Nike Sweat shops

Nike Sweatshops

Nike is arguably the most successful sports based business ever, the question that a lot of people has is how do they do it? Unfortunately the answer is that they use cheap labor is underdeveloped countries. As an athlete myself, I will be the first to admit that I can't remember the last pair of running or basketball shoes that I owned that weren't Nike products. I would also say that at least in the basketball world they are the leaders hands down. Why are they the leaders? Well for one they sign all the top athletes to multimillion dollar contracts all so they can put their name on some shoe and make it that much more sought after. This gives Nike the upper hand in the market because they can decide where the fashion is going, they decide what is cool. Aside from that they also tend to come out with new technology to make their shoes and products lighter and more comfortable, which allows them to charge a decent amount more than most of their competitors. Nike is said to have made huge changes to their workers policy and workers rights, however many organizations such as Educating for justice (EFJ) say that there is still much improvement to be made. There have been proposed bills to try to stop the import of goods that were created in sweatshops into the United States. For example, Decent Working Conditions and Fair Competition Act attempted "Amends the Tariff Act of 1930 to revise the prohibition on importing convict-made goods into the United States to make it unlawful to import into, or export from, the United States any sweatshop good("Decent Working Conditions and Fair Competition Act." Open Congress. N.p., n.d. Web. 31 Oct. 2010.). The bill was proposed by Byron Dorgan to the Senate, and it was proposed by Sherrod Brown to the House of Representatives. In both the bill died in committee and did not become a law. If I had to guess it probably did not pass because it would put a good majority of big name companies in quite a pickle. If Something like that bill were to become a law someone would have to pay for it, either the consumer or the company. I am fairly confident that it would be the consumer; companies like Nike are not going to want to have more costs, that is why companies use cheap labor to begin with. However this raises the argument of how much is the mark up on their products? Undoubtedly the costs to make the shoes and other products are a small fraction of the retail price. Although, when consumers buy Nike shoes they are paying for a lot more than the cost to make the shoe. Someone has to pay for the multimillion dollar contracts that Nike pays top athletes like Lebron James, Kobe Byrant, and Tiger Woods. It's a vicious circle with really no easy answers, because Nike is in business to make money just like any other company. It is hard to make companies that have been so successful change the way they got there, however when it comes to the sweat shops they use something needs to be done.