Julie Whittaker/The Mirror
What is ‘Behind the Swoosh?’
Last Wednesday Fairfield students got a chance to find out.
Jim Keady, a Fair Labor activist, spent the day on campus raising awareness about the unjust practices of Nike.
Keady’s activism began after he refused to wear Nike at St. John’s University, where he coached soccer, on the basis that Nike labor practices run completely counter to both the school’s Jesuit identity and his own beliefs in Catholic Social Teaching.
After he was forced to resign for his stance, Keady traveled to Indonesia to see for himself what really is Behind the Swoosh.
Keady spent eight weeks living with Nike factory workers on the wage that the workers are paid – $1.25 a day — and documented their stories of forced overtime, sexual harassment, and physical violence.
Since that time, Keady has dedicated his life to shedding light on many Nike injustices.
For example, in February 2011 Keady learned that 13,000 workers at a Nike factory in Indonesia were forced to work an unpaid overtime hour each day, totaling over $5,460,000 in unpaid work in 2010… and this had been the norm for the past 18 years.
Keady spent months pressuring Nike and alerting the public to this injustice. After Nike finally launched an investigation, it not only corroborated that workers were forced into overtime hours, but also uncovered other abuses such as forced bribery and verbal abuse.
As Keady articulates, the problem is bigger than “just” individual factory abuses like the above; it is systematic. Nike’s profits have grown in the recent decades from $100 million to over $20 billion.
Contrast that with the reality Keady has seen on the ground: workers’ wages have remained the same over this time period, hovering around $1.25 a day, and their meager wages are spent on survival.
What Keady asked his audience of over 230 Fairfield students, professors, and administrators, is why? Is this fair? As a Jesuit school, how do we reconcile Nike’s business practice of “profit over people” and persistent abuse of workers with our Catholic Social Teaching on equality, fairness, and justice?
An uncomfortable truth settled in as Keady turned his eye to Fairfield, where Nike’s swoosh is promoted across our athletic gear and campus bookstore. How can we stand proudly as Fairfield’s Men and Women for Others or Global Citizens now that we’ve learned what is Behind the Swoosh?
Nike is not the only brand with labor practices and a business model based in such unjust practices. In fact, most other major brands can be criticized for the same injustices. Keady targets Nike simply because they have the greatest market share: if Nike could take the lead and make a substantial change, it would pressure all others to follow suit.
However, that doesn’t mean that the system has to be this way. In our own bookstore, we have a socially responsible brand: Alta Gracia.
Alta Gracia is a new brand that bases its business model in social justice. It pays its workers a living wage, embraces a strong workers union, and ensures health and safety conditions.
The brand is able to compete, selling its clothes at the same price as major brands like Nike, by cutting out fancy endorsement deals and regularizing corporate pay. Alta Gracia has shown that you can be a socially just and economically viable clothing brand…and be successful.
If they can do it, why can’t Nike? And why don’t we, as major Nike consumers, demand this of them?
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