A-Infos (en) Nike collection: a decision

["Shawn Ewald" <shawn@wilshire.net>]

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     A - I N F O S  N E W S  S E R V I C E
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DECISION ON WHAT TO DO WITH THE NIKE SHOES
[The "we" who made this decision are several of the groups involved in
putting together the April 18 events.]

We asked for your input on what to do with the Nike shoes collected during
the caravan leading up to the April 18 International Nike Mobilization/Hands
across Borders event. YOU RESPONDED! We listened to your concerns and were
inspired by your creativity. And now...here's our decision:

The special April 18 action packet (available in three weeks) will include a
full-page drawing of a sneaker with a broken swoosh. Local activists are
invited to photocopy the drawing and to use the reprints in local events -
tabling, presentations, classroom appearances, place of worship, union
meetings, gatherings of friends and family. Ask people to write their
thoughts about Nike and sweatshops on the drawing. You can use the
sneaker-letters in your local events on April 18 or you can send them to us
for use during the caravan or you could photocopy the notes and get double
duty out of them. On April 18, use the sneaker-notes to make a powerful
visual statement from the people in your community. Tape them to walls and
staple them to poles. Pick the most important pedestrian paths leading up to
your local Nike outlet. Or: Use the notes to link the Nike outlet with some
other site in your community which represents the power behind the global
sweatshop and corporate-agenda trade agreements.

HOW WE CAME TO THIS CHOICE

In the notice we posted on February 2, we listed four goals for dealing with
the shoes collected:
*   Make a statement that we value the rights of workers above corporate
profits and    consumerism.
*   Show creativity.
*   Demonstrate respect for the viewpoints of our allies and people we would
like to have as allies.
*   Help to build our movement - within borders and across borders.

More than 60 of you responded!

A number of you felt VERY strongly that collecting actual Nike shoes and
giving them away would be paternalistic. And a number of you felt JUST as
strongly that giving the shoes away would NOT be paternalistic. There is a
strong tradition of material aid caravans in the solidarity movement. There
are mechanisms for distributing material aid which respect the dignity of
the recipients and which acknowledge how much we in the global north are
indebted to the struggles waged by our allies in the global south. However,
given the level of disagreement among those who responded, we did not think
that combining a material aid project with this event was a good fit.

A number of you were very strong in your belief that destroying the shoes
sent the wrong message. Although several suggested returning the shoes to a
Nike outlet, others pointed out that Nike would either dump the shoes or
recycle them and claim the credit. Recycling was another important theme
which came up in your suggestions.

A large portion of you said that we should use the shoes to make a
highly-visible symbolic statement. Specifically, many suggested a sculpture.
A related theme involved various methods of un-swooshing the Nikes.

For practical reasons, we were unable to survey Nike workers on this
subject. The Support Committee for Maquiladora Workers asked the Han Young
workers what they thought. It was their reaction which finally inspired our
choice of actions. The Han Young workers were utterly dumbfounded why anyone
would want to collect used sneakers as part of an international solidarity
event. And the idea of being the recipients of those sneakers was completely
off their graph. After some discussion, the workers decided that the shoe
collection must have some symbolic meaning but they were at a loss to say
what the symbolism of used sneakers might represent.

Indeed, it was the symbolic meaning which inspired the idea of collecting
old Nikes along the route of the caravan. Given the disagreement about what
to do with actual Nikes, we came up with the idea of symbolic Nikes.

Posting the sneaker-notes along routes leading to local Nike outlets matches
the frequently-expressed sentiment that the shoes should make a
highly-visible statement in some creative way. The paper sneakers also solve
a geographical problem: Even though the caravan will pass only along the
West Coast, there is no barrier to full participation by activists anywhere
in the U.S. or Canada...or anywhere else.

A LESSON FROM THIS PROCESS

Many of you said that you appreciated being asked to become a part of the
decision-making process. And we certainly value your input. This was one of
the easier topics we need to deal with in our movement to end sweatshop
abuses and exploitative child labor. (And it was a fun topic, too.) Some of
the more difficult issues include:
*   When is a campaign a boycott?
*   What form, if any, should monitoring take?
Neither Campaign for Labor Rights nor any other organization is the
repository of all wisdom and information. In the coming months and years, we
will be turning to you again for your input - as well as providing a forum
for other major organizations in the global north and our allies in the
global south. None of our decisions is going to please everyone. Our goal is
to facilitate a respectful process of decision-making. Grassroots activists
in communities large and small are the people who make these campaigns live
and who help turn the campaigns into victories. You have a right to be
informed about the important policy debates affecting our movement and to
make your input heard.

[Reminder: With the current issue of the Campaign for Labor Rights
newsletter, which just went into the mail, we begin our forum on independent
monitoring. See subscription information at top of this alert.]

CLOSING ON A LIGHTER NOTE:

Earlier in this alert, we cited the major themes of your input. In closing
we would like to share a selection of gems of creativity and whimsy included
in some of your suggestions:

Sell them (especially the ones in decent condition) at a price that equals
the hourly wage of Nike workers in Viet Nam, Indonesia and China.

Use the shoes to spell out something massive on the lawn at Nike headquarters.

Ask for a refund at the store, citing a "defect in manufacture" (sweatshop
conditions).

Fill the shoes with dirt and plant flowers in them, then line them up in an
area that needs beautification.

Put little candles in them and float them down irrigation canals.

Contact Bread and Puppets in Vermont who do giant puppets and have them come
with a Nike CEO caricatured somehow as a sweatshop grinch, as well as with a
giant Nike Sneaker. Then a ceremony trying on the sneaker, the message to
Nike being:  "The shoe fits, Wear it!"   Perhaps a parallel transformative
ceremony of human-scale creatures trying on, Cinderella-fashion,
"organizing shoes," finding they fit, and becoming thereby equipped to
combat the Nike Goliath, either by coalescing to his size, or by tacking him
down, Lilliput-style, right across the border.

Labor Alerts: a service of Campaign for Labor Rights
To receive our email labor alerts, send a message to CLR@igc.apc.org
Phone: (541) 344-5410       Web site: http://www.compugraph.com/clr
Membership/newsletter. Send $35.00 to Campaign for Labor Rights, 1247
"E" Street SE, Washington, DC 20003. Sample newsletter available on
request.


-------Message History--------
Date:          Wed, 18 Feb 1998 20:03:21 -0800 (PST)
To:            clr@igc.org
From:          Campaign for Labor Rights <clr@igc.apc.org>
Subject:       Nike collection: a decision
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