Boycott Nike Vietnam Essay

Nike was brought into the spotlight during a 48 Hours special on CBS that aired in 1996 (Boycott, 1996). During this interview Roberta Baskisn was reporting the story and traveled to Vietnam to get answers about the rising concerns with Nike and sweatshops. In Vietnam Roberta interviewed first hand the workers in the sweatshops and heard stories of the events that took place. The Vietnam sweatshop workers were treated unfairly, and underpaid. As mentioned in the interview, “…they work six days a week for only $40 month, just 20 cents an hour”(Boycott, 1996). As the interview continues there are testimonies of abuse in the factory, specifically 15 women who were beat with the upper sole of the shoes by their manager. This happened because their sowing wasn’t to the managers liking. The unfair treatment in this factory created strikes, as workers were unhappy and underpaid (Boycott, 1996). That wasn’t the only incident in Vietnam, the interview uncovered more issues from the news in Vietnam.
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The headquarters in the United States were forced to address these issues that they tried to cover up. In closing to the interview CBS stated, “Nike now says it plans to hire outside observers to talk to employees and examine working conditions in its Vietnam factories, but the company won't say just when that might happen” (Boycott, 1998).
Nike’s consumers were starting to see what their product really was made of and as a result started to view Nike in a bad light. There was a decline in sales and that loss of profit made Nike take a closer look. As pointed out by the CEO Phil Knight during one of the meetings, “The Nike product has become synonymous with slave wages, forced overtime and arbitrary abuse. I truly believe that the American consumer does not want to buy products made in abusive conditions” (Cushman, 1998). Since that meeting