International Nike Protest Day - Dec 14th

[thuyen nguyen]

1. List of recent and upcoming activity

The following list is certainly not complete. It is based on a
quick scanning of recent communications from organizations with
which we are in contact. Many more have requested action packets
-- and may be planning events -- but have not notified us. We
send you this list to give an idea of the scope of activity in
this campaign. If you live in one of the areas where we have
listed a planned action, you may want to contact the organizers.
For contact information, send an email request to c...@igc.apc.org
or nike-p...@saigon.com and we will do our best to put you in touch with
the organizing group.

Eugene, Oregon; December 14; leafleting at the Nike store at the
5th Street Public Market; organized by the Eugene-Springfield
Solidarity Network (ESSN).

Sacramento, California; ongoing Nike leafleting;
Nike and Disney at the Downtown Plaza, a mall with all 3 stores;
the action included guerrilla theater with Disney sweatshop dwarfs and Nike
underpaid helpers; organized by Sacramentans for International Labor Rights
(SILR).

The Clean Clothes Campaign in The Netherlands supports the Nike
campaign.

Portland, Oregon; ongoing leafleting, usually at the Nike Town
store; organized by Justice Do It Nike.

Oakland, California; recent leafleting at a Nike store; organized
by the Nicaragua Center for Community Action (NICCA).

Edmonton, Alberta; Canadian Union of Public Employees (CUPE)
Local, representing custodians in the Edmonton public schools,
has asked the local schools, the city government and the Oilers
hockey team not to allow Nike to be a cosponsor of a street
hockey program for inner city children. CUPE 474 has made links
with various Edmonton groups and will hold a rally at a local
store that carries Nike.

The Edmonton District Labour Council, a local federation of
public and private sector unions representing 30,000 unionized
workers in Edmonton, endorsed the Nike campaign and added their
voice to those pressuring the public school board and city
council not to accept gifts from Nike.

The Alberta Federation of Labor, representing 300,000 unionized
workers, has endorsed the Nike campaign. Les Steel, Secretary
Treasurer of the Alberta Federation of Labour, and Jim Selby,
Research Director and editor of their monthly newspaper Labour
News, will be addressing students in public school classes about
trade unions history and their importance in Canada. Part of
their presentations will deal with the need for social activism
by students and will be promoting the Nike campaign.

The Fort McMurray Labour Council toured schools in that oil city
in northern Alberta during Education Week November 11-15, as part
of a global education and trade union awareness campaign. Lynn
O'Connor, President of the FMLC, raised the issue of Nike in
every class she attended. Also during Education Week, Challenge
for Change, a social activist NGO, visited Grande Prairie,
Alberta (a major lumber mill/mining town unionized by Chemical,
Energy and Paperworkers) to do presentations on global education
to students in the public schools and raised the Nike issue
during its presentations. Challenge for Change was also a
participant in a Edmonton-wide Youth Conference December 4 and 5.
They focused on development issues and student activism, with
emphasis on Nike as a campaign.

At the international meeting of the Health, Safety and
Enviroment Committee of the International Confederation of Free
Trade Unions (ICFTU) in Brazil in October, Lucien Royer of the
Alberta Federation of Labour and international coordinator of the
Toycott Campaign for HSE/ICFTU made a notice of motion that the
ICFTU add Nike to its list of boycotts dealing with child labour
and sweat shops. The notice of motion on Nike was accepted and
will be raised at the next annual meeting of the HSE committee in
October of 1997. Nike's labor practices and working conditions
in its production facilities in Asia will be investigated during
the year with a report to the committee at its meeting. The
ICFTU is the international federation of national trade unions
including the TUC in England, CLC in Canada, AFL/CIO in the U.S.
and other national union federations. It is located in Brussels.

Peace and Development in the London/Kitchener/St. Catherine's
area of Ontario are planning multiple coordinated demonstrations
at Nike outlets for December 14.

San Francisco, California; December 14, 1996. Nike Town at Union
Square. This is a general protest of all companies using
overseas sweatshop labor. The action is being organized by the
National Labor Committee and its local affiliates, including
Global Exchange.

Fair Trade in Sweden will make the Nike campaign materials
available in Swedish and try to make Swedish consumers aware of
the issues.

A regional organizer with GMB, Britain's largest textile union,
has contacted us to say that he wants to support the Nike
campaign and will encourage his fellow members to do likewise.

Great Neck, New York; one of the teachers at a Hebrew school has
been teaching her classes about Nike's sweatshop practices. Now
the students are planning a leafleting action for December 14.

New York City: Thuyen Nguyen, who maintains an electronic
network for Vietnamese around the world, and others met with
Dusty Kidd, director of Nike's new Labor Practices Department,
and Lee Weinstein, Nike spokesperson for New York, to discuss
concerns which Nguyen had raised with Nike. Kidd said that he
would allow a delegation of three to visit Nike factories in
Vietnam and offered to pay for the trip. Nguyen declined the
offer, not wanting to compromise his independence. He now will
be helping to raise funds for the investigative delegation.

