Nike's Minimum Wage

Nike supporters quickly began protesting the company after hearing about their failure to pay workers minimum wage. Although Nike responded immediately to Jeff Ballinger’s reports of low wages and poor working conditions with a code of conduct, it was not until 1998 that CEO, Phil Knight addressed the allegations. Nearly seven years following the claims, Phil shared his feelings towards Nike being “synonymous with slave wages, forced overtime, and arbitrary abuse,” and decided to announce that Nike would raise the minimum wage of their workers, increase the monitoring of employees, and will guarantee clean air based on OSHA’ standards.
Since Phil enlightened the public on the goals of Nike, they were able to begin a positive rebranding campaign. In 1999, Nike continued their efforts to maintain effective workspaces for their employees by creating the Fair Labor Association, which combined other companies and human rights and labor representatives. The group is a non-profit organization that was started to
The list consisted of 108 pages that publicized workers pay and work environments which they vowed to consistently abide by.
Protests started in 1992, only a year after Ballinger published his article Considering Nike’s current success, the company was able to maintain a decent image following the sweatshop scandal.
Many companies such as Nike choose to outsource to save money. However, many of those companies also fail to pay their workers and provide them with decent work conditions which is exactly what Nike did. Due to Nike’s success, the company caught a lot of backlash but they were able to successfully address and handle people’s concerns.
It was very beneficial for CEO, Phil Knight to address the public after realizing that there were people who had began to protest the company. It is important to provide the public with a face to identify