Nike labor
continued from page 1
was sixteen-years-old and needed
money to support his family and
his high school education.
Reyes is sponsored by United
Students Against Sweatshops, a
Washington D.C. based group that
helped create the WRC.
USAS organizer Eric Brakken
said Reyes’ experience with work
ing at the factory for three years
contradicts monitoring reports
conducted by a student group that
was invited by Nike to help the
company’s independent monitor,
PricewaterhouseCoopers, con
duct monitoring visits over spring
break.
Reyes said he worked 13.5 hour
shifts in the packaging depart
ment of the Korean owned
Yupoong BJ&BSA factory, which
produces Nike hats and other col
legiate apparel. He said he got a
45-minute lunch break and anoth
er 15-minute break and could
sometimes leave early to attend
night school and get his high
school diploma.
In 1997, Reyes earned the
equivalent of $20 per week. He
said the Dominican Republic gov
ernment suggested at the time that
a family of five needed the equiv
alent of $625 a month to cover
such basic needs as housing and
food.
The working conditions at the
factory were poor and supervisors
who physically abused employ
ees for working too slow or mak
ing errors were not uncommon,
Reyes said.
Nike spokeswoman Cheryl Mc
Cants said she could not respond
directly to the allegations Reyes
made because she was not famil
iar with the specifics, but Nike
has a code of conduct that sub
contractors, such as the factory
Reyes worked at, are required to
follow.
Nike’s code of conduct states
that, “Nike is committed to pro
viding workers making our prod
ucts with the best workplaces.
When a contractor cannot or will
not meet the standards that define
the best practice in workplace
management, we do all we can to
work with those owners and man
agers so they can come up to stan
dard.”
But according to Reyes, this
standard was not met at the facto
ry he worked at. He described an
incident where a supervisor al
legedly pulled him by his ear for
making a mistake and when
Reyes stood up to defend himself
the supervisor asked him into a
room to fight. Before the fight
could escalate, however, Reyes
said another supervisor broke it
up and threatened to fire Reyes.
“There was a lot of oppression
from management — supervisors
to the workers,” he said. Reyes
spoke in Spanish and Human
Rights Alliance member Devin
Dinihanian interpreted during an
interview and Reyes’ speech.
Reyes also claimed that women
who applied for jobs were forced
to take pregnancy tests. Pregnant
women were not hired, he said
and women who became preg
nant while they were already em
ployed at the factory had to work
the same long hours under the
same poor conditions as everyone
else.
Reyes also said that workers
who tried to organize into unions
were fired. Every department of
the factory had some employees
whose job it was to monitor any
attempts their co-workers made to
organize labor, he said.
For announced monitoring vis
its, workers were told not to speak
up, the factory was cleaned and
painted and the bathrooms were
accessible, he said.
Now Reyes works as a labor or
ganizer, but said he can only meet
with factory workers at their
homes.
McCants said Nike does not
agree with any of those behaviors
and they go against Mike’s code of
conduct.
“We completely do not support
any of those sorts of behaviors,”
she said.
Reyes said conditions at facto
ries where workers have the right
to unionize tend to be significant
ly better and he hopes that the
WRC can help more workers at
tain that right. The factory he
worked at still is not unionized,
he said.
But despite all this, Reyes said
his fight is not against such indus
try leaders as Nike CEO Phil
Knight and he does not want peo
ple to boycott Nike products. He
said if people boycotted Nike
products, the factory would close
down and its 2,500 employees
would become unemployed. In
stead, he asked that consumers
and students demand that the
products they buy are produced
under humane conditions that
honor basic worker rights.
HRA member Sarah Jacobson
said Reyes’ visit helped show stu
dents what the WRC is all about
and what kind of conditions it
aims to improve. She said hearing
Reyes’ story first-hand should re
mind students that the problems
the WRC hopes to solve are
abroad and not on campus.
“A lot of what’s been lost in the
uproar ... has been that this isn’t
about some argument about some
students and universities and
Nike, it’s not about what’s hap
pening here. It’s about the work
ers. It’s about the factories,” she
said. *
“I think this is what people are
looking for,” said HRA member
Halle Williams.
During his visit to Oregon,
Reyes toured the Nike headquar
ters in Beaverton and said that all
of Nike’s facilities should look
like it.
“It’s a difference. You can’t
compare,” he said.
Azle Malinao-Alvare^meralc
Roselio Reyes, a former Nike factory worker, spoke about the poor conditions in
sweatshops. Reyes is currently a labor organizer and student activist.
WRC a public relations case study
Byjosh Ryneal
Oregon Daily Emerald
As a former Nike factory
worker spoke to students about
his experiences in a sweatshop,
University Vice-President of
Public Affairs Duncan McDon
ald spoke to public relations
students about how they could
learn lessons about the WRC
controversy at Allen Hall.
"I don’t know what will hap
pen with the Phil Knight issue,
but I’ve got a suspicion that
everything will be fine,” Mc
Donald told the members of the
University chapter of the Public
Relations Students Society of
America.
“In feet, I’d bet on it,” he said.
McDonald compared the con
troversy to a family squabble;
the two sides may be mad at
each other, he said, but they are
very close and that explained
the intensity of the explosion.
“One thing about family is
that they’ll eventually get back
together,” he said.
Responding to fears that the
University will be seriously hurt
without Knight’s donations, Mc
Donald said that projections in
dicate that this year will set a
record for the largest amount of
fund-raising in the history of the
University.
McDonald also told the stu
dents that as future public rela
tions representatives, they
could learn a lot from how the
University has handled the me
dia frenzy around the issue.
“You can be swallowed up in
the vortex of this thing very eas
ily ... but you have a responsi
bility to react quickly and fair
ly," he said.
John Mitchell, adjunct profes
sor and professional adviser to
the group, said that he agreed
with>IcDonaid’s assertion that
the decision to join the WRC
was not pushed by a “small ca
bal of manipulated students,"
but instead asked for critics to
give students more credit.
“If you can’t take a stand on is
sues that you believe in at a uni
versity, where canyon?" he said.
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