Nike Campus Activism
Students, faculty and staff at a number of universities are protesting
their schools' contracts with Nike. Some of these are multi-million-dollar,
wall-to-wall contracts covering virtually every team in the athletic
department. Some are for only selected teams. In one case (the University
of Ottawa), the contract is with faculty of the Human Kinetics Department,
to do product research for Nike ice skates. Also, students at the University
of Wisconsin are concerned about their school's contract with Reebok
and would like to link up with students at the Nike-contract campuses.
We encourage activists at different schools to communicate with each
other and share information. Following are some of the contacts we have
developed. Please notify Campaign for Labor Rights if your school has
a Nike contract and is not listed below. We would like to work with
you.
CONTACTS:
University of North Carolina (Chapel Hill): Marion Traub-Warner,
Jeff Jones and Todd Pugatch [email protected], [email protected],
[email protected] Penn State University (College Park) Adam Black
, [email protected] Florida State University (Tallahassee) Ed Dandrow, [email protected]
University of Michigan (Ann Arbor) Rich Goff, [email protected] Arizona State
University (Phoenix) Andy English, [email protected] University of Arizona
(Tucson) James F Tracy [email protected] Brock University (Niagara
Falls, ON) Blain Butyniec, [email protected] University of Colorado
(Boulder) Ann Krohn Rick, [email protected] University of Ottawa (Ottawa,
ON) Genevieve Rail, [email protected] University of Oregon (Eugene) Ben
Unger, [email protected] University of Illinois (Urbana-Champaign)
Dennis Grammenos, [email protected] University of Kentucky (Lexington)
Kyle Browning, [email protected] University of Wisconsin (Madison)
Ben Manski, [email protected] University of California (Irvine)
Alain Dang [email protected]
RESEARCHING YOUR SCHOOL'S CONTRACT:
If you are uncertain whether any teams at your school are covered
by a Nike contract, a simple phone call to the athletic department should
get you the information you need. If the contract covers only select
teams, write down which teams are included, noting whether each is a
men's or women's team.
Next, you should try to get hold of a copy of the contract. If your
state has an open-records law, this should be easy. It's generally been
simple for students to get a copy of the contracts. These tend to be
similar from campus to campus. Make special note of an provision which
seems to limit freedom of speech by university staff or athletes. Also,
try to find out exactly how much money some of the coaches stand to
make personally from the contracts they sign with Nike.
LOOKING FOR ALLIES:
If you are a concerned individual, not part of an organization working
on the Nike sweatshop/Nike contract issue, your next job is to find
allies. Two steps are helpful:
1) Write a letter to the editor of the campus paper, expressing your
concerns and giving a way for other concerned people to contact you.
2) Go to the building where campus organizations have their offices
and start asking questions. If there is not already a student group
working on this issue, there almost certainly is one which would be
interested in adding this issue to the list of causes which it promotes.
Check out whether there already is a labor action group on campus.
3) Once you have a core group or have found a pre-existing organization
willing to take up the Nike contract issue, start to make alliances
with other campus organizations, such as:
Asian student groups
African American student groups
Latin America solidarity groups
Amnesty International
East Timor Action Network (ETAN)
Women's groups
The graduate teaching fellows union or association
Other unions representing campus staff
Progressive faculty
Community-based organizations and union locals
Remember when seeking allies: If you are asking them to show support
for your cause, you need to show support for theirs. When you have a
rally, make sure that representatives of your ally organizations have
a chance to speak and to draw the connections between Nike sweatshops
and the issues they are working on.
DON'T WRITE OFF THE ATHLETES:
Some of the athletes on these teams may resent having to become walking
billboards for a logo which is synonymous with sweatshops. In all of
your publicity, extend an invitation to those people of conscience who
happen to be on the teams with Nike contracts.
GETTING RELIABLE INFORMATION:
Campaign for Labor Rights has a Nike action packet, constantly updated.
It is available free via email and in hard copy for $5.00. Notice that
the "resources" section of the action packet lists a number of articles
and alerts on Nike in our document library. We can send any of these
articles to you via email.
Subscribe to our free email Nike labor alerts service and become a
member/subscriber to our hard copy newsletter, which covers all of the
major sweatshop and child labor campaigns.
As we receive information from you, we will put together a special
Nike action packet for campus activists.
WHEN NIKE PR REPS COME TO CAMPUS:
Nike has some very smooth talkers who are traveling from campus to
campus, handing out handsomely printed packets of disinformation. If
a Nike public relations rep asks to have a private meeting with your
student government association, request that Nike critics also be allowed
to attend. Contact Campaign for Labor Rights by phone or email so that
we can talk about how to deal with Nike's PR machine.
If you attend the meeting with the Nike rep, get a copy of Nike's
packet and read it carefully.
SPEAKERS ARE AVAILABLE:
If your group can find the money for an airline ticket, Campaign for
Labor Rights can arrange for a speaker to come to your campus to talk
about the campaign to win justice for Nike's production workers. There
is no speaker's fee.
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