1964	Nike is founded.
1970s	Nike shoes are made in Taiwan and South Korea. When workers organize for better wages, Nike pulls out and begins production in Indonesia, the People's Republic of China and Vietnam.1
1992	Nike adopts a Code of Conduct which provides for occupational health and safety, and "management practices that recognize the dignity of the individual, the rights of free association...and the right to a workplace free of harassment, abuse or corporal punishment."2 Nike adopts a Memorandum of Understanding which sets standards for Nike subcontractors worldwide.
July 28, 1992	Indonesian government raises the minimum wage by 500 Rp (USD $0.40) from 2,100 Rp to 2,600 Rp (USD $1.10). However, the Sung Hwa Dunia factory in Indonesia fails to comply with the new minimum wage regulation by paying workers an increase of only 120 Rupiah (USD $.09) per day.3
September 28, 1992	6,500 workers at the Sung Hwa Dunia factory in Indonesia stage a one day strike and demand better wages, facilities and working conditions. Some of the workers' demands are met and all workers go back to work on September 30, 1992.4
January 1993	24 Indonesian workers are accused of organizing the September 28 strike and all 24 are fired.5 The workers appeal to the city's Committee for the Settlement of Labor Disputes. They win the case and Nike is told to rehire the workers with compensation. The company responds by bringing the case to a federal judiciary - the Ministry of Manpower and the case is overturned with a ruling against the workers. The workers appeal and win a second time so the company brings the case to the Indonesian Supreme Court.6 The case has been sitting before the Indonesian Supreme Court for the last two years.
September 3, 1993	Nike signs the Athletic Footwear Association "Guidelines on Business Practices of Business Partners" which calls for the observation of the right to free association, fair compensation and the prohibition of corporal punishment and mental or physical coercion, among other provisions.
1994	Nike employs Ernst & Young (accounting firm) to monitor their factories overseas.
1995	Dusty Kidd, Director of Nike's Labor Practices Department admits (at a press conference in 1997), "probably 80 percent of the Nike contract factories" applied for and received minimum wage exemptions for at least two years. Nike paid workers in Indonesia below minimum wage until April, 1997.7
March 1996	15 women are hit on the head and neck with a Nike sneaker for poor workmanship at the Sam Yang factory in Vietnam. The supervisor is tried and convicted of criminal abuses in July, 1996.8
May 1996	Pakistani children as young as seven years old stitch Nike soccer balls for as little as 6o cents a day.9
August 2, 1996	Nike joins President Clinton's Fair Labor Coalition
September 16, 1996	United Methodist Church, holding 61,700 shares of Nike, Inc. introduces a shareholder resolution that would require Nike to seek independent monitoring to clean up it's labor practices. The proposed resolution is voted down by Nike's Board of Directors.
October 3, 1996	Nike establishes a Labor Practices Department
October 30, 1996	Nike joins Business for Social Responsibility after turning down two years of invitations.
November 1996	According to a CBS 48 hours documentary detailing Nike worker abuses in Vietnam, workers are forced to kneel with their hands in the air for 25 minutes as punishment, a worker has her mouth taped shut for talking and at the Tae Kwang Vina factory, two women workers tell Vietnamese press of an attempted rape by a Nike factory supervisor. The supervisor flees the country before the authorities can put him on trial.10
January 1997	Nike hires Andrew Young, former United Nations ambassador, to review factory conditions in Vietnam, China and Indonesia.
	US. Youth Soccer Association and American Youth Soccer Organization endorse the FIFA (Federation of International Football Associations) labor code which prohibits the use of child labor.11
Chinese New Year, 1997	The Wellco Factory management in China pays workers half their regular wage forcing workers to go on strike until management agrees to pay their full wages.12
March, 1997	The Assembly Production department at the Wellco factory goes on strike because they were not paid their full wages. All workers involved are fired.13
March 2, 1997	At the invitation of Nike, businessman Thuyen Nguyen takes a pre-arranged Nike factory tour in Vietnam. Nguyen, a Vietnamese native, independently travels to factories not on the tour. Nguyen speaks with workers off grounds and documents allegations of abuse in a report (released March 27, 1997) for his newly formed nonprofit organization - Vietnam Labor Watch.
