[[link removed]]

GARMENT WORKERS ARE TAKING ON NIKE, AMERICANS SHOULD JOIN THEM  
[[link removed]]


 

Abiramy Sivalogananthan
February 14, 2025
CounterPunch
[[link removed]]


*
[[link removed]]
*
[[link removed]]
*
*
[[link removed]]

_ Take the “One Thousand Photos — One Thousand Shares” pledge
at ActionNetwork.org, share it widely, and support the union activists
leading the fight to transform garment supply chains. _

, Josh Redd

 

Absent in the raging debate over trade policy and tariffs is a truth
about the economy that those of us in poorer countries know all too
well: U.S. corporations and their billionaire owners profit from
massive supply chains that exploit low-wage workers in the Global
South.

For decades these unregulated supply chains have been praised as
“development.” But in reality, they entrench low pay and
disastrous working conditions, fostering a “race to the bottom”
for workers globally as well as in the United States.

Perhaps no company is a more influential offender than Nike.

Nearly 30 years ago, the anti-sweatshop movement forced Nike to end
its use of child labor
[[link removed]].
But since then, Nike has actually figured out how to pay an
even _smaller_ portion of its retail sticker price to the workers
[[link removed]] who
make its products.

In 2022, Nike authorized $18 billion in stock buybacks
[[link removed]],
which primarily benefit wealthy investors, while garment workers —
the vast majority of whom are women in the Global South — faced
massive wage losses and wage theft during the COVID-19 pandemic.

Leni, a member of the Indonesian union Gabungan Serikat Buruh
Indonesia (GSBI) [[link removed]], makes Nike shoes in a
factory with thousands of workers, most of them women like her.

“I want the world to understand the truth of workers’ lives behind
these products,” Leni told me recently. “I had a baby and another
small child when COVID hit in 2020. The factory slashed our wages and
offered no support. We couldn’t even put basic food on our
families’ tables. As we learned that Nike made record profits during
the pandemic but offered us no relief, we were furious. There is no
Nike and no profits without us.”

“My factory has not even paid the mandated minimum wage increases in
my region,” she continued. “We have had enough! We demand that
Nike end wage theft in its supply chain and pay us what we deserve.”

Leni is part of a group of union activists from Indonesia, Sri Lanka,
Cambodia, Bangladesh, and India with a plan to fight back. These brave
workers have committed to speak publicly despite the risks of
retaliation.

The Asia Floor Wage Alliance [[link removed]] (AFWA)
has brought together unions across our region. We are organizing
across borders in a transformative fight for living wages and human
rights protections. The “Fight the Heist” campaign — coordinated
by AFWA andGlobal Labor Justice
[[link removed]] (GLJ) — has focused its demands
on Nike, with its supply chain of over 1 million garment workers.

Our support in the U.S. labor movement has grown too. In July 2024,
the Coalition of Labor Union Women and the Communications Workers of
America Women’s Committee joined GLJ to organize actions in eight
cities [[link removed]] across the
United States. We’re so excited to see allies in the U.S. relate to
our fight against corporate greed and for the value of women’s work.

At the end of 2024, the Fight the Heist worker activists ran hundreds
of organizing meetings with their coworkers. They discussed the gross
inequalities of Nike’s supply chain — for instance, Nike’s CEO
got paid more than _24,000 times_ more than a worker in Sri Lanka
making Nike’s clothing in 2023.

At the end of those conversations, activists challenged their
coworkers to join a public photo petition. Through the petition,
workers are demanding that Nike recognize their essential work and
provide the pay they deserve.

Now, over 1,000 workers across the region have decided to stand up
together. On March 21, their photos will go public as allies across
the world share the petition and demand that Nike’s executives look
them in the eye.

These abusive practices only make it easier for corporations to lower
wages in working standards in the United States as well. So will you
join us?

Take the “One Thousand Photos — One Thousand Shares” pledge
[[link removed]] at
ActionNetwork.org, share it widely, and support the union activists
leading the fight to transform garment supply chains.

_ABIRAMY SIVALOGANANTHAN is the South Asia Coordinator for the Asia
Floor Wage Alliance. _

_COUNTERPUNCH is reader supported! Please help keep us alive
[[link removed]]._

_The CounterPunch website is offered at no charge to the general
public over the world wide web. New articles, from an independent
left-leaning perspective, are posted every weekday. A batch of several
articles, including the Poet’s Basement, and Roaming Charges by
Jeffrey St. Clair, are posted in the Weekend Edition. After the
initial posting, these articles are available in the archives which
can be searched by using any of the search boxes on the website.
 CounterPunch also publishes books, and published a newsletter and
magazine from 1993 to 2020.  The COUNTERPUNCH+ Subscriber area of
our website features subscriber content and access._

* Trade Policy
[[link removed]]
* Tariffs
[[link removed]]
* Global South
[[link removed]]
* Nike
[[link removed]]
* Sweatshops
[[link removed]]
* expoitation
[[link removed]]
* unions
[[link removed]]
* Solidarity
[[link removed]]

*
[[link removed]]
*
[[link removed]]
*
*
[[link removed]]

 

 

 

INTERPRET THE WORLD AND CHANGE IT

 

 

Submit via web
[[link removed]]

Submit via email
Frequently asked questions
[[link removed]]
Manage subscription
[[link removed]]
Visit xxxxxx.org
[[link removed]]

Twitter [[link removed]]

Facebook [[link removed]]

 




[link removed]

To unsubscribe, click the following link:
[link removed]