Nike claims clean slate on rights

By Michael Cave, Weekend Australian Financial Review, May 18-19, 2002 pg 3

After six years as the punching bag for workers’ rights demonstrators and anti-globalisation protesters around the world, Nike is sick of taking a beating.

The $18billion-a-year sporting goods giant has been pilloried for alleged abusers of workers’ rights in many of the Third World factories that produce its athletic shoes and apparel.
Nike has spent millions of dollars to remove itself from the protesters’ spotlight by addressing many criticisms, including raising the minimum age of factory workers and pushing for independent monitoring of working conditions.

But, Nike claims that despite its substantial investment in becoming for socially responsible, few of its competitors are being pressured to make the same commitments.

"We did what all the activists called for us to do and now even our critics acknowledge that Nike has made progress,: said Maria Eitel, Nike’s vice-president and senior adviser for corporate responsibility, who was in Australia this week.

"But now it is becoming a competitive disadvantage for us because we are continuing to invest dollars and staff time into these issues and others don’t have to. If you are going to produce a level playing field, then everyone should have to report on these issues," Ms Eitel said. "People should take some satisfaction from the fact they had some impact on the way we do business, but if they want to take it to the next level they have to realise it is not about one company."

Nike founder and CEO, Phillip Knight wants all companies to be held accountable for their social responsibilities. Specifically, he has called for global reporting standards for social issues – possibly as an appendix to annual financial reports.

One of Nike’s biggest critics in Australian is Oxfam Community Aid Abroad, which runs a monitoring program called NikeWatch. Nike Watch co-ordinator Tim Connor, while acknowledging Nike, Reebok and Adidas had made some progress, said Nike still had a long way to go to provide the transparency critics want.