I found this on another running related website, and it was too much not to be re-posted on this board.
"Nike now lets you personalize your shoes by submitting a word or phrase which they will stitch onto your shoes, under the swoosh. So *** filled out the form and sent them $50 to stitch "sweatshop" onto his shoes.
Here's the responses he got... fun and games with Nike...
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From: "Personalize, NIKE iD"
To: "***"
Subject: RE: Your NIKE ?iD order o16468000
Your NIKE iD order was cancelled for one or more of the following reasons:
1) Your Personal iD contains another party's trademark or other intellectual property
2) Your Personal iD contains the name of an athlete or team we do not have the legal right to use
3) Your Personal iD was left blank. Did you not want any personalization?
4) Your Personal iD contains profanity or inappropriate slang, and besides, your mother would slap us.
Thank you, NIKE iD
From: "***"
To: "Personalize, NIKE iD"
Subject: RE: Your NIKE ?iD order o16468000
Greetings,
My order was canceled but my personal NIKE iD does not violate any of the criteria outlined in your message. The Personal iD on my custom ZOOM XC USA running shoes was the word "sweatshop."
Sweatshop is not:
1) another's party's trademark,
2) the name of an athlete,
3) blank, or
4) profanity.
I choose the iD because I wanted to remember the toil and labor of the children that made my shoes. Could you please ship them to me immediately.
Thanks and Happy New Year, ***
From: "Personalize, NIKE iD"
To: "***"
Subject: RE: Your NIKE ?iD order o16468000
Dear NIKE iD Customer,
Your NIKE iD order was cancelled because the iD you have chosen contains, as stated in the previous e-mail correspondence, "inappropriate slang". If you wish to reorder your NIKE iD product with a new personalization please visit us again at nike.com
Thank you, NIKE iD
From: "***"
To: "Personalize, NIKE iD"
Subject: RE: Your NIKE ?iD order o16468000
Dear NIKE iD,
Thank you for your quick response to my inquiry about my custom ZOOM XC USA running shoes. Although I commend you for your prompt customer service, I disagree with the claim that my personal iD was inappropriate slang. After consulting Webster's Dictionary, I discovered that "sweatshop" is in fact part of standard English, and not slang. The word means: "a shop or factory in which workers are employed for long hours at low wages and under unhealthy conditions" ?and its origin dates from 1892. ?So my personal iD does meet the criteria detailed in your first email.
Your web site advertises that the NIKE iD program is "about freedom to choose and freedom to express who you are." I share Nike's love of freedom and personal expression. The site also says that "If you want it done right...build it yourself." I was thrilled to be able to build my own shoes, and my personal iD was offered as a small token of appreciation for the sweatshop workers poised to help me realize my vision. I hope that you will value my freedom of expression and reconsider your decision to reject my order.
Thank you, ***
From: "Personalize, NIKE iD"
To: "***"
Subject: RE: Your NIKE ?iD order o16468000
Dear NIKE iD Customer,
Regarding the rules for personalization it also states on the NIKE iD web site that "Nike reserves the right to cancel any personal iD up to 24 hours after it has been submitted". In addition, it further explains: "While we honor most personal iDs, we cannot honor every one.
Some may be (or contain) other's trademarks, or the names of certain professional sports teams, athletes or celebrities that Nike does not have the right to use. Others may contain material that we consider inappropriate or simply do not want to place on our products.
Unfortunately, at times this obliges us to decline personal iDs that may otherwise seem unobjectionable. In any event, we will let you know if we decline your personal iD, and we will offer you the chance to submit another." With these rules in mind, we cannot accept your order as submitted. If you wish to reorder your NIKE iD product with a new personalization please visit us again at www.nike.com
Thank you, NIKE iD
From: "***"
To: "Personalize, NIKE iD"
Subject: RE: Your NIKE ?iD order o16468000
Dear NIKE iD,
Thank you for the time and energy you have spent on my request. I have decided to order the shoes with a different iD, but I would like to make one small request. Could you please send me a color snapshot of the ten-year-old Vietnamese girl who makes my shoes?
Thanks,
***
As one forwarder writes:
... this will now go round the world much farther and faster than any of the adverts they paid Michael Jordan more than the entire wage packetof all their sweatshop workers in the world to do...
I normally avoid making a plea to pass on these things,but this time I say:
JUST DO IT"
-Clay
Nike ............ the truth
Report Thread
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Very funny. I wonder if it actually happenned though. If it did that's great. Can't believe someone would come up with that. Very good, thanks.
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Oh, goody!!! Another thread to start a political argument on a running board.
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hey diggity, do u run 24 hours a day. I think this is very relevant because of the nature of nike or at least as relevant as who's teh hottest chick.
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Very well might be, but it is just going to take up space (very much like we are now) arguing about whether Nike's production is ethical. Maybe it won't.
What does me running 24 hours a day have to do with this? -
You got a problem with sweatshops? Those little kids would be off playing in a mindfield if it weren't for shops like that! Nike gives them a way to earn a living so they can buy a potato and do something other than play with it like the kids in America do.
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It was several years ago.
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i thought it was '01
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hey i got news for ya, adidas, asics, mizuno arent made in the goo dol us of a. and those nb's and saucony that say made in the us are all foreign parts. every company uses foreig labor, nike is just the biggest company.
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There are many issues regarding sweatshops, including work environment, duration of work per day/week, and wages. The most common issue debated is that of the pay rate recieved by the workers of "sweatshops." Many say the problem with low wages could be solved by implementing a minimum wage.
