1. Kurnya Kusuma Dewy
Batch 56/ 1056065
Business Ethics
An Ethics Violation: The Lack of Humanely Treatment of Nike’s
Labor
Nike is one of the biggest shoe companies in the world. Its products already spread
worldwide and become everybody’s favorite. Unfortunately, like many companies, Nike also has
sweatshop that make people working for hours trying to manufacture their products for very
little payment, even far below the average and standard of living.
In 1997, there was a shocking news related about how bad Nike treated its labor.
Surprisingly, Nike does not assemble their shoes. Nike only designs its shoes in United States
and let the Third World Countries do the rest. In Asia itself there are several countries like
China, India and Vietnam that become the host of Nike business. In those countries, Nike’s
treatment to their labor is totally severe. The labors have to work in a very small room with
insufficient ventilation. It is very dangerous, the labors easily attacked by respiration problem
regarding to the shoe sequence jobs that they have to do, like cutting, gluing, packaging, etc.
Serious health problem were faced by 9000 Nike’s labors in Vietnam due to the lack of
ventilation. Not only stuck in a room with extreme heat, but also the labors had to exhale the
poisonous air while gluing the Nike’s soles. Prolonged exposure to the fumes are poisonous and
can cause serious health problems, like damaging our liver, kidneys, or central nervous system 1.
Many researches reveal that those dangerous effects do not come instantly, but little by little. So
when the labors felt like having trouble breathing, they might just think that it’s not a big deal, by
taking a rest they would gain their performance back.
When the Ernst & Young audit Nike’s factory in Vietnam, they found that toulene, a
carcinogen, polluted the air at different sites in the factory at six to 177 times the amount allowed
by Vietnamese government regulations. This problem became huge headline, and showed the
mass how inhumanely Nike treated the labors. Then Nike has recently started changing the
environments in there sweatshops and increasing pay. Although in 1999, Nike’s CEO, Phillip
Knight got an open letter signed by 43 worker rights groups and advocates from 15 countries
1 http://www.senser.com/b21.htm#sweat

2. around the world2. In that letter, the worker groups and the advocates sensed that Nike had not
done enough effort yet to solve the sweatshop problems. By keep doing this way means that
Nike still misbehaved their labors. Labors should be seen and treated as an asset not as cash cow.
2 http://www.senser.com/9-23.htm#cl