Notice how these Nike related officials are all giving salary numbers that do not make any sense. One say that the average salary is $68. The other say they pay $40 (which is less than the minimum wage, $45). Another say that it is paying $42 (below minimum wage again). Yet they all say that they are paying above the minimum wage. I am surprised that the journalists dont even know this basic fact and confronted them.

The Nike contractors all say that things are improving and that there were problems in the past (just as far as two weeks ago).

What's more interesting is how one Nike official (McClain Ramsey) said they confirmed our report and the other (Dusty Kidd) said they could not confirm the report.

This person, Nguyen Minh Quang (a labor union official (VNGCL ?), I did not meet him on my trip). The figure he used is probably an average figure including overtime, including the salary of the managers themselves. If a worker works 20c per hours and works for 250 hours per month, then she will get about $68. He also must have not been around in November when 100 workers were sent out to be sun-dried at Pouchen.

A senior official in the VN General Confederation of Labor confirms that there were problems with foreign-owned companies. AP mentioned a strike last week at Sam Yang when 250 workers walk off their jobs.

Regards, Thuyen Nguyen.
http://www.saigon.com/~nike

March 27, 1997
By Verena Dobnik

NEW YORK (AP) - Teen-age girls paid 20 cents an hour to make $180 Nike sneakers are worked to exhaustion and fondled by their supervisors at Vietnam factories, a labor activist said Thursday.

"Supervisors humiliate women, force them to kneel, to stand in the hot sun, treating them like recruits in boot camp," said Thuyen Nguyen, founder of Vietnam Labor Watch.

After a two-week inspection of plants in Vietnam that have contracts with the world's most successful athletic apparel company, Nguyen issued a 12-page report detailing Third-World labor conditions. A Nike spokeswoman said that, if true, such conditions are "appalling." The company is investigating. Nguyen said about 35,000 workers at five Vietnamese plants - more than 90 percent of them young women - put in 12-hour days making Nike shoes. Though labor costs amount to less than $2 a pair, the shoes retail for up to $180 in the United States. The Vietnamese workers earn $2.40 a day - only slightly more than the $2 or so it costs to buy three meals a day, said Nguyen, a 33-year-old investment banker.

"Nike clearly is not controlling its contractors, and the company has known about this for a long time," he said. Nike's quarterly revenues last year topped $2 billion for the first time in the Beaverton, Ore., company's history.

The Vietnamese-born Nguyen returned to his homeland after hearing of the alleged abuses last year. He found supervisors at the plants sexually harassed the women, some as young as 15.

"Even in broad daylight, in front of other workers, these supervisors try to touch, rub or grab their buttocks or chests," the report said. In one plant, workers were allowed to go to the bathroom only once and to take two drinks of water during an eight-hour period. At another Nike contractor, the Taiwanese firm Pou Chen Vietnam Enterprise, a floor manager forced 56 women to run around the plant in the hot sun as punishment for wearing non-regulation shoes, Nguyen said. Twelve fainted and were taken to the hospital, he said.

Nike spokeswoman McLain Ramsey said that the manager accused of making women run laps has been suspended, and that an accounting firm has been hired to inspect the factories for workplace abuse.

"What is Nike's responsibility? These are not our factories," she said. "But we have put in the time and energy and effort to make what are in many cases good factories into better factories."

"It's a slow process," she added.

Nguyen's report is the latest in a series of troubles Nike has faced with its subcontractors in Vietnam. Last year, a South Korean factory floor manager working for the Sam Yang contractor was convicted of beating Vietnamese employees with a shoe. And Nike has been accused of abusing workers at factories in Vietnam and Indonesia.

Nike recently hired former U.N. Ambassador Andrew Young and his Goodworks International group to review a new code of conduct for its overseas factories.

AP-NY-03-27-97 2113EST

Nike Suspends Manager in Vietnam
By Ian Stewart

HANOI, Vietnam (AP) - Shoe giant Nike has suspended a manager in its Ho Chi Minh City factory in response to a labor group's charge of worker abuse in Vietnamese manufacturing plants. Nike representatives in Asia were unavailable for comment, but a U.S.-based company spokesman told USA Today that a manager had been suspended for abusing workers. The paper reported that labor activist Thuyen Nguyen of U.S.-based Vietnam Labor Watch inspected Nike facilities in Vietnam last month in escorted and surprise visits.

