Mark Parker
CEO
Nike
One Bowerman Drive
Beaverton, OR 97005

Dear Mr. Parker,

We write as concerned college and university faculty to call upon Nike to once again open the doors of its supplier factories to independent labor rights monitoring. By announcing in October 2015 that Nike will no longer allow the Worker Rights Consortium (WRC) – the only independent labor rights watchdog organization in the apparel industry – to conduct on-site investigations at its supplier factories, Nike is undermining a 15-year-old system for ensuring that basic worker rights are protected in the collegiate apparel industry.
 
Over 180 colleges and universities in the United States are affiliated with the WRC. These schools depend upon the WRC to monitor apparel factories around the world and respond to worker complaints of harassment and abuse in collegiate apparel supply chains. The WRC’s independent monitoring gives our universities the vital on-the-ground information needed to enforce our schools’ labor codes of conduct for Nike and other apparel licensees.
 
By refusing to compel its supplier factories to allow access to the WRC to continue the work it has performed on behalf of universities for over 15 years, Nike is attempting to turn back the clock on transparency and worker rights. Nike’s extensive track record of code of conduct violations is well-known; repeated abuses documented in Nike factories around the world were among the catalysts that drove universities to adopt their own labor codes of conduct and rely on their own monitoring organization, the WRC. Universities adopted these codes and established the WRC because apparel companies, including Nike, cannot be trusted to voluntarily police themselves without impartial third-party oversight. Nike’s membership in the Fair Labor Association (FLA), an organization funded by the very same brands it monitors, lacks the independence provided by the university-funded WRC.
 
Indeed, the WRC has regularly unearthed violations at Nike supplier factories that have gone undetected and/or uncorrected by Nike and its contract auditors. From the WRC’s first investigation at Mexmode (formerly Kukdong) in 2001, to factory cases in Thailand, Bangladesh, the Dominican Republic, and many other countries, the Worker Rights Consortium has been repeatedly instrumental in remediating serial violations of workers’ health and safety, freedom of association, wage and severance payments, and other key facets of university codes at Nike factories.
 
Universities have established a standard of transparency and accountability in the collegiate garment industry through the creation of the WRC. By refusing to cooperate with WRC investigations, Nike is undermining the fundamental right of colleges and universities to designate representatives of their own choosing to enforce their codes of conduct. From past experience, we know that if Nike again reverts to voluntarily policing itself, the fragile rights enshrined in codes of conduct cannot be guaranteed against systematic worker abuses that are rife throughout the global apparel industry.
 
Fifteen years ago, abusive punishments and exposure to toxins at Nike factories in Vietnam and sub-minimum wages at Nike suppliers in Indonesia, spurred public awareness of sweatshop conditions. As members of our university communities, we have been proud to see our schools employ reports produced by the WRC to take action and address abuses of workers rights. We call on Nike to respect universities’ rights to choose their own independent monitoring representatives by cooperating with the WRC and ensuring it has full access to Nike supplier factories to conduct on-site investigations.

We look forward to receiving your prompt response regarding these urgent matters.

Sincerely,

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contact richappelbaum@ucsb.edu for more information