Changing practices

NIKE

BEFORE: Along with Adidas, Nike controls 49

percent

of the sports shoe market and employs more

than 600,000 people in contract factories. Wor

kers in Indonesia, Thailand and other countries have

complained in the past of 77

-

hour weeks, a ban on unions and dangerous conditions in which

employees have lost limbs through crush injuries.

NOW: It has published its first corporate and social

responsib

ility report (CSR) in four years, with details of all its factories and a pledge to increase

monitoring of working conditions.

GAP

BEFORE: One of the

several

companies sued in 1999 by workers on the island of Saipan in the

Western

Pacific over conditions i

n its garment factories. Gap, along with the other firms, paid a $20m

settlement after the court heard of

"

indentured

"

workers, withheld wages and forced overtime.

NOW:

Four months ago it published a

"

mea culpa

"

CSR report in which it admitted to the faili

ngs and

announced that it was cancelling contracts with 136 factories because of low pay and hideous working

conditions.

* LEVI STRAUSS

BEFORE: Was accused of contracting to factories in Haiti and Mexico where

their company sacked

workers

for being union members, as well as using low wages to prop up profits.

NOW: When the campaign group No Sweat uncovered evidence of abuses at a factory in Mexico

recently, Levi Strauss sent its investigators, accepted the accusations were true. They work

ed hand in

hand with the contractor to ensure unions were recognised.

The jeans maker has also started to buy

some of its cotton from organic sources.

Required

a.

Why do

you

think that companies like Nike, GAP and Levi Strauss responded to the

community concerns?

(10 marks)

b.

Is this a case of enlightened self

-

interest or a case of a

company

embracing a form of

responsibility to the shareholders affected by its operations?