What has been missing has been thorough independent research testing Nike¹s claims against the experiences of workers.
To address this, in September Press for Change commissioned the Urban Community Mission (Jakarta) an organisation with 16 years experience working on issues facing Indonesian factory workers - to conduct this survey.
In all 4,000 workers from 13 factories were interviewed - 2,300 from 5 sportshoe factories producing for Nike; 1,200 from 6 clothing factories producing for Nike and 500 from 2 sportshoe factories producing for BATA. The workers from the BATA factories were surveyed for the purpose of comparison.
The survey results indicate that factories producing for Nike in Indonesia are still characterised by excessive and compulsory overtime, abusive management practices and inadequate wages.
Management practices appear to be less cruel in the BATA factories. Only 25% of workers reported that they had seen workers shouted at or mistreated and they only cited examples of verbal abuse rather than other forms of cruel treatment. When verbal abuse does occur the language is limited to relatively milder insults, along the lines of ³You Fool!², ³You Idiot!², ³You¹re Lazy!² or ³You¹re Stupid!².
In the Nike contract factories (both sportshoe and apparel) the high pressure work environment was the most significant concern. For 1,555 workers the major complaint was being forced to work excessive overtime without breaks and for a further 344 it was the difficulties associated with getting permission for annual leave or menstrual leave. Another 136 focused on the pressures associated with the target system, under which workers have to get through a certain number of shoes or clothes each day.
Specific questions regarding the number of working hours were not included in the survey, but the Urban Community Mission knows from other contact with these workers that in a number of Nike contract factories workers are still being required to work more than 72 hours per week during peak periods.
The response of the BATA workers to this question suggests that they work under considerably less pressure than workers in the Nike contract factories. Only 15 of the 500 workers surveyed identified compulsory overtime as their major complaint and only 13 prioritised the target system.
Nike has made much of its decision to raise wages for sportshoe workers in Indonesia in response to the economic crisis. This survey shows that these workers¹ wages have been raised above the legal minimum. The vast majority (84%) of Nike sportshoe workers interviewed indicated that they were earning a basic wage of between Rp. 251,000 ($US34) and Rp. 300,000 ($US41) per month for a standard 40 hour week. The legal minimum for the area is Rp. 230,000 ($US32) per month.
While positive, several things need to be kept in mind with regard to these wage increases:
Since the Asian economic crisis hit, prices of many basic foodstuffs in Indonesia have more than doubled. This substantial inflation means that, despite these increases, real wages for Nike sportshoe workers are still below what they were in July 1997 and these workers are still struggling to meet their basic needs.
The crash in the value of the Indonesian rupiah over the last two years has meant that this wage increase has not cost Nike very much. In US dollar terms it has only brought these wages up to a par with the lowest (legal minimum) wages being paid to Nike workers in other parts of the world
This extreme concentration of wages suggests an almost complete lack of seniority pay - the wages of workers with as much as 14 years experience differ very little from those paid to workers who started work a month ago.
Nike apparel workers are being paid significantly less than sportshoe workers - 31% of the 1,200 Nike apparel workers surveyed are receiving a basic wage of less than Rp250,000 ($US34) a month for a standard week. Workers struggling to survive on wages this low are in a desperate position.
In the BATA factories most workers are being paid wages equal to or better than those being paid to Nike sportshoe workers - 42% of the workers surveyed were earning a basic monthly wage of more than Rp. 300,000 ($US41) per month, compared with only 16% of Nike sportshoe workers.
However, 44% of the BATA workers surveyed are on very low pay, earning less than Rp. 250,000 ($US34) per month. Historically the BATA factory has produced relatively cheap sneakers for the local Indonesian market, but several years ago BATA started to produce expensive sportshoes for export on a contract basis. In order to compete for these orders, BATA employed temporary contract workers for this work and paid them at a lower rate. It may be that the workers surveyed who indicated that they are on this very low rate of pay are casual or temporary workers producing other brands, but more research is needed to ascertain this. In any case, these wages are appallingly low, and BATA should increase them.
According to UNICEF, 2 million young Indonesians had to leave school in 1998 because of the economic crisis. In 1999 it is predicted that 10 million children will be unable to continue school, because of school fees (in the order of $US3.50 per month) and because they must work in the informal sector to help their families get by.
Survey responses indicated that the 3,500 Nike workers had 6,572 younger siblings back in their home villages. This suggests that if all sportshoe workers in Indonesia were paid enough to enable them to make a decent contribution to their families¹ budgets it would dramatically increase the chances of several hundred thousand young Indonesians staying in school.
Since independent unions became legal in 1998 a number of new unions have attempted to begin operation in Nike factories but there has been strong resistance from factory management and a number of workers have been fired for getting involved. . . .