Nike's Controversial Issues

Throughout the years, the Nike brand has been at the center of several controversial issues. Nike’s journey to improving the labor conditions at their factories still continues today. However, each time a controversial issue arises Nike has seemed to consistently learn from their mistakes. In doing so, Nike continues to implement new ways of doing things better. This culture is what has given Nike a more respected and positive rapport with the pubic in recent years. In contrast, in previous years Nike was perceived as the “poster child boy for everything bad in manufacturing” (Buchholtz&Carroll, 2012, 2015, pg. 605, para.3). Nike has taken several measures to move towards being a more responsible and well-respected company.

After taking the

Nike was specifically opposed to making the locations of all of its factories public, and they stated that” the monitoring provisions set out by the (WRC) are unrealistic and biased towards organized labor” (Buchholtz&Carroll,2012,2015, pg. 605, para.5). At the time the university of Oregon, Phillip Knights alma mater, supported the values that the (WRC) stood for. Nike did not agree with the universities decision to support the switch from the (FLA) to the (WRC) which resulted in them pulling their $100 million-dollar donations from the school. Knight claimed that the “bonds of trust which allowed me to give at a high level have been shredded” (Buchholtz&Carroll,2012,2015, pg. 605, para.6). This move was not a positive look for Nike, because it could have been perceived by their consumers that they had something to hide by not supporting more efforts of ending sweatshop culture.

However, a year later Nike begins to take responsibility for how they “handled the sweatshop issue”. Even though, it was only after the University of Oregon pulled its backing from the (WRC), Nike renewed its philanthropical commitment to the University and assembled a comprehensive public review of their corporate responsibility practices. In this report, Nike took responsibility for their neglect in several areas such as worker conditions in Indonesia and

After this report as made Nike received accolades for their acknowledgement of their mistakes from several previous critics. They also noted that Nike was not only taking responsibility for its wrongdoing but, it was also focusing on helping to better the environment as well. At the time, Nike was “one of only four companies that had joined a world wildlife fund program to reduce greenhouse admissions” (Buchholtz&Carroll,2012,2015, pg. 606, para.2).

However, as the roller-coaster journey to better working conditions for Nike employees continued, Nike hit another turn for the worst. As they were halted on the road to redemption when labor activist Mark Kasky sued Nike for false advertisement. It had appeared that Nike releasing their social responsibility report had backfired on them. Nike had denied the mistreatment of their workers in Southeastern Asian factories. It was ruled that Nike did indeed engage in false advertisement and Nike made a settlement with Kasky of 1.5 million dollars which was donated to the