Labour activists from all throughout the US pushed Nike to guarantee fair wages in its supply chain ahead of the Olympics in Paris.
Hundreds of demonstrators, led by the Asia Floor Wage Alliance (AFWA) and Global Labour Justice (GLJ), gathered in eight cities, including Nike’s home base of Portland, Oregon, to demand that the sportswear giant answer for what they claim is the “human rights crisis” that its supply chain workers in South and Southeast Asia experienced during the pandemic.
A letter calling on Nike to engage in negotiations with the garment unions that represent its supply chain workers was presented by protestors to the Converse All-Star Headquarters in Boston. At the cocktail reception of the Washington Trade Symposium in Washington, D.C., a group of sympathisers handed brochures requesting the same. At the New York Stock Exchange Footwear Distributors and Retailers Association’s Supply Chain Summit in New York City, representatives from the Model Alliance, the Communication Workers of America, the Coalition of Labour Union Women, and Americans for Financial Reform displayed their support by waving signs and banners.
Last March, the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development in Washington, D.C. received an international labour complaint from GLJ and the AAFA, along with 20 unions representing workers in Nike’s supply chains in Cambodia, India, Indonesia, Pakistan, and Sri Lanka. The complaint stated that Nike had not lived up to the demands of the workers and had not made good on its promises to support racial and gender equality. It is said that Nike caused layoffs, pay reductions, and wage theft at its suppliers during COVID, which are still being felt today, by first cancelling orders and then significantly cutting production levels. Furthermore, according to the organisations, the rival to Adidas cannot legitimately advocate for gender equality if it does not guarantee that the manufacturers it works with compensate their female workers a living wage.
