What Is The History Of Nike And Child Labor

Nike has had a long history of abusive labor practices and controversies, but how did it all begin? Nike was founded in 1964 by Phil Knight, a University of Oregon track athlete, and Bill Bowerman, his coach. Initially, they were an athletic footwear distributor, but began manufacturing their own products in 1971. By the 1980’s, the company had begun offshoring their production manufacturing. Controversies regarding unethical labor practices began surfacing in 1991, mostly due to an expose by human rights and labor activist Jeff Ballinger. Nike responded to these criticisms by creating a factory code of conduct. The company assumed this would resolve the abusive labor practices at their factories worldwide. They were wrong.
In 1996, Life Magazine published an exposé of child labor in Pakistan specifically implicating Nike, among others, in relation to the production of soccer balls by children – some as young as three years old. That same year, Nike addressed the issue by creating a department within the company that would focus its efforts on working with the offshored facilities to help improve the lives of the factory workers. However, abuses continued to surface. By 1997, Nike brought in activist Andrew Young to examine
They performed a six-month investigation into the Saga Sports facility in Sialkot, Pakistan and discovered Saga was outsourcing most of the ball manufacturing to individuals working out of their homes. Many of these individuals were children. As a result of their investigation, Nike cut off all ties with Saga Sports. While some may question the fairness of their decision to fire Saga Sports, it appears Nike was attempting to continue on their path to improve worker conditions worldwide. By eliminating Saga, Nike demonstrated to their manufacturing partners that there would be severe consequences of utilizing child labor and abusive labor