Not long ago, I bought a new pair of sneakers for hiking. At my age, the chance of wearing out a pair of sneakers from hiking anywhere is limited, but every once in a while, I just get tired of looking at the old ones. These were made by a company called sketchers. They got me thinking about the first pair I wore, which was in 1956—Converse high-tops. Converse were American made. The company originated in 1908, building a factory in a town named Malden in the state of Massachusetts. In 2001, Converse went bankrupt, and the name brand was bought by Nike. Now, every Converse pair you buy are really Nike shoes in disguise.
This isn’t unusual. Corporations swallow up brands all the time and sell products with familiar names. Americans have confidence that those products will be as usable as the brand implies. Sometimes it is, sometimes it is not. I think that Converse sneakers are probably still well made, albeit for a much bigger price and a much wider profit margin than in 1956 when mine carried me up and down the length of a basketball floor as an eight-year-old. I played on my first team in a league organized by the Boys Club in my hometown of Princeton, Indiana. The league held its weekly games in the gymnasium of the old National Guard Armory on Hart Street across from the public library. My team uniforms were donated, and the team was sponsored by the local radio station, WRAY.
Of course, this is all nostalgic memory that creeps into an old man’s mind on occasion. However, before I lose track of my point in that memory, which is sneakers, and drift too far away, let me get to that point. There was a lot of controversy during the year Converse got in bed with Nike because of Nike’s business practices, and I was in the process of writing a magazine story that I never finished on their ethics, or lack thereof. The subject piqued my interest because of Vietnam, especially as a veteran of the Vietnam War.
Nike had built an ultra-modern factory in that country a few years earlier and, as it turned out, much of their sporting equipment line was being made there, as well as across other countries in Southeast Asia. It seems that their sweaty equipment, footballs, sneakers, and jerseys were produced in sweat shops while being sold for a tremendous markup to American consumers. Vietnamese women labored making sneakers for twenty cents an hour, and if production fell, those women were subjected to corporal punishment. At the same time, Nike footballs were being stitched by children in Pakistan who were paid sixty cents a day.
When the horrendous working conditions and pay got discovered by the American news media, the public began to raise objections. Nike sales plummeted momentarily and so did their profits. Yes, it was an outrage. We demanded conditions change. The company apologized profusely on the news and in commercials. Notice the word, momentarily. The Nike ad campaign continued with professional athletes, particularly basketball players, stoking the desire for Nike products. Notice a little irony here. When I researched this article twenty years ago, the minimum fucking wage in the NBA was 247,500 dollars a year. As my old man use to quip, “money talks and bullshit walks.” The Nike ad campaign worked and very shortly, stock dividends soared once again. Twenty years later their products still fly off the shelves. Today, the average MSRP price of Nike shoes is $110.15 while the average available lowest price is $66.75. The average US adult labors for 9.79 hours at some soul-sucking job in order to afford each pair of Nike shoes that they buy. That disparity might be acceptable to a consumer if the company’s cost of making their products had risen over the years because Nike did the honorable thing and began paying their workers everywhere a livable wage as they seemed willing to do when steeped in controversy. Did they? Here’s an idea for all you football fans. Buy an officially licensed jersey from the Kansas City Chiefs.
Kansas City Chiefs Nike Vapor Untouchable Custom Elite Jersey – Red
Your Price: $369.99
As you purchase your fancy new jersey for four hundred dollars, send a thank you note to
Thailand where their jersey was made and address it to anyone of the hundreds of workers sewing it together for a wage of 42 Baht, or one dollar and seventeen cents per DAY.
But hey, that’s the way capitalism works in America, right? Produce for as little overhead as possible and sell for what the market will bear. That’s where all of us come in. We’re the market. We can’t lay all the blame on Nike. Corporations do not have an ethical value system or a moral compass to drive their economic engines. Even though a corrupt Supreme Court has by adjudication rendered them citizens (i.e. people) they get these principles from a consensus of human beings that make these entities up. Those individuals draw their ethical boundaries based on what consumers will tolerate. It means nothing if we complain about their business practices and yet continue to purchase their products. And, on a final note, for those who will say “oh, but living is cheaper in those little foreign countries.” My response is simple. Try living anywhere for a buck and seventeen cents a day.
Jim McGarrah, Author 