September 2000 Call to Action News

Anti-sweatshop campaign: CTA backs Olympic Living Wage Project

Nike says it provides factory workers in Indonesia with "good jobs with fair wages that provide opportunities for workers and their families." (nikebiz. com) Jim Keady doesn't believe it.

After years of activism and research on the subject, and after resigning as assistant soccer coach at St. John's University, Keady decided the only way to prove his point was to go to Indonesia himself, and see just how well a family can live off the wages of a Nike factory worker.

On July 29, Keady set off for phase one of the Olympic Living Wage Project, a two-month immersion experience among Nike factory workers in Tangerang, Indonesia. Keady, along with project participant Leslie Kretzu, is adopting the lifestyle, diet, customs, and culture of the workers and living on their prevailing wages of $1.20 per day.

After this two-month experience, intentionally scheduled to coincide with the Olympic Games in Sydney, Australia, the project team will go on a ten-week speaking tour around the U.S. Call To Action has signed on as a co-sponsor of this project to raise awareness about sweatshop conditions and provide a human connection to the suffering of oppressed workers.

Keady chose the Olympic Games as the time frame to contrast the lifestyle of the factory workers with that of the athletes who benefit from Nike endorsements, and to take advantage of the media opportunities at that time, including a press conference in Sydney. The project is being documented daily on the website: www.nikewages.org, where Keady and Kretzu post journal entries and photos. The project has employed an experienced webmaster who will maintain the site from the U.S., as well as a film documentarian who is accompanying Keady and Kretzu in Indonesia.

At press time, and about three weeks into the project, the team already had discovered the gravity of life for the factory workers. Each day $1.20 is enough to buy two meals of rice, water, and perhaps some vegetables or a potato pancake. Garbage dumps fill the only open spaces. This is where the children play. Rats and chickens wallow in the sludge. Three women live together in a 7' x 15' room with corrugated tin for a roof. The women use torn sheets of paper to cover the holes in the wooden floorboards.

Parents cannot afford health care for their children. Keady and Kretzu took a feverish and malnourished child to the doctor. For a standard exam and antibiotics, it cost 90,000 Rp —approximately eight days’ wages. Health care packages, when provided, are grossly inadequate to meet basic medical needs. Also, they give coverage as a reimbursement allowance, which means that families must have the cash upfront and wait to be reimbursed.

Yet Nike says that “minimum wage earners are usually able to meet their basic needs as well as to assist in supporting other family members or building modest savings.” Says Jim Keady, “This is an absolute lie.”

Jim Keady is an active member of the United Students Against Sweatshops (USAS). Two student leaders from USAS, Marikah Mancini and Thomas Strunk, will be panelists at the CTA National Conference in November.

Staffer Tara Dix attended the USAS National Meeting in August at the University of Oregon, and met with over 300 students involved in the movement.