Dave Johnson: Obama to Visit Nike to Promote TPP. Wait, Nike? Really?

[cali]

President Obama is scheduled to visit Nike's Oregon headquarters on Friday to promote the Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP). Yes, Nike, a company that grew to be worth billions by outsourcing jobs
to overseas sweatshops, a company that sets up P.O.-box subsidiaries in tax havens to avoid paying U.S. taxes
, a company that uses threats to extort tax breaks from its "home" state.

Phil Knight, head of Nike, is now worth $23 billion because america'strade policies encourage companies like Nike to create and move jobs outside the U.S. The 23rd-richest American is one more symbol of the kind of inequality that results from outsourcing enabled and encouraged by these trade policies. Workers here lose (or never get) jobs; workers there are paid squat; a few people become vastly, unimaginably wealthy.

Meanwhile Massachusetts-based New Balance struggles to manufacture its athletic footwear in the U.S. TPP will remove tariffs on imported Vietnamese and Malaysian shoes, benefiting Nike and wiping out New Balance's efforts to maintain its manufacturing here.

<snip>

By the 1990s, conditions at the foreign factories making Nike gear had become an issue, making the company a target of protests about the perils of globalization. Mr. Knight and other top executives initially took the position that because it didn't own the factories, it wasn't responsible for safety problems or labor conditions, according to current and former executives.

... The issue came to a head in 1996, when Life magazine published a story titled "Six Cents an Hour," with a photo of a boy sewing Nike soccer balls. Mr. Knight groused privately that the scene was staged because soccer balls are stitched and shipped deflated and the balls on the cover were inflated, former Nike executives say.

<snip>
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/dave-johnson/obama-to-visit-nike-to-pr_b_7233118.html

Pigs and nothing but.

[cali]

1. Of all the people to read on the TPP, Johnson is #1 on my list

In fact, it was Johnson who turned me on to the issue.

This article, in and of itself, is a persuasive argument against the tpp. It encapsulates major arguments against it.


More:

Here are a few facts and figures:

Nike earned $27.8 billion in revenue in 2014.

Nike's Phil Knight is the 23rd-richest American, with $23 billion he made from cheap non-U.S. labor making high-priced shoes. His 1962 Stanford Business School thesis was on the profitability of offshore low-wage production of goods to be sold in the U.S., a trend that has gutted millions of well-paying American jobs.

Nike "employs" (mostly through contractors) more than 1 million workers. Fewer than 1 percent are U.S. employees.

All Nike shoes are produced outside the U.S.

In 2013, Nike had contracts with 68 factories in the U.S., none making shoes. Those U.S.-based factories employed 13,922 employees. Nike cut one third of its U.S. production contracts and now has 8,400 U.S. workers contracted for production.

[erronis]

18. Nike's CEO Phil Knight with Michael Moore

Why would we trust this guy? I'd rather buy used set of bathroom slippers from ebay than one of his products. And Obama is going to shake his hand and believe the crap about 10,000 jobs? Something smells and it doesn't smell good for the American worker.

[cali]

2. and so much more

<snip>
The Obama administration says there are special "progressive" labor rights provisions for Vietnam, in recognition of its bad labor conditions. The administration did the same thing for Colombia, and in the three years that those special rules have been in place, more than 100 union organizers have been assassinated, and another 1,000 more have been threatened with violence.
<snip>

[Enrique]

3. comfortable shoes

[cali]

4. fantastic article

[winter is coming]

5. If he wants a photo op with Nike, why not go to Vietnam? He's great with kids. n/t

[cali]

6. Nike has promised to create "up to ten thousand" new jobs here in the U.S.

if the tpp passes. Up to could mean anything.

Nike is a disgusting corporation.

[A Little Weird]

7. I am so disappointed in Obama on this issue

I don't always agree with him but I had always believed he was genuinely doing what he thought was best for the US. But his support of the TPP just makes me think he is just going to bat for the 1% like nearly every other politician.

[Baitball Blogger]

8. I wonder if there is campaign money tied to the TPP?

[cali]

9. Hugely. I almost wrote an op about that re HRC

Wall Street and banks as well as the vast majority of corporations and entities supporting those corporations are very gung ho about the tpp and ttip.

[Brickbat]

10. Shameful. K&R

Nike needs no help.

[JEB]

11. K&R for exposure.

[malaise]

12. The American people don't give a flying fugg

or Nike would not be selling off the shelves.
Nothing changes until American people decide to act.

And have a look at the shoes on the team players in all sports.

[cali]

13. sadly true

[malaise]

14. And it's not as if Nike is cheap

after the slave wages

[G_j]

15. exactly

[erronis]

16. Recently posted video with Nike CEO Phil Knight by Michael Moore

Nothing made me feel more like I was watch a piece of pond scum than when Phil Knight was talking.

[cali]

17. Holy shit. Please, please, please post this as an OP. Please.

oh, and thanks. riveting.

[bravenak]

19. I keep rereading the article to see how this is helpful to americans at all.

I'm just not seeing it. I honestly don't think this kinda stuff will change until the US consumers stop, or the foreign slaves rebel and start tearing shit up. Really, I think it will actually take a whol bunch of shit tearing. If we remove the tarriff that will just make shit worse. We need to increase them until it is more cost effective to make them here. Nobody is benefiting from free trade it seems, just the richest among us.

[countryjake]

21. Kicking for those of us who know what working a sweatshop means!

Before our prez whips his fast track thru and eventually gets the TPP a done deal, I wish that he would visit SouthEast Asia with his family, visit one of those sub-contracted Nike plants, stand with his own wife and daughters and have them all attempt to do the work, meet the quotas, and experience the conditions that so many workers must endure just to produce all of the athletic wear that Nike floods into our nation.

Rubbing shoulders with billionaires just does not cut it...Nike in Oregon is not Nike in Vietnam! Go there, Mister President, and see for yourself how wrong YOU are!

Globalization without the guarantee of Worker's Rights means nothing but worldwide oppression.