Sportswear giant Nike has come under the scanner, as its former women employees filed a lawsuit in Oregon recently claiming that Nike violated the Equal Pay Act and involved in gender pay discrimination, ignoring uncontrolled sexual harassment at the workplace.
Recently, around twelve top executives at Nike departed amidst countless cases of harassment at workplace and biased nature of promotion inside Nike’s managerial department. CEO Mark Parker soon apologised for the whole matter and assured to take corrective measures on the same.
However, this complaint against Nike has put even the CEO under the spotlight. The plaintiffs (women workers) are also demanding that the court must restructure the company’s recruitment and rectification practices under its guidance to eliminate the biased behaviour.
As per a report in The Times, many female workers have shared their concerns with human resource managers for years about humiliating treatment and sexual harassment. “They claimed that male supervisors who called them by vulgar names and discussed their bodies. One of them even threw his keys at a subordinate and used foul language with her,” said a complainant. The women also marked out that their complaints to human resources was left unheard and didn’t bring any change in the workplace.
Marking out that out of all the top executives at Nike, just 29 per cent are for women, the plaintiffs want to take their allegation to a trial. It remains to be seen what lies ahead for the sportswear retailing behemoth.
Bharat Tex Special Report 2026 
