Nike contract manufactures much of its shoe and apparel lines to independent factories in Southeast Asia. It has made significant strides towards an improvement in factory workers’ environments, but remains profoundly challenged in finding ways both to implement and monitor these changes. The company also wants play a role in enabling widespread change to occur in the developing world apparrel manufacturing industry.
- Codes of Conduct:
Nike has developed a Code of Conduct for the treatment of workers in its shoe factories. They have been implementing this code in various facilities with varrying degrees of success. They have also moved to advocating common standards of conduct across the industry. Monitoring the implementation of these codes of conduct is alwalys a quandry. More disclosure by workers at specific facilities is required.
- Materials: Of most significant note, Nike has implemented the use of water-based cement in its factories, significantly reducing the damaging effects of toxic fumes. However, many other materials have yet to be adressed.
- Monitoring: Nike has been developing and implementing both corporate and independent programs for monitoring working conditions in the factories that manufacture its shoes and apparel. In several instances it has intervened when rules were bieng ignored. The company remains unsure as to how successful these interventions have been in improving working conditions. Nike has disclosed the names and locations of the majority of the facilities that manufacture its shoes and apparel. Nike believes this action is a useful step toward greater effiencies in monitoring working conditions and in increasing the instances of remediation.
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