March 8, 1997	On International Women's Day in Vietnam, 56 women are forced to run around the Nike factory in the Dong Nai province because they did not wear regulation shoes. A dozen women collapse of heat exhaustion and spend the day in the emergency room.14
March 24, 1997	Council on American-Islamic Relations calls on Nike to recall its Air Bakin shoe, which includes an emblem that resembles the Arabic word "Allah."
March 31, 1997	Nike modifies the design of Air Bakins.
April 14, 1997	President Clinton's Apparel Industry Partnership, with representatives from human rights groups, labor unions and corporations such as Nike and Liz Claiborne, announce an agreement which will set standards for labor practices in the garment industry.
April 1, 1997	The minimum wage for factories in the Jakarta area of Indonesia rises from $2.25 to $2.46 per day.
April 22, 1997	10,000 workers from the HASI factory in Indonesia go on a four mile protest march because their paychecks do not reflect the new minimum wage increase. The management had stripped workers of an attendance bonus to offset the rising minimum wage.15 Workers on strike are also nervous about the factory's application for an exemption from the new minimum wage. HASI had, in fact applied for the waiver, along with ten of the other Nike producing factories.
April 23, 1997	Nike agrees to pay minimum wage for Indonesian workers.
Week of April 25, 1997	Nike signs President Clinton's Apparel Industry Agreement.
	1,300 workers at the Sam Yang Vina factory in Vietnam go on strike to request a one cent per hour raise in their salaries. Refusing to submit to threats of termination, the workers remain behind locked gates within the factory's grounds. Other issues include excessive and illegal overtime, compensation for working with hazardous material and emergency medical services for night shift workers.16
April 30, 1997	International Confederation of Free Trade Unions denounces Nike operations in Indonesia and Vietnam.
May 1997	Nike stock drops 26.8% as a result of slower sales growth than expected and exposure of Nike's unfair labor practices.
May 7, 1997	1,800 workers at the Sam Yang factory in Vietnam go on strike forcing the management to sign a collective bargaining agreement with workers. Less than a week later, Sam Yang management states its intent to fire up to 700 workers involved in the strike.17
June 24, 1997	Andrew Young releases favorable report on Nike factories in Asia. The next day Nike takes full page ads out of every major newspaper across the country quoting Andrew Young saying, "Nike is good but they could do better."
June 27, 1997	An ad hoc Vietnamese tribunal gives a Nike factory supervisor a three-month suspended prison term for various labor abuses.18
July, 1997	The United States Student Association, the oldest and largest student association in the country, passes a resolution condemning Nike's labor practices at the 50th National Congress session.
July 14, 1997	9 workers are in jail, 300 are injured, 97 are terminated from their jobs and cases are issued against 800 workers at the Youngone factory in Bangladesh after the police disrupt a labor demonstration in the Dhake Export Processing Zone. The factory's main buyer is Nike.19
July 15, 1997	1996 Nobel Peace Prize recipient Jose Ramos Horta of East Timor says, "(Companies) like Nike should be viewed as enemies, in the same manner we view armies and governments that perpetrate human rights violations. What is the difference between the behavior of Nike in Indonesia and elsewhere and the Japanese Imperial army during World War II?"20
September 9, 1997	Michael Jordan announces his own division of Nike, to be called Jordan.21
September 13, 1997	University of California Student Association passes a resolution condemning Nike's abusive labor practices.
September 21, 1997	A report by two Hong Kong based human rights groups cites "poor conditions" in factories. It charges that workers - mostly young women, some of them children - from rural provinces in China are forced "to put in excessive amounts of overtime to keep their jobs."22 The report claims Nike violates up to 10 Chinese labor laws with respect to minimum wage, overtime, child labor, and more.
September 22, 1997	Nike announces plan to temporarily cut relations with four Indonesian factories that do not comply with their Code of Conduct standards23 but will not disclose the names of all four factories. Seyon factory (the only named factory) makes Nike gloves.
