Nike, Inc. Case analysis

A lot of successful companies and corporations face criticism from society or activists for different reasons. Nice, Inc. is one of those companies that was being criticized for labor abuse by their subcontractors. Nike had a lot of manufacturing subcontractors oversees that pay very little amount of wages to their labors for manufacturing shoes. A lot of people believe that Nike should be held responsible for such actions. Labor abuse has been and still a huge issue in manufacturing companies and third world countries. Even though Nike does not own the factories that produce their shoes, they should ensure that workers are being treated in a good and fair way. Since Nike has to be socially responsible when it comes to making products or goods for public, it is their responsibility that the workers who produce their products are being treated the best way. Nike can and have the ability to influence their subcontractors in order to ensure fairness and pay. Being a socially responsible company matters a lot to society nowadays. Minimum wage does not necessarily mean workers will be able to live or survive. Therefore, Nike has to at least make sure those workers can live to work, not work to live. The WRC and FLA wages guidelines seem really appropriate for workers but might not for Nike. Different views and regulations regarding the subcontractors oversees have an effect on the matter. Regardless, those guidelines seem fair and human and should really be applied when possible. It is really interesting that a company like Nike pays endorsers millions of dollars to advertise but try to find the cheapest subcontractor to produce. Paying endorsers a lot of money might be a way to get the product to be sold and make profit but how about making sure who makes your product can sleep comfortable at night? I think it is unfortunate that people can be persuaded just by who wears what. And I think that it is certainly unethical to pay someone top dollars for just wearing a shoe and run with it and the one that makes them gets nothing. Nike’s responsibility to monitor subcontractor factories is not just a legal matter like how it used to be ten years ago. Back then, Nike used to just make sure that the subcontracted factories paid minimum or a little more than minimum wage and followed the rules and regulations of that country. They might have made it seem that those factories had better work environment than other companies but they did not really give a lot of attention to other matters, like social and economic factors. Nowadays, Nike is aware of the social, economic and philanthropic responsibility that they have to follow in order to satisfy all the stakeholders. Nike had the chance to avoid all the issues regarding the abused labor if they paid attention to them in early stages. They could have stated the rules for hiring labor when subcontracting factories from the beginning. The company seems to be moving the right direction and need to focus more on the social and