Nike Sweatshops: Beyond the Swoosh is a documentary that tells a narrative of a former soccer coach at St. John’s who gets involved in the fight against the exploitation of workers in Indonesia by Nike. The beginning of the documentary presents the previous soccer coach of St. Johns named Jim Keady. He tells about how he wanted to go into the stock market and make tons of money growing up. Pictures of New York City play while the song “Testify” by Rage Against the Machine is played in the background. We are presented with an ambitious man, who gets interested in soccer, and becomes the coach of St. Johns College. He studies Catholic Socialism which involves examining exploitation. He learns that one of the major exploiters of third-world countries is Nike. St. Johns began negotiating a 3.5 million dollarendorsement deal with Nike during this time. This would mean he would have to support Nike which he feels goes against what Catholicism is about. Right away, the documentary is getting to the heart of the issue within two and a half minutes. He is featured on ESPN denouncing this sponsorship. He was later dismissed in 1998 for not backing the endorsement. He is told that he doesn’t know what he is talking about and that the Third World workers like their jobsso he decided to go there to learn the truth. The documentary displays photos of factory employees assembling shoes. The documentary keeps up the quick tempo while still captivating the audience. He meets up with a college acquaintance named Lisa and the two proceed to Indonesia to find out the truth. They decide to live like Nike workers: live in the slums and exclusively live off of the $1.25 daily pay the workers are paid. The visual of a Nike billboard in the backdrop with barbed wire in the foreground was stunning. It was a sly swipe at Nike. The conditions where they reside are horrible. They reside in an 8 by 8 room; they sleep on a hard concrete floor, open sewers all around the building, and rats come into their room as well as cockroaches. Some of the workers there have it worse. Some families have to share restrooms, water, and a kitchen with up to 5 families. The working conditions for the laborers are awful as well. They are comparable to what Chris Meyer wrote in an essay called “Wrongful Beneficence: Exploitation and Third World Sweatshops.” The $1.25 in salaries doesn’t go very far. That practically pays for rent, water, utilities, 2 meals a day, iced tea, and some detergent in Indonesia. There is nothing left for healthcare, insurance, or retirement. The facts on how much the wages get the workers hit me. The prospect of living off of very little money seems inconceivable. The documentary truly brings this idea home. The audience no doubt feels for these workers. Both lose weight and have no energy while living there, showing one of them is sick. The documentaries documentary’s breakneck pace calms down a bit during this segment. This smashes the message home on just how hard it is to live there. Pictures of shoe rubber being burned where kids are playing tug the heartstrings as well. The two decide to go to the Nike corporate offices to discuss Nike representatives about the conditions of the workers. They are told no one wants to talk to them. The documentary does a wonderful job of exposing the corporate executives at Nike and the PR people as callous people in this scene. Nike, in a superb PR maneuver, sends a notice to all the factories stating that Lisa and the former St. Johns’s coach are not to be spoken to by the workers. If the workers speak to them, they will be harshly penalized. At this point, Nike is appearing as the worst company in the world in the documentary. They seem to not care one bit about their employees much less care about talking about it. Nike’s response to their going to factories and corporate offices and talking about the plight of the workers is to have them harassed and followed. A handful of the workers discussed in the documentary about being terrified and dealing with the consequences of working there. A woman there who has been trying to organize Reebok and Nike workers for years is filmed at a rally. She narrates her account of being arrested and tortured by the Army. The major message from the Nike workers from Indonesia is they want to work and are pleased to work but they don’t want to be exploited. He Jim Keady goes back to America and finds the CEO of Nike at lunch and wants to talk to him about the workers in Indonesia. The CEO doesn’t want to talk and tells him no. Once again, Nike looks pretty horrible. One would assume they’ve never been approached by anybody talking about their sweatshops. Their PR needs to come up with a better plan than not talking about it. The end of the documentary shows photos of the factory workers, shoes being sold in American stores, and him and Lisa going to college campuses talking about the exploitation of Nike workers with Rage Against the Machine playing in the background. He explains that the truth needs to be told and the last word on the topic is the singer of Rage Against the Machine singing the words “Testify.”
• What is your opinion on that paragraph above? Make sure to include some key points from the essay that really made you think. Include if you agree or disagree. Would you have responded the same way?
• What are your solutions? Do you think that is a viable solution?
