The guerilla News Network details Jim Keady’s battle with Nike. Keady, a graduate student and assistant coach for the St. John?s University soccer team was developing a paper about Nike’s labor practices. During that time he refused to wear the Nike gear that the university mandated he wear due to their 3.5 million dollar endorsement deal. The university told him to either wear the stuff, or resign. He resigned.
Not only that but, Keady filed suit against Nike. Later, Keady offered to take a job as a production worker in south-east Asia in order to dispel the “myth” that Nike workers have always been exploited. Nike told him to go fuck himself. So, he went anyway… guts man, guts. It’s one thing to bitch like I do and refuse to buy these things, but it’s another to actually take action like this individual did.
Having lived in Korea for some time, I can tell you first hand how it is to work in a Nike factory. Most of those people, from what I was told, were not paid more than $25.00 per month. A living wage in that part of the country (in 1987-88) was at least $350-400.00, the economic equivalent of about $8.00 an hour US. Many of the workers were female and under the age of 14 years old. I think I saw some as young as 9.