🚀 go-pugleaf

    "Her world consists of a rented, 5-foot sqaure room in a shantytown
    where she sits on the concrete floor with three other young women."
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    "By government estimates, the minimum wage here is equal to just 67
    per cent of what officials have termed the "minimum physical
    needs",
        -- enough to buy subsistsnce food and housing.
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    "The right to freedom of association, the right to strike and
    freedom from forced labor are not guaranteed in Indonesia," said
    the Asia Watch petition.
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    "For each pair of shoes,
        Nike and Reebok typically pay $1.25 for labor and $1.25 for overhead,
        spend $11 on materials and take $74 for the company.."

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[Via misc.activism.progressive from PeaceNet's  apc.labor]
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Topic 224       Nike Labor Practices Criticized 
hrcoord apc.labour      11:29 am  Oct 18, 1992 
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From: Human Rights Coordinator <hrcoord> 
Subject: Nike Labor Practices Criticized 
================================================================== 
/* Written 11:36 pm  Oct 17, 1992 by etantor@web.apc.org in igc:reg.indonesia */ 
==================================================================
Los Angeles Times, 17 October 1992 

INDONESIA'S FOOTWEAR WORKERS TOO THIN FOR AEROBICS 
By Charles Wallace 

TANGERANG, Indonesia -- Suyatmi, a shy, 20-year old factory worker, is too 
poor to know much about sneakers. She's never heard of Bo Jackson and is 
too skinny to care about aerobics. 

     Her world consists of a rented, 5-foot sqaure room in a shantytown 
where she sits on the concrete floor with three other young women. 

     Every day a t 7 a.m., Suyatmi begins work at P.T. Hardaya Aneka Shoes 
Industry, one of six companies in Indonesia making shoes for Nike Inc., 
the spectacurly successful U.S. sporting goods company. Her production 
"line" of 30 workers produces 350 pairs of Nike's glitzy footwear a day. 

     Suyatmi and her co-workers earn a base salary of 1,900 Indonesian 
rupiahs a day, the equivalent of $1.15. Working a six-day week, with a 
least two hours of overtime each day, she takes home about $17 per week. 
The company also gives her lunch and a bus ride to work. 

     "Some days it's hard," she said. "But I'm just happy to have a job." 

     But American labor unions and human rights groups aren't happy with 
the conditions she has to work under. And they are lobbying the U.S. 
government hard to intervene with the Indonesian government. 

     In August, the U.S. government surprised union activists by agreeing 
to look at workers' rights in Indonesia before deciding whether to 
continue granting Indonesian products a special import status called 
zero-tariff benefits. Losing the benefits would hurt Indonesian exporters. 

     This week, U.S. Trade Representative Carla Hills is holding hearings 
on petitions filed by the human rights group Asia Watch and the 
International Labor Rights and Education Research Fund that accuse 
Indonesia of pressing development at the expense of workers' basic rights. 

     "The right to freedom of association, the right to strike and freedom 
from forced labor are not guaranteed in Indonesia," said the Asia Watch 
petition. 

     "In fact, when when workers have attempted to form independent unions 
or to carry out strikes, they have been hindered by excessively 
restrictive government regulations and by harassment, intimidation, 
intervention and beatings by members of the Indonesian security forces." 

     The controversy highlights a continuing debate about developing 
export industries based mainly on cheap labor. 

[LA Times apologitics about "Indonesia" [suddenly personified]
"wanting" the wonderful economic miracles of "growth" which are
"enjoyed" elsewhere as a result of such corporate exploitation, deleted]

     With a population of 185 million and an economy dependent on oil 
exports, Indonesia had to find some way to create jobs. 

     The development of manufacturing has propelled the country ahead with 
breathtaking growth [Including "breathtaking" exploitation as part of
this "growth" --HB]

     The gross domestic product, a tally of goods and services, has risen at 
more than 6 per cent a year for the last decade. Canada, in comparison, will 
finish this year with a GDP of 1.5 per cent and next year's growth is 
predicted at 3.5 per cent.

     But at the same time, workers' real wages -- pay after taking account 
of inflation -- have been "basically flat" since the late 1980s, the U.S. 
embassy in Jakarta said in a report.  [A bit of reality here about the
statistical "economic miracles" advocated by the apologists for labor
repression, who usually cite GDP but not poverty rates, hunger, infant
mortality, and other infinitely more meaningful measures of progress --HB]

     By government estimates, the minimum wage here is equal to just 67 
per cent of what officials have termed the "minimum physical needs" -- 
enough to buy subsistsnce food and housing. 

     "The situation here is similar to the end of the last century in 
America and Europe -- half work and half slavery," said Jakarta labor 
activist Indera Nabadan, who closely monitors the shoe industry. 

     "The workers are exploited for low wages. They are subsidizing the 
development of the country." 

     For each pair of shoes, Nike and Reebok typically pay $1.25 for labor 
and $1.25 for overhead, spend $11 on materials and take $74 for the 
company, said Payaman J. Simanjuntak, director general of the ministry of 
manpower for industrial relations.