Tuesday, February 17, 2009

Are Tiger Woods and Michael Jordan the blame for whats going on in the nike sweatshops?

Tiger Woods and Michael Jordan have been blamed for beong part of running Nike sweatshops but do they really have anything to do with them or not?
I believe that they dont and that its not there fault that Nike have sweatshops full of women and children. They do indeed advertise for Nike however that does not mean that they have anything to do with the sweatshop or even know about them.
Nike does not manufacture its own products. It only designs and markets them. About 550,000 workers are employed in 700 factories in 50 countries to make Nike products, the majority in Asia. The contractors tend to pay close to the minimum wage. This cheap labour enables Nike to spend a great deal on design and marketing, pay large executive salaries, maintain large profits, and still keep the cost of the shoes affordable to the middle classes in affluent countries. Shoes that cost $16.75 to manufacture are sold for around $100 in the US.
Nike spends more money on advertising and promoting the reputation of its products than most other companies in the world - $1.13 billion in 1998. Celebrities, such as Tiger Woods and Michael Jordan, are paid huge sums of money for their association with the company's products. In 1998, for example, Nike paid Tiger Woods $28 million and Michael Jordan $45 million.
Both Michael Jordan and Tiger Woods claims that they had no clue that there Nike was running sweatshops.