"We are not Machines", a new report expose Nike, Adidas sweashop

Although some improvements have been made in working conditions in sport shoe
factories producing for Nike and Adidas Salomon in Indonesia, the measures
taken fall well short of ensuring that workers are able to live with dignity:

WAGES: With full time wages as low as $US2 a day, workers live in extreme
poverty and those with children must either send them to distant villages to
be looked after by relatives or else go into debt to meet their basic needs.

FREEDOM OF ASSOCIATION: Workers have reason to fear that active union
involvement could lead them to be dismissed, jailed or physically assaulted.

WORKING CONDITIONS: Workers report that although there has been some
reduction in the physical and psychological pressure under which they work,
they continue to be shouted at and humiliated and to work in dangerous
conditions.
The report is based on original interview and focus group research conducted
by the author in July 2001 and January 2002 with a total of thirty-five
workers from four factories producing for Nike and/or Adidas in West Java.

Low Wages:
Workers live in extreme poverty. They earn full-time wages of approximately
$US56 a month and report that recent increases in legal minimum wages have
not kept pace with dramatic increases in the cost of food. They depend on the
extra income gained by working extensive overtime and have been hit hard by
the economic downturn in the United States which has pushed down demand and
reduced overtime in most factories investigated.

Approximately half of those workers with children are forced by their poverty
to send them to live with relatives in distant villages. Many can only afford
to see their children three or four times a year and find the separation
extremely painful. Those who live with their children commonly go into debt
to cover their family's basic needs.

Interference with Workers' Rights to Freedom of Association:
The arrest, imprisonment and extended trial of Ngadinah Binti Abu Mawardi
from the Panarub factory (Adidas) has raised workers' fear that union
activity could endanger their liberty. At the Nikomas Gemilang factory (Nike
and Adidas) threats of violence against outspoken workers and uncertainty
surrounding the attempted murder of Mr. Rakhmat Suryadi has generated anxiety
that union involvement could endanger workers' safety.

There has been a reduction in some forms of discrimination against members of
independent unions in several factories, but even in these factories workers
allege that factory owners have discriminated against active unionists when
firing workers.

During 2001 Nike refused a number of practical proposals put forward by human
rights groups which would have increased workers' freedom to engage in union
activity.

Dangerous and Humiliating Working Conditions:
There has been some reduction in the physical and psychological pressure
placed on workers, but this needs to be set against ongoing practices which
fail to respect their health and dignity.

Positives steps include:
- reforms which now enable workers to obtain sick leave.
- reforms which have significantly reduced the frequency of sexual
harassment.

Ongoing problems include:
-workers are still shouted at when they work too slowly, and in some
factories they are still humiliated by having their intelligence insulted or
being compared to animals such as dogs or monkeys.
- it is extremely difficult for workers to take legally mandated annual
leave.
- respiratory illnesses associated with inhaling vapours from toxic chemicals
are still occurring, albeit less often.
- at the Nikomas Gemilang factory workers are still losing fingers in
accidents involving cutting machines.
- at the same factory workers who want to claim legally mandated (unpaid)
menstrual leave must still go through the humiliating process of proving they
are menstruating by pulling down their pants in front of (female) factory
doctors

For the full report, please check:
http://www.caa.org.au/campaigns/nike/reports/machines/index.html

Although Nike has "welcome" the report, but it's no more then a PR and media
cheap spin, and also not until years of protest, media exposure and negative
image and they finally "admitted" they are responsable for their sweatshop
conditions in Indonesia.

Please read the report, let's contineus to keep the pressures to Nikes and
all other multinational sweatshops operators across the World, tell them:
JUST STOP IT the exploitations of the workers, GIVE them livingable wages and
human dignity!



Lee Siu Hin
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