From The Past

Nike Owners read on ....

NIKE led the field in opportunistic advertising following George Floyd's killing by white police officers in Minneapolis, with a text-only YouTube film that turned Nike's slogan, "Just Do It", into "Don't Do it".

"Don't... pretend there's not a problem in America," ran the copy. "Don't... turn your back on racism. don't... make any more excuses. don't... sit back and be silent." And finally, "Don't think you can't be part of the change." The inevitable hashtag was #UntilWeAllWin.

There's nothing like being lectured on social justice by a billion-dollar shoemaker whose own list of senior executives is exclusively white. Moreover, Nike's own history is scarcely unblemished. In 2018, research by the Clean Clothes Campaign and its French arm, Collectif Ethiquc sur l'Etiquette, found that Nike did not pay living wages to the (mainly female) workers way down its supply chain; and that Nike was moving production away from China (where wages are rising) to countries like Vietnam, Cambodia and Indonesia, where wages are lower and "incidents of human rights violations are more prevalent".

Don't do it is good advice for Nike...

Private Eye 1524 - June 19th 2020