Minimum wage determination is a delicate issue, which should be seen in a broader context of interplay between market forces and collective bargaining power at various levels of economies, not in isolation from other forces at work. In this regard, the fact that minimum wage fixing through tripartite discussion - either negotiation or consultation - is common in many countries is important. This introduces an element of negotiation between government, workers, and employers in the wage setting process. Where there is good quality information and the parties genuinely desire a common-interest outcome, tripartite deliberation could offer a mutually beneficial compromise. But trade unions and other parties to consultations in many developing countries face a number of problems. As illustrated above, in a number of countries where trade unions at the workplace have very weak bargaining power, national trade union centres tend to concentrate excessive effort on the minimum wage fixing process, unintentionally resulting in further weakening trade union organisations and collective bargaining in the workplace. Another typical problem in least developed countries is that there is often no reliable data on economic variables to be taken into account for minimum wage fixing and adjustment. Even if there are economic data for it, trade unions often lack the capacity to analyse them and engage in meaningful joint discussions. Developing power and abilities of trade unions at both workplace and national levels is an urgent task in many countries.
After years under attack for alleged negative effect on low-paid employment, the minimum wage regulation seems to be back in favour as a means of providing unskilled workers with decent living conditions. Several factors are responsible for the renewed interest in the minimum wage as a tool of market policy. First, several studies in the 1990s showed that the minimum wage had little, if any, effect on creating unemployment. Second, there is a new human rights approach that focuses on the right to have decent employment. In developing countries, policy makers are not only concerned with the impact of the minimum wage on employment, but also with its impact on the level of poverty. However, trade unions in many Asian countries face an uphill battle to win a minimum wage system, as the globalisation process and mobility of capital put great downward pressures on working conditions and in particular on minimum wage systems. This is a battle for decent work for all working men and women, which will continue. -
the original story that showed the nike used sweatshop labor failed to mention that in the VERY same factory ASICS, NB, ETC. were also being produced. if you REALLY have a problem with nike, you have a problem with all running shoe companies.
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LawDog's Econ101 wrote:
There are many issues regarding sweatshops, including work environment, duration of work per day/week, and wages. The most common issue debated is that of the pay rate recieved by the workers of "sweatshops." Many say the problem with low wages could be solved by implementing a minimum wage.
Minimum wage determination is a delicate issue, which should be seen in a broader context of interplay between market forces and collective bargaining power at various levels of economies, not in isolation from other forces at work. In this regard, the fact that minimum wage fixing through tripartite discussion - either negotiation or consultation - is common in many countries is important. This introduces an element of negotiation between government, workers, and employers in the wage setting process. Where there is good quality information and the parties genuinely desire a common-interest outcome, tripartite deliberation could offer a mutually beneficial compromise. But trade unions and other parties to consultations in many developing countries face a number of problems. As illustrated above, in a number of countries where trade unions at the workplace have very weak bargaining power, national trade union centres tend to concentrate excessive effort on the minimum wage fixing process, unintentionally resulting in further weakening trade union organisations and collective bargaining in the workplace. Another typical problem in least developed countries is that there is often no reliable data on economic variables to be taken into account for minimum wage fixing and adjustment. Even if there are economic data for it, trade unions often lack the capacity to analyse them and engage in meaningful joint discussions. Developing power and abilities of trade unions at both workplace and national levels is an urgent task in many countries.
After years under attack for alleged negative effect on low-paid employment, the minimum wage regulation seems to be back in favour as a means of providing unskilled workers with decent living conditions. Several factors are responsible for the renewed interest in the minimum wage as a tool of market policy. First, several studies in the 1990s showed that the minimum wage had little, if any, effect on creating unemployment. Second, there is a new human rights approach that focuses on the right to have decent employment. In developing countries, policy makers are not only concerned with the impact of the minimum wage on employment, but also with its impact on the level of poverty. However, trade unions in many Asian countries face an uphill battle to win a minimum wage system, as the globalisation process and mobility of capital put great downward pressures on working conditions and in particular on minimum wage systems. This is a battle for decent work for all working men and women, which will continue.
AHHHHH! HUNDRED POUND HEAD!!! Can't read too much, will... fall... asleeppp.................zzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzz............... -
There's hardly a shoe company out there NOT making shoes
in a sweatshop somewhere. Even NB buckled. -
Wake up wrote:
There's hardly a shoe company out there NOT making shoes
in a sweatshop somewhere. Even NB buckled.
Do you have factual accounts of this, like those that have been published about Nike, or is it nothing more than presumptive hearsay from apologists? -
I believe that was an exchange between Nike and running writer/social commentator/music critic Scott Douglas.
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If it's a fact that other companies use sweatshops too, that in itself is no reason not to object to Nike's doing so. If somebody wrote something criticizing, let's say, a high-profile child abuser, would you say it was unfair because there are lots of less famous child abusers out there?
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Look at the links posted above, I don't see the name Scott Douglas in there. Or was this something else? Is it on a website, too?
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TomM wrote:
If it's a fact that other companies use sweatshops too, that in itself is no reason not to object to Nike's doing so. If somebody wrote something criticizing, let's say, a high-profile child abuser, would you say it was unfair because there are lots of less famous child abusers out there?
well actually the point is that people say nike does it and others dont. -
Thanks for the correction. Douglas reported it, but didn't write it. I think the whole exchange is here.
