By: Natalia Renta, Senior Policy Counsel for Corporate Governance and Power
Nike makes some of the most popular and expensive shoes — many pairs are around $300 — but behind the brand, thousands of women in South and Southeast Asia work for low pay to make Nike’s flagship sneakers. On July 16th, we joined women labor leaders in the U.S. who responded to the call from Asian garment workers, Global Labor Justice, and the Asia Floor Wage Alliance to demand justice for workers in Nike’s supply chain.
This day of action brought attention to the discrepancies between Nike’s public statements and the actual conditions endured by workers who make its products. “To meet the basic needs during COVID, my husband and I were forced to borrow money from relatives and banks, using our belongings as collateral. And until now I am still paying interest on debts,” said Siti Chaerunissa, a member of the labor union Serikat Pekerja Nasional (SPN) and worker at a Nike supplier factory in Indonesia. “We often hear people say that Nike talks about equality. As workers who make high-quality products, we should also be treated as equals.”
Here at Americans for Financial Reform, we know that when our financial system serves Wall Street greed, the rest of us end up with lower wages, economic insecurity, unsafe working conditions, unhealthy environments, and gutted communities. And we also know that Wall Street exploits and reinforces racial hierarchies and inequalities across borders to pad their pockets.
The truth is that corporations like Nike all too often put Wall Street greed above everything else, including the dignity of the workers who make their products. One common way for large corporations like Nike to reward Wall Street is through stock buybacks, which is when a company buys its own shares.
Who benefits when a corporation does this? Executives, who are mostly paid through company shares, and the investor class savvy enough to time their trades to capture those rewards. That makes the rich richer.
And the money spent on stock buybacks is diverted from investing in workers’ wages, safety upgrades, or other investments that would spread the wealth more equitably. That makes the poor poorer.
These twisted incentives primarily reward rich white men. Less than 2% of U.S. shareholder wealth is held by Black and Latine families. So the money spent on buybacks is a giant wealth transfer from the low-paid women of color who make Nike’s high-priced shoes to a tiny number of already rich white men, worsening the global racial wealth gap.
And Nike is not a shy stock buyback-er. In 2022, it approved a plan to spend $18 billion on stock buybacks over four years. That is more than the $16.8 billion it made in net profits in the four years between 2021 and 2024.
We must rein in this practice that lets Nike CEO John Donahoe and other executives get richer while the women in South and Southeast Asia who actually make the company’s highly-profitable products toil for low wages that don’t let them live a dignified life and thrive.
We are proud to stand in solidarity with South and Southeast Asian garment workers who are saying enough is enough and demanding justice in Nike’s supply chain. “Women garment workers in Asia have been organizing and fighting for years for decent work in the supply chains of U.S.-based companies,” said Abiramy Sivalogananthan, South Asia Coordinator of the Asia Floor Wage Alliance. “When they win, it will be a victory for women everywhere.”
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