Nguyen said he found violations of minimum wage and overtime laws as well as physical mistreatment of workers. His 12-page report on working conditions in Vietnam is the latest in a series of troubles Nike has faced with its subcontractors in Vietnam.

Last year, a South Korean factory floor manager working for Nike subcontractor Sam Yang Co. was convicted of beating Vietnamese employees with a shoe. At least 250 Vietnamese employees walked off the job at the Sam Yang factory last week to protest poor working conditions and low wages, state-run media reported.

"Workers at the factory work in overheated and a noisy environment," the official Laborer newspaper reported. "The requirements from the health care department for labor conditions have not been met." A second Nike subcontractor, Taiwanese firm Pou Chen Vietnam Enterprise, has been cited for physically abusing workers at its plant. Among other things, a floor manager at the Pou Chen plant forced 56 women employees to run laps as punishment for wearing non-regulation shoes. Vietnamese press at the time of the incident said 12 of them fainted and were taken to a hospital.

That incident occurred on March 8, International Women's Day. The manager accused of making women run laps has been suspended, Nike spokesman McLain Ramsey told USA Today.

Nike has repeatedly come under criticism for not clamping down on poor labor conditions in factories it hires to produce its line of footwear and apparel.

"While Nike claims it is trying to monitor and enforce its code of conduct, its current approach to monitoring and enforcement is simply not working," the paper quoted Nguyen as saying. Ramsey confirmed Nguyen's visit to the Ho Chi Minh City plant and also told the paper that Nike officials are "as distressed as he is" about the report.

"Nike has a full investigation going and encouraged local police to do the same," he told the paper. In the Vietnamese capital, Hanoi, a senior labor official reiterated complaints that workers in Nike-contracted factories faced inhumane treatment.

"Violations of labor rights generally are occurring in their smaller contractor joint venture or wholly-owned ventures in which the Vietnamese side has minimal control," said Tu Le, a senior official from the Vietnam Labor Union.

Nguyen's report was to be released today in New York. Just weeks ahead of the report, Nike announced it had hired former U.N. Ambassador Andrew Young and his Goodworks International group to review a new code of conduct for the company's overseas factories. The measure was aimed at quelling mounting criticism that working conditions at factories in Indonesia and Vietnam were substandard.

Nike uses five manufacturing plants in Vietnam, where it takes advantage of low-cost labor and relatively high production standards. About 3 percent of Nike's output is produced in Vietnam, a Nike spokesman said in an earlier interview.

AP-NY-03-27-97 0923EST

Friday - Mar 28, 1997

Vietnam makers of Nike shoes deny charges of labour mistreatment.

HANOI (AFP) - Firms making shoes here for US manufacturer Nike denied Friday charges they were mistreating their workforce.

A senior executive of Pou Chen Vietnam Enterprise, a Taiwanese-owned factory whose 8,000 workers make shoes exclusively for Nike Inc., said "we obey the labour laws, and pay the minimum salary."

Workers at the plant, in the southern province of Dong Nai, receive about 40 dollars a month for working a six-day week, he said.

Vietnam Labour Watch, a labour activist group held a press conference in New York on Thursday charging companies making Nike shoes in Vietnam paid less than minimum wages and inflicted abuse and even corporal punishment on their local employees.

Nike officials in Ho Chi Minh City refused to comment. The group reportedly buys shoes made under contract from five separate suppliers based in southern Vietnam employing about 36,000 workers, 80 percent of them women.

Another exclusive supplier to Nike, Korean owned Taekwong Corp., built its 36 million dollar plant in Dong Nai in 1996 at Nike's request. Park Chun Taek, general director of the factory said the company had no problems.

"We are trying our best to treat workers better than other companies. We pay them 42 dollars a month and give them free lunch," he said.

Park said the group, whose 9,000 workers churn out half a million shoes for Nike a month, had initial difficulties but it was working with a trade union to talk through problems.

