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January 30, 2025

1,000 Garment Workers Have a Message for Nike

In this guest blog, Noah Dobin-Bernstein, Lead Organizer with Global Labor Justice shares more about their latest campaign calling on allies to join garment workers in demanding protections and living wages from Nike.

Editor’s Note: In this guest blog, Noah Dobin-Bernstein, Lead Organizer with Global Labor Justice shares more about their latest campaign calling on allies to join garment workers in demanding human rights protections and living wages from Nike. Take the pledge today.

Dozens of Asian garment worker unions, brought together by the Asia Floor Wage Alliance (AFWA), are organizing across borders in a transformative fight for living wages and human rights protections. The “Fight the Heist” campaign–coordinated by AFWA and Global Labor Justice (GLJ), has focused its demands on Nike.

Nearly thirty years after Nike founder Phil Knight was forced by the anti-sweatshop movement to announce that Nike would end its use of child labor, the athletic wear giant is once again in the spotlight for exploitation. Nike authorized $18 billion in stock buybacks in 2022, which primarily benefit wealthy investors, while garment workers, the vast majority of whom are women in the Global South, faced a human rights crisis after massive wage losses during the COVID-19 pandemic.

Nursya, a member of Indonesian union Serikat Pekerja Nasional (SPN), who makes Nike shoes, was pregnant when her hours and wages were slashed during the pandemic. She recalls going into debt just to feed her family when her son arrived. In Sri Lanka, Shamali’s factory, which made Nike garments, closed suddenly with no support for workers. She and hundreds of other women were stranded in boarding houses around the factory, unable to pay the rent or return to their villages.

Today, Nursya and Shamali, together with other union activists from Indonesia, Sri Lanka, Cambodia, Bangladesh, and India, have been meeting virtually (with simultaneous translation in six different languages) to plan their fight back. These first brave workers have committed to speaking publicly despite the risks of retaliation from factory management. They have gone through spokesperson training and met virtually with allies around the world, recounting their experiences and their decision to organize. A group of workers even starred in a powerful video ”advertisement ” addressed to Nike.

Support in the U.S. labor movement is growing. In July 2024, the Coalition of Labor Union Women (CLUW) and the Communications Workers of America (CWA) Women’s Committee joined GLJ to organize actions in eight cities across the U.S.. In October, dozens of union locals, Jobs with Justice chapters, and social justice NGOs held their first-ever virtual international strategy meeting with Asian worker activists.

In the last months of 2024, the Fight the Heist worker activists coordinated across the region to run hundreds of organizing meetings with their coworkers. They discussed the gross inequalities of Nike’s supply chain – where in 2023 Nike’s CEO received more than 24,000 times as much compensation as a worker in Sri Lanka making Nike’s clothing. At the end of the conversations, activists challenged their coworkers to join a public photo petition for the first time. Through the petition, workers are demanding that Nike recognize their essential work and provide the pay they deserve.

In less than four months, over 1,000 workers across the region have decided to stand up together. On March 21, their photos will go public as allies across the world share the petition and force Nike’s executives to look them in the eye. Will you join them?

Take the pledge, share it widely, and support the Asian union activists leading the fight to transform garment supply chains!

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