Chapel Hill, North Carolina; a leafleting action against Nike at
a University of North Carolina basketball game on December 2, in
front of the basketball coliseum. The university's athletic
department has a multi-million dollar contract with Nike. The
leafleting was organized by the Carolina Socialist Alliance,
which has an ongoing Nike campaign.

The Bern Declaration in Switzerland is making a Sport Shoe
Campaign their priority campaign for 1997.

Costa Mesa in Orange County, California; leafleting at the Nike
Town; December 14; organized by a local coalition which expects
hundreds to turn out for the event.

Denver, Colorado; Nike leafleting; December 14; organized by
Konrad Roeder. Roeder has photocopied a transcript of the
October 17 CBS 48 Hours segment on Nike labor abuses in Vietnam
and has been handing it out to high school students who in turn
have passed it around to their friends. He also handed out the
transcript at all oriental restaurants in the area (Vietnamese,
Chinese, and Thai). The strongest reaction came from the owners
of the Vietnamese restaurants. The owners of one said that they
were utterly disgusted with Nike and that they would spread the
word among the Vietnamese community in Denver. Roeder plans to
drop off a few more transcripts at skating rinks, bowling alleys,
football games, movie theaters showing Michael Jordan's new movie
and other movie theaters.

Seattle, Washington; leafleting at Nike Town; December 7;
organized by the East Timor Action Network (ETAN).

Vancouver, British Columbia; Nike leafleting; December 7 and 14;
organized by the East Timor Action Network (ETAN).

Eau Claire, Wisconsin; leafleting about Nike during the next few
weeks; organized by SEAC.

The United States Student Association in Orange County,
California plans to organize student actions around Nike after
the holiday break.

The Florida panhandle (Mary Esther, Florida); Nike leafleting;
December 14.

Tallahassee, Florida; Nike leafleting; December 14.
Conroe, Texas




2. Three documents

Activists bring many different perspectives to the Nike campaign.
The following documents reflect some of those perspectives.
After the October 17 CBS 48 Hours segment on Nike labor abuses in
Vietnam, there was a groundswell of outraged Vietnamese Americans
who joined the campaign. The first document, a press release by
organizers of a December 14 leafleting action in Orange County,
California, reflects the concerns of some of that constituency.
The next two documents are a press release from the East Timor
Action Network in Vancouver, British Columbia prior to their
December 7 leafleting action and a follow-up report on that
action.


JUST DON'T DO IT -- SAY NO TO LABOR EXPLOITATION

The following letter is co-signed by Dr. Ho Tran, President of
VPAC-USA, and Mr. Mark Takano, Asian Pacific Islander Caucus
Chair of the California Democratic Party. Watch for VPAC's Press
Release on the current labor exploitation in Vietnam by foreign
companies with the tacit approval of the Vietnamese communist
government.

Athletic shoes are a billion-dollar business. Just ask Michael
Jordan. He earns $20 million a year promoting the swoosh
label. But as CBS News reported in a recent edition of 48 Hours,
"Just Doing It" doesn't do it for many of the people who make
Nike shoes. Despite Nike's hip image in the United States, Nike
is a very different company in Vietnam and in other Asian
countries where it and other major shoe companies manufacture
Cross Trainers or other models which retail for up to $150 in
posh retail outlets like Niketown in Costa Mesa, California.

Niketown near Saigon, Vietnam is a world of difference from
Niketown in Costa Mesa/Newport Beach California. In Vietnam, Nike
subcontracts with factories that produce over a million shoes a
month. These factories employ over 25,000 workers who are nearly
all women. The workers at Niketown, Saigon don't share in Nike's
huge profits.

They work six days a week and make $40 a month, just 20 cents an
hour. At that rate, it would take a worker over 3 months to
purchase one pair of Nike shoes. The CBS News report also found
that workers must meet a daily quota that is set very high,
requiring workers to work overtime. They are not allowed to go
home until they meet the quota, thus giving new meaning to the
Nike slogan "There is no finishing line."

Not only are the wages shamefully inadequate (and in the case of
Nike below the official minimum wage), but workers must endure
physical and sexual abuse as well. The CBS report documented
several cases of abuse among the women factory workers. Since it
is against the law for labor in Vietnam to form independent
unions outside the control of the Communist Party, workers cannot
as a group voice their dissent. If they do, they will lose their
jobs or worse, be imprisoned by a government which denies basic
human rights to its people.

In response to international criticism, Nike has adopted a "Who
are we to say?" attitude. The company line is that since it
does not own the factories outright, it is not Nike's business to
tell the factory o wners how to run their businesses. This is
despite Nike's code of conduct which states, "We seek always to
be a leader in our quest to enhance people's lives through
sports and fitness. That means at every opportunity....in the
areas of human rights and equal opportunity, or in the
relationships in the communities in which we do business--we seek
to do not only what is required, but what is expected of a
leader."

Unfortunately, the Nike situation is just a drop in the bucket.
Many companies operating in repressive countries routinely
violate human dignity and human rights with the full acquiescence
of the local government which does not respect basic worker
rights and/or ignores labor statutes on the books.

