3. In Indonesia, an income of $2.28 a day, the base pay of Nike factory workers, is double the daily income of about half the working population. Half of all adults in Indonesia are farmers, who receive less than $1 a day. Given these national standards, is it appropriate to criticize Nike for the low pay rates of its subcontractors in Indonesia? Typical of the exposés against Nike was a CBS 48 Hours news report that aired on October 17, 1996.3 Reporter Roberta Basin visited a Nike factory in Vietnam. With a shot of the factory, her commentary begin by saying that The signs are everywhere of an American invasion in search of cheap labor. Millions of people who are literate, disciplined, and desperate for jobs. This is Nike Town near what use to be called Saigon, one of four factories Nike doesn't own but subcontracts to make a million shoes a month. It takes 25,000 workers, mostly young women, to

“Just Do It.”

But the workers here don't share in Nike's huge profits. They work six days a week for only $40 a month, just 20 cents an hour.

Baskin interviews one of the workers in the factory, a young woman named Lap. Baskin tells the listener:

Her basic wage, even as sewing team leader, still doesn't amount to the minimum wage. … She's down to 85 pounds. Like most of the young women who make shoes, she has little choice but to accept the low wages and long hours. Nike says that it requires all subcontractors to obey local laws; but Lap has already put in much more overtime than the annual legal limit: 200 hours.

Baskin then asks Lap what would happen if she wanted to leave. If she were sick or had something she needed to take care of such as a sick relative, could she leave the factory? Through a translator, Lap replies:

It is not possible if you haven't made enough shoes. You have to meet the quota before you can go home.