Nike's Trade Secrets
After years of denial, ridicule of critics, and attempts to hide behind a curtain of "trade secrets" concerns, Nike has released a "comprehensive outline" of conditions inside the 700 factories that produce its goods globally.
Nike has identified plants in China, Thailand, South Korea, Vietnam, South America, Australia, Canada, Italy, Mexico, Turkey and the United States. They found "some unsatisfactory work practices" exist at "some of the factories", particularly those in Asia, including:
- In more than a quarter of its South Asian factories and 25 - 50 percent of contract factories, access to toilets and drinking water during the work day is restricted, and operators deny workers at least one day off each week;
- Employees regularly work more than 60 hours per week in more than half of the factories, and many of them punish workers who refuse to work overtime;
- Wages are below legal limits in up to a quarter of the factories.
While "comprehensive outline" may
sound thorough, in fact the description comes close to syllogism, in that an
outline can
never be truly comprehensive: in fact, considering the vagueness of the released information (eg; discussing "some" factories rather than being precise) it is clear that the corporation has tried to put the best possible spin on what is in fact a damming indictment of corporate immorality.
Item posted by AutoEditor at 10:33 am ::
