Wednesday, March 20, 2013

Nike Sweatshops- Travis Taylor

Nike is a huge company that uses child and cheap labour in developing countries in order to make their products. It has been argued since the general public first found out about what Nike was doing overseas whether it is a positive or negative situation. Most of the public views what Nike is doing to be negative and that child and cheap labour overseas should not exist. On the other hand it is argued that its a positive for those that are working for Nike overseas because they have been given a job and a paycheck where otherwise they would not have one.

When we  watched the Nike case in class my mind was made up whether it was a positive or negative situation. The negative things that the "slaves" of Nike have to go through everyday vastly outweighs the positives in my mind. In the video we saw a day in the life of a Nike worker, when they show up to the plant you see that it is very dirty and very crowded. They get paid horrible wages for what they have to go through, most employees are picking up overtime in excess of working 60 hours a week. We got to see what there "houses" look like which are pretty much a 10 by 10 steel box with nothing in them. There is no furniture, no beds, and their toilets are pretty much a hole in the floor. When it rains there is no sewage system so the sewage washes up into the houses. Nike has confirmed that they do sometimes take physical action against their slaves, whether its kicking them for not quality work or tacking them to the ground when there is a confrontation at work. The only positive outcome of this situation is that they are receiving a pay check from Nike, which will buy maybe two meals a day. If you happen to get sick then you have to choose to either buy the medication and miss your meals or go without the medication and be able to eat for the day.

All in all I think that what Nike is doing when it comes to sweatshops is wrong. I think the situation will always be argued whether it is a positive or negative issue because both sides have an opinion and everyone views values differently.

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