"Nike 'Sweatshop' Story Has Legs"

[Carl Remick]

[From the Industry Standard.  Here’s another MIT-type who gets a safe pass 
;-)]

February 28, 2001, 1:03 PM PST

Nike 'Sweatshop' Story Has Legs

What started as private correspondence between an MIT grad student and Nike 
has gotten major media play, and it's not slowing down.

By Anya Schiffrin

It all started as a sardonic e-mail snipe from an MIT grad student to Nike, 
but within days, the correspondence had become a global news event. The 
subject of the e-mail – not exactly news – was an implication that the 
sports-apparel company runs Asian sweatshops. On Wednesday the media 
mushroom hit prime time when the e-mail author Jonas Peretti and a Nike 
representative appeared on the "Today" show.

At issue is the Nike.com Web site, where customers get the chance to order 
personalized sneakers for a $10 charge. Most people ask the company to put 
their own names on the shoes. But in mid-January, Peretti asked Nike.com to 
emblazon the word "sweatshop" on his sneakers. Nike.com refused, saying it 
wouldn't put "inappropriate slang" on its merchandise.

An e-mail correspondence ensued. Peretti used his Webster's dictionary to 
argue that "sweatshop" is standard English. Nike was unmoved. Peretti gave 
up on the personalization but asked if the company could at least send him a 
"color snapshot of the 10-year-old Vietnamese girl who makes my shoes."

Peretti forwarded the correspondence to 10 friends. That's when the story 
really picked up steam. The thread is all over the Web, and the story has 
made it to the pages of the Village Voice, the Wall Street Journal and the 
London Independent.

Many rice farmers in Vietnam would welcome a job assembling sneakers, given 
that the alternatives – growing rice, or working for a locally owned factory 
– pay as little as $25 a month. But in the U.S., Oregon-based Nike has often 
been viewed as a ruthless exploiter. Nike's Asian subcontractors pay workers 
about $50 a month, depending on exchange-rate fluctuations.

Peretti, who is not actively involved in the anti-sweatshop movement, says 
he never expected to get the shoes. He just wanted to make a statement.

"Nike's Web site is bitterly ironic," Peretti says. "Nike invites wealthy 
consumers to Build Their Own Shoes when the people who actually make the 
shoes do so under terrible conditions."

Both sides say they have received a lot of supportive e-mail. Peretti is 
getting about 500 messages a day. Nike says its sales have gone up as a 
result of the publicity, though it did not provide figures.

Nike.com says its refusal to print the word on the shoes is not a matter of 
free speech. "We don't want to put something derogatory to our shoes on our 
shoes," says Nike.com PR manager Beth Gorny. "Would you print an article 
saying the Industry Standard was a bad magazine?"

[end]

Carl

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