Should Nike Be Held Responsible for Working Conditions in Foreign Factories That It Does Not Own, but Where Subcontractors Make Products for Nike?
Should Nike be held responsible for working conditions in foreign factories that it does not own, but where subcontractors make products for Nike?
Yes. I do believe Nike as an American company should be held to standards of the U.S. and give workers the right work conditions, at least a minimum wages, and have a more strict over time policy and provide with safety gear and a safer work environment in general. It is not fair that because workers in some of these third world countries, were Nike has subcontractors dont have a better choice they get exploited to work in such miserable conditions deemed as “sweatshops” where they work 6 days a week in excess of 10 hours a day only to make enough money to survive paycheck to paycheck, so as I said earlier Nike should be held responsible for the working conditions in these foreign factories.
What labor standards regarding safety, working conditions, overtime, and the like, should Nike hold foreign factories to: those prevailing in that country, or those prevailing in the United States?
Nike should at least meet the standard safety, working conditions that the country where they operate hold, furthermore they should pay a foreign tax to the city for taking over their land and provide the workers with adequate transportation and living assistant for their work. They should also meet the same safety requirements as their factories in the U.S. since the countries where the factories are located probably don’t require the same standards since they don’t necessarily use the same kind of machinery. When it comes to overtime, Nike should pay the adequate time and half for every hour in excess of 8 for the day and 40 for a week, even if the country where the operate doesn’t have these kind of overtime laws, to audit this Nike should hire a contractor to do monthly follow ups to prevent what happened in 1996 in Vietnam, where workers were working far past the legal annual 200 hour of overtime limit. Nike should be transparent with its working laws, and safety conditions regardless of where the operations are located, and they should also go above and beyond to meet the country’s and states local working laws.
An income of $2.38 a day, the base pay of Nike factory workers in Indonesia, is double the daily income of about half of the working population. Half of all adults in Indonesia are farmers, who receive less that $1 day. Given this, is it correct to criticize Nike for the low pay rates of its subcontractors in Indonesia?
I think that it is not a fair comparison since farming isn’t necessary the same as dealing with toxic chemicals in a plant where a child gets penalized with a weeks worth salary if he or she makes a noise, since they have a “no talking” policy, where they work over 15 hours a day.
As a farmer, I imagine workers only work