s first code of conduct to ensure our workers know and can exercise their rights. In 1994, Nike became the first company to have its code of conduct monitored by an independent third party, the accounting firm of Ernst & Young. We have the industry’s only labor practices department, whose mission is to ensure subcontracted factories are meeting the guidelines contained in our code of conduct. And when they don’t, as was the recent case with four Southeast Asian factories, we terminate their contract.

At Nike we are proud of and stand by our record of opposing gender and racial discrimination or abuse of any kind. The past 25 years may have seen us stumble occasionally, but like any determined athlete, we’re getting stronger as the race progresses.

LEE WEINSTEIN

Public Relations, Nike

Beaverton, Ore.