"Anybody can come and inspect our conditions," he said.

Pou Chen's executive admitted however, its company had experienced problems.

Earlier this month Pou Chen dismissed a supervisor who reportedly forced 56 female workers on international women's day to run laps around the factory as punishment, causing 12 of them to faint.

The executive said the female supervisor will face trial for mistreating her employees and "there were no more problems at the factory."

Park Chan Shin, director of the Korean Trade and Development Office (Kotra) in Ho Chi Minh City, said labour relations between Korean investors and Vietnamese workers are improving.

"Yes occasionally there are incidents, but they are becoming fewer," he said.

"This year before June our government is going to dispatch a couple of specialists to give on-the-spot guidance for smooth labour relations in the Korean investment companies," he added.

According to figures published by the Lao Dong union newspapers, 73 strikes in Vietnam occured in 1996, an increase of 22 percent on 1995. Most of them were at foreign invested firms.

Nike Suspends Vietnam Plant Manager Over Abuse Charges

ARLINGTON, Va. (AP)--Nike Inc. (NKE) suspended a manager of its plant in Vietnam in response to a U.S.-based labor group's report that alleges worker abuse in factories where the company's shoes are made, USA Today reported.

The paper said in Thursday's editions that Thuyen Nguyen of Vietnam Labor Watch inspected Nike facilities in Vietnam last month in escorted and surprise visits.

He said he found violations of minimum wage and overtime laws as well as physical mistreatment of workers.

The paper said Nguyen's report was to be released today in New York.

"While Nike claims it is trying to monitor and enforce its code of conduct, its current approach to monitoring and enforcement is simply not working," the paper quotes Nguyen as saying.

Nike spokesman McLain Ramsey confirmed Nguyen's visit to the Ho Chi Minh City plant and also told the paper that Nike officials are "as distressed as he is" about the report.

Among other things, Nguyen said 56 women were forced to run laps as punishment for wearing non-regulation shoes and that 12 of them fainted and had to be taken to a hospital.

"Nike has a full investigation going and encouraged local police to do the same," she told the paper.

She also told the paper a manager accused of making women run laps has been suspended.

Friday - Mar 28, 1997

Labour abuse charge at Vietnam Nike plants refuted

Hanoi (Reuter) - A union official and a South Korean industry group on Friday played down charges that factory workers who make Nike Inc shoes in Vietnam are regularly abused.

"There are three Korean (companies) producing Nike shoes in the Ho Chi Minh City area," said Park Chan shin, director of Korean trade office KOTRA. "There are quite good conditions there, especially compared with local shoe factories."

The union chief of a Taiwanese firm which makes Nike shoes said there had been one incident recently when a supervisor ordered 56 workers to run twice around the two-km (1.2-mile) factory perimeter for failing to wear regulation workshoes. P "Before the recent dispute there was no big problem," said Nguyen Minh Quang, chairman of the labour union at Pou Chen Vietnam Enterprises Limited in Dong Nai province.

"If workers want to go to the toilet or take a drink of water they can do so whenever they want," he said when asked about allegations that some workers were limited to one trip to the bathroom and two drinks of water per shift.

Quang said the union had been concerned about a shift at the Pou Chen Corp unit's plant that stretched from 6 p.m. to 6 a.m. with a break of 2 1/2 hours.

However, he said most workers were willing to work the shift because they earned more money.

He said the average salary at the factory was about 800,000 dong ($68.67) a month. The average annual per capita income in Vietnam is about $275.

On Thursday a group of human rights and labour activists held a news conference in New York, alleging that workers were paid low wages, suffered abuse and even corporal punishment.

A Nike executive said he could not confirm Nguyen's findings but said the company welcomed and worked with independent observers to monitor, train and improve working conditions overseas.

Vietnam itself has accused foreign managers of labour abuse on several occasions.

A South Korean woman manager was given a three-month suspended jail term last year for hitting workers on the head with a shoe.

KOTRA's Park said he had visited the three Korean factories that make Nike shoes. "I didn't check on (the amount of) time (alloted) to go to the restroom or drink water," he said. "But as far as I know, such inhuman things are not happening."