Kevin Rowan

Apr 18 2005 By Kevin Rowan, The Journal

Kevin Rowan is regional secretary, Northern TUC.

I experienced a mixture of shock and pleasant surprise when I heard last week that international sportswear giant Nike had finally admitted that 40pc of the factories it uses fall below what Nike itself regards as decent working conditions for their staff.

Nike currently holds contracts with around 700 factories, employing over 620,000 people throughout the developing world - which means that in almost 300 factories there are around 250,000 workers providing trainers and clothing for Nike to sell at amazing profits, where the people making them are employed under less than acceptable conditions.

For this to be a revelation to Nike beggars belief - trade unions and human rights groups have for years been criticising them for not doing enough to tackle poor working conditions in their supply chain - who knows, next week they may even discover that the world is not flat! The fact is, not long ago the senior managers at Nike were admitting that they did not know what went on in their supply chain, and even worse, suggested there was no reason why they needed to know. Some of the examples of the exploitation of workers range from a lack of basic terms and conditions of employment and excessive hours of work to unauthorised sub-contracting, physical or sexual abuse and the existence of conditions which could lead to death or serious injury.

Examples of excessive working hours in this case doesn't mean voluntarily crossing the 48-hour working week barrier, it means being forced to endure a working week of 70 to 110 hours each week.

These workers are also often extremely poorly paid - poverty provides a great opportunity for exploitation.

Health and safety are words that rarely come up in the minds of management in some of these factories, people are literally dying to work there.

This first step taken by Nike is hugely important, not just for the workers in the factories in question, but for all workers.

But this is just a first step for Nike.

Now they should also press for stronger regulation from other companies in the same situation as themselves, and actively encourage governments and the World Trade Organisation to introduce core labour standards as a key feature in all global trade arrangements.