The University of Wisconsin at Madison is rescinding its apparel-licensing contract with Nike over what the university called abuses of labor rights at two factories in Honduras that did work under a subcontract for the giant manufacturer of sneakers and other athletics gear. According to a news release issued by the university, the two factories were closed without notice last year, leaving workers with neither jobs nor more than $2-million in legally required severance payments. Under a Code of Conduct created by the university and enforced with the help of the Worker Rights Consortium, Nike is responsible for the actions of its subcontractors. Madison’s chancellor, Biddy Martin, said several months of negotiations with Nike had been fruitless, so the university “decided it was best, all things considered, to end this business relationship” and forgo $49,000 in annual licensing revenue. The university took a similar step last year against another licensee, Russell Athletic, which was accused of closing a Honduran factory to fight a union-organizing effort.
RSS
Follow The Ticker through your favorite RSS reader.
7 Responses to U. of Wisconsin-Madison Cuts Ties With Nike Over Worker Pay at Honduran Factories
connor4355 - April 9, 2010 at 4:45 pm
Probably won’t slow Mr. T. Woods!
d_fevens - April 9, 2010 at 5:41 pm
The University of Wisconsin in a de facto commercial partnership with Google Inc. digitized and exploited my “Fevens, a family history” in 2008 without my permission or consent. To me their conduct is no better than that of Nike’s. The University’s news release claims that Nike paid the University of Wisconsin $49,000 dollars in royalties for 2008-09. I was paid zero dollars for my work. Perhaps Nike will claim “fair use” and go ahead and use the university’s name anyway?Douglas Fevens,Halifax, Nova ScotiaThe University of Wisconsin, Google, & Me
honore - April 9, 2010 at 9:00 pm
d_fevens,I am very familiar with the U. and have many former faculty and staff with whom I am still in touch. They are all very disgusted by what they see as a degeneration into mediocrity and corruption that the university has sunk into. Good and very talented people with integrity and initiative do not stay long or are run out of their jobs by an administrative goon squad that abhors change and innovation. Today it is a very sorry pile of good-ol-boy/gal maggots and very little of merit comes from this festering wound of what it once was. Racism, homophobia, mobbing and corruption go unnoticed and unchecked and no one seems too concerned. But go to any home game and the campus, city and highways are clogged with mindless drones rushing to campus to support duh Badgers. Sorry for your experience, but believe me MANY have suffered far more at the hands of cronys and bullies that are in charge in Bascom Hall today…truly a black eye on the face of the contemporary academy. The best of luck to you.
willismg - April 10, 2010 at 3:45 pm
Ahhh… spring must be in the air! The protests have started on the lawns of academe!!! Why sit in a stuffy old classroom when you can get out on the mall and demand justice for folks you’ve never given a damn about until the weather broke…Sorry, I just remember this all so well from my days trying to get through a double major in Nuclear Engineering and Mathematics while the humanities types were blocking my path between classes…
johnfarley - April 10, 2010 at 6:08 pm
Good for U-W! Other Universities should do the same.
tony__ross - April 12, 2010 at 12:30 pm
so what are you/we to do about the food we eat (the farm workers), the clothes we wear (many made in similar sweat shops and factories world wide), the outsourcing of the service calls that end up in other countries via phone banks(poor wages, conditions, etc.) the list goes on. just a reality check here.
honore - April 15, 2010 at 8:58 am
Oh yeah we care so much about the Honduran workers that we now put them out of work? Yeah, selling Chiclets while barefoot, pregnant and breast-feeding starving babies on the sidewalks of Tegucigalpa is such a more promising activity? It’s just 1 more excuse to see a parade of neon Che Guevara T-Shirts high-5-ing each other on Bascom Hill. If the UW actually gave a damn about workers, they might actually SUPPORT the efforts of struggling WISCONSIN organic farmers and dedicated WISCONSIN organic milk producers IN THEIR OWN STATE and actually less than 20 minutes from their cappuccino-wreaking offices in Bascom Hall. Oh, but that would interfere with administration making cameo appearance at the dozens of fake diversity dish-to-pass sob fests across campus. Gotta run…The Chancellor’s office is sponsoring a Bette Midler retrospective on “Surfing Scholarships In Hawaii for the Underprivileged Japanese Tourists”…how meaningful after all.