October 16, 1997	1st year MBA students at Dartmouth's Amos Tuck Business School release a favorable study of working conditions in Nike factories in Vietnam and Indonesia.
October 18, 1997	28 U.S. states and 13 countries around the world participate in an International Day of Protest centered on Nike's labor practices. 24
October 23, 1997	Congressman Bernie Sanders (I-VT) and Congresswoman Marcy Kaptur (D-OH) circulate a sign-on letter to Nike CEO, Philip Knight demanding that Nike begin treating Asian workers "with respect, dignity and decent wages," and create more Nike jobs in the United States. Approximately 53 other Representatives have signed on to the letter.
October 26, 1997	A coalition of 17 national women's advocates including the Feminist Majority, the National Organization for Women, Alice Walker, Congresswoman Maxine Waters (D-CA), California State Assemblywoman Dion Aroner (14th District) and the Ms. Foundation for Women have sent a letter to Nike CEO, Philip Knight demanding better treatment of women factory workers in Southeast Asia.
November 3, 1997	Duke University begins work on a licensing standard that would require manufacturers under contract with the University to disclose working conditions of factories overseas.25
November 10, 1997	Dara O'Rourke, an independent consultant with the United Nations performed environmental audits of at least 50 factories in Vietnam. During his visits, he performed walk-through audits in the factories, interviewed management personnel and interviewed workers confidentially outside the factory (O'Rourke is fluent in Vietnamese). His evaluation of the Nike Tae Kwang Vina factory revealed low pay (the lowest of all 50 factories audited), health and safety hazards, sexual harassment and violations of numerous Vietnamese labor laws.26
	O'Rourke was leaked an internal audit performed by Nike's accounting firm Ernst and Young by a disgruntled Nike employee. O'Rourke says Ernst and Young mistakenly reports Nike is in compliance with the Vietnamese minimum wage law of 19 cents per hour. However this internal document shows Nike pays workers $45 (USD) a month for 267 hours a month - 20% below Vietnamese minimum wage law.27

1 1996 Global Exchange Newsletter, special report.
2 Nike Code of Conduct
3 Emilia, Stevie. "Fired Female Worker Fights for Better Labor Conditions," Jakarta Post, August 25, 1996
4 Kirshenbaum, Gayle. "Nike's Nemesis," Ms. Magazine , November/Dec 1996
5 ibid.
6 Emilia, Stevie. "Fired Female Worker Fights for Better Labor Conditions," Jakarta Post, August 25, 1996
7 "Dartmouth Professors Speak on Cost Of Living," Nike Press Conference, October 17, 1997
8 Vietnam Labor Watch Press Release, May 1997
9 Schanberg, Sydney. "Six Cents an Hour," Life, June 1996.
10 "Nike Labor Practices in Vietnam," Vietnam Labor Watch report
11 Weissman, Robert."Stolen Youth," Multinational Monitor, Jan/Feb 1997.
12 "Working Conditions in Sports Shoe Factories in China Making Shoes for Nike and Reebok," Asia Monitor Resource Centre and Hong Kong Christian Industial Committee, September 1997. Full report available.
13 ibid.
14 Herbert, Bob. "Brutality in Vietnam," New York Times March 28, 1997
15 "Nike in Indonesia," Newsletter published by Press for Change, July 1997
16 "Nike Labor Practices in Vietnam," Vietnam Labor Watch Report
17 Vietnam Labor Watch Press Release, May 20, 1997
18 Stewart, Ian, Associated Press. "Vietnam's Workers Striking for Rights," San Francisco Chronicle, June 23, 1997.
19 National Garment Workers Federation Newsletter
20 Gary Gach, American Reporter, June 27, 1997
21 Meyers, Bill. "Jordan Inc." USA Today, September 9, 1997
22 Brad Knickerbocker, The Christian Science Monitor, September 23, 1997
23 Associated Press, San Jose Mercury News, September 23, 1997
24 Campaign for Labor Rights news release.
25 Associated Press, Washington Post, November 3, 1997
26 full report available at www.corpwatch.org/trac/nike
27 Aaron Bernstein, Business Week, December 1, 1997