If companies such as Nike are to really be leaders, they need to
go further than they do now in improving the conditions in
developing countries. With the billions being spent on superstar
athletes and events, surely these companies can afford to
spend a little more promoting workers' rights, child labor laws,
and human dignity. Specifically, Nike should take the lead by
helping to create an independent international standard-setting
and monitoring system as called for by the Interfaith Center on
Corporate Responsibility, Campaign for Labor Rights, and other
human rights organizations throughout the world.

The Nike example points to a larger problem facing US foreign
policy and its relations with oppressive, non-democratic
governments. It is generally accepted that trade brings economic
prosperity to both countries. But when one country is run by
a government restraining the rights of its people (i.e. the
rights of workers), trade in that country largely benefits the
small minority with a monopoly on power. The majority of the
population (i.e. workers) are denied their basic rights and
unable to protect their interests.

The labor abuses at Nike factories in Vietnam are a symptom of
the de-linking of human rights conditions to Most-Favored-Nation
status with our trading partners. As the United States negotiates
a bilateral trade agreement with Vietnam (a prelude to
considering MFN), provisions guaranteeing worker rights must be
included. American firms should have the opportunity to
manufacture in Vietnam and other developing countries. But with
this opportunity comes a responsibility.

In 1992, President Bill Clinton campaigned on a promise to link
human rights conditions to MFN status with China. In less
than a year, he succumbed to the same corporate pressure that
influenced his Republican predecessors on trade status with
China and granted MFN to China without human rights conditions
attached. In the case of Vietnam, we urge the President
and Congress to closely examine the necessity of negotiating a
bilateral trade agreement considering human rights and
working conditions.

Ho N.L.Tran, MD, M.P.H.
President
VPAC-USA

Mark Takano
Asian Pacific Islander Caucus Chair
California Democratic Party


NEWS RELEASE

TODAY! -- HUMAN RIGHTS ACTIVISTS TO PROTEST NIKE STORE ON ROBSON
STREET

"Don't buy shoes without a soul," say protest organizers

VANCOUVER, Saturday, December 7th, 1996 -- Today at 1:30 pm the
East Timor Alert Network (ETAN) will be protesting outside of the
NIKE store on Robson Street near Thurlow. The protest is in order
to raise public awareness about the role corporations like NIKE
play in supporting the brutal Indonesian dictatorship.

Twenty-one years ago, the independent nation of East Timor was
invaded by Indonesia. In an occupation now entering its third
decade, over 200,000 Timorese have been killed in one of the
worst genocides of this century.

Despite widespread human rights and labour abuses, NIKE continues
to operate an extensive network of factories in Indonesia.
According to Adam Schachhuber, one of the protest organizers,

"A regime like Indonesia could not exist without the support of
Western multinationals." Schachhuber added, "The so-called
investor's paradise that Indonesia has created is based on the
repression of dissent and human rights abuses."

NIKE does not permit independent monitoring of its factories in
Indonesia, a country where no free trade unions are permitted.
NIKE's wage to its workers is less than $2.50 a day while NIKE
CEO Philip Knight and star endorser Michael Jordan make millions
per year. Widespread abuses at NIKE factories have been reported,
including the sexual harrassment of women who comprise 80% of
factory workers.

Today's protest is in conjunction with protests, vigils and
actions worldwide in order to remember the invasion and
occupation of East Timor 21 years ago.


ETAN/Vancouver Action Report -- December 7th, 1996

Today, on the 21st anniversary of the Indonesian invasion of East
Timor, about 20 members of ETAN/VAN gathered outside of a NIKE
store on Robson Street in the heart of downtown Vancouver.

The protesters were drawing the links between the continued
support by multinationals of the Suharto regime and the genocide
in East Timor. According to one of the protest organizers, Adam
Schachhuber, 21, "By taking advantage of brutality and
corruption, you promote brutality and corruption."

The demonstrators held up placards and banners and passed out
hundreds of leaflets with detailed information about the
situation in East Timor. There were also speeches by local ETAN
members which described the atrocious labour rights situation in
Indonesia: Free trade unions and independent organizing are
forbidden. Indeed, independent labour leaders Muchtar Pakpahan
and Dita Sari are currently jailed.

Indonesian NIKE workers, 80% of whom are young women, are paid
less than $2.50 a day while NIKE CEO Philip Knight and star
endorser Michael Jordan make millions a year. Sexual harassment
and other labour abuses are common. Moreover, NIKE forbids
independent monitoring of its Indonesian factories.

There was significant media coverage of the event, with an item
on the evening newscast of a local TV station and additional
coverage by radio and the main Chinese newspaper.

After about an hour at the NIKE store, protesters moved to the
suburbs and the Christmas shoppers at Metrotown Mall in Burnaby.
There they handed out additional leaflets while trying to avoid
the watchful eye of security for two hours. Some high school ETAN
members also entered the NIKE and BATA stores at the mall and
stuffed leaflets into display shoes.(Canadian-owned BATA operates
a retail store in occupied East Timor.)

In a related upcoming action, some Vancouver activists, including
many ETAN members, will be returning to the NIKE store on Robson
next Saturday as part of an international day of action against
NIKE.

The East Timor Alert Network of Vancouver