My Low-Wage Life

Just like any other average American, I grew up shopping wherever had the best deals and variety. Although the area I grew up in does not have a Wal-Mart, it does have a Target, an Ikea, an Abercrombie and Fitch, a Gap, and plenty of stores sell Nike products. It was not until an ethics class in my junior year of high school that I learned what all of these companies, which I had supported through shopping my whole life, had in common: they were all infamous for their sweatshop labor.

Nike struck me as the most surprising, especially since their products are so popular. I owned countless pairs of Nike shoes - whenever I needed new PE shoes in grammar school, I went straight to Niketown in San Francisco. My friends all wore Nike hoodies, sweatbands, sweatpants...everything. Additionally, I could not get over the fact that a company that had so much money - enough to sponser any athlete it wanted - treated its workers in its Indonesia sweatshops so terribly and paid them so little.

Jim Keady, an advocate for improving Nike's sweatshop conditions and wages, gave a presentation at my school about his findings, which included a video, "Behind the Swoosh," documenting his time spent in Indonesia where he tried to live a "normal" life on the same wages ($1.25 per day) as Indonesian sweatshop workers. Needless to say, it did not go well, and the living conditions were filthy, cramped, and unsanitary. Moreover, the people were tired, having worked almost half of the day, and hungry, but they had hardly enough money to feed themselves and their families.

The sweatshops were not any better - workers were required to work long hours doing tedious, "blood, sweat, and tears"-filled work. I could not believe that the people making my beloved Nikes were treated like slaves... Also, one of the most disturbing things I learned was the humiliation women in the sweatshops faced: women had to prove they were menstruating to the sweatshop's management, usually a man, in order to get two days' paid leave, or just wear dark clothing and avoid the degradation.

Additionally, since one pair of Nike shoes only costs about $5 or less to manufacture, Nike already makes a huge profit by selling each pair for an average of $100. Of course, they need to pay all of the people in between making them and getting them to the customer, but if they raised the price of a pair to $102 and give the extra $2 toward employees' wages, I do not think the general public would riot, as Nike seems to think it will. If Nike can afford to pay Lebron James $90 million, I'm sure $2 more per worker won't make a big dent in its budget.

These workers relate to each and every one of us directly - how many people can you name who do not own anything Nike or made in a sweatshop? Not many, since it is almost impossible in today's world, but these low-wage workers do exist behind practically everything we own...Apple products, clothes, shoes, food, etc.