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FACT #8. Nervous, Nike insults everyone’s intelligence with its intensive campus PR using Nike-paid "reports": Andrew Young’s "GoodWorks": Young interviewed workers only with their supervisors present, naively using Nike’s translators; he spent a piddling 3-4 hrs., preannounced, in each factory visited; and he completely ignored the crucial issue of wages [TNR]. The report includes faked photographs of Young with "union representatives", and lies about "consulting" human rights experts [WP, TNR].Dartmouth Business School: This Nike-paid "study" is a glorified class project of inexperienced MBA students, working for a grade! What little is known about the methods used—see, e.g., Fact 1—renders it instantly dubious. Ernst and Young: For years Nike has paid this accounting firm to "monitor" its factories and issue confidential reports, and for years Nike has said the reports were positive. Now, thanks to a leaked report [NYT3], we know they have been lying. Andrew Young’s team apparently also knew of the damning report (prior to its being leaked) but failed to act on this knowledge [NYT3].Price Waterhouse: Occasionally, Nike PR appeals to the paid, secret reports of this other "highly respected" accounting firm. The secrecy is suspicious enough, but one gets a sense of PW’s objectivity from its primary boast [ www.pw.com] that "[f]or 150 years, Price Waterhouse has helped the world’s leading companies implement solutions to their complex business problems". List of references ...Nike's labor abuses ... Nike's advertising contract with the University of Michigan ... Nike/UM index ... To get involved, email nikerights@umich.edu |