I am happy for Colin Kaepernick. He has clearly been blackballed from the NFL, even if there is no smoking gun paper trail to prove such in a court. So, if he can recoup some of the money he has lost for taking a principled stand, good for him. He has earned every dime.
I am also happy that his many detractors are mad. Of all the things that actually warrant a protest, they choose this? To them I say, go ahead and burn your already paid for property.
I am not happy about the narrative some are painting of Nike becoming some corporate ally of social justice. It makes about as much sense as believing that Exxon is going to be a partner in combating climate change.
How do I know? You are what your record says you are and Nike’s record is the polar opposite of a corporation interested in social and economic justice.
For years, it oversaw what amounted to sweat shops and facilitated, or at the very least, ignored child slave labor. Nike was the posterchild for international corporate exploitation of populations that had little other choice but to participate in their own oppression. So bad was Nike that at one point, reporters pressed Michael Jordan about the issues.
Reportedly, it has improved its wages and working conditions, but it is hard to tell by how much. About 80% of its production factories are in Cambodia, Indonesia, and Vietnam. Some of the workers are paid as little as $102 per month. Do the math on a 40-hour week (though many routinely work more), and it amounts to 63 cents an hour. Regardless of context or where it operates in the world, I am not patting a multi-billion-dollar corporation on the back for raising its wages for workers to 63 cents an hour, and I damn sure will not be hoodwinked into thinking it is in anyway an ally for social justice.
For those who contend that Nike has changed, as recently as July of this year, it raised the wages of about ten percent of its employees. There is a catch. Most view this as a sort of internal settlement for widespread workplace misconduct and discrimination against women.
It is not that Nike cannot afford to care. The corporation that is paying some of its workers in Asia 63 cents an hour reported 2017 revenues in the range of $34.4 billion dollars up 8%.
There are a few things that Nike could do to become an ally:
- Pay all employees worldwide a living wage, not minimum wage, but a living wage, plus full benefits;
- Allow its employees to organize and collectively bargain around wages, working conditions, etc.;
- Build a factory in the top 10 urban areas of America, which are where the majority of police brutality takes place, and give residential credit in the application process for jobs;
- Finance the renovation and (where needed) rebuilding of athletic facilities at the high schools in those same areas
If they did any of the above, it would put some substance behind the symbolism of endorsing Kaepernick. Of course, they will not do any of them because it is not what Nike is about.
When in a battle, it is important to understand how to make a distinction between a “ride or die” ally and an opportunist. Nike is an opportunist.
So let us keep everything in perspective. Nike could not care less about the cause that Kaepernick has championed. For Nike, it is just about selling shoes, folks.
