Nike workers celebrate, share victory with Bloomington students

Marcela Muñoz had seen enough. The conditions at the Nike factory in Kukdong, Mexico couldn\'t get much worse. Earning only $3 a day working at the factory to support her 3-year-old son -- shampoo and toilet paper became luxuries. \nContamination in the cafeteria caused workers all around her to contract dysentery. Anyone who didn\'t work fast enough was hit with the ends of screwdrivers. \nAlthough the maquiladora was a typical sweatshop by Mexican standards, the workers were anything but.\nMuñoz and the 600 disgruntled employees of Kukdong went on strike and with the help of IU and the Workers Rights Consortium, succeeded in establishing the first independent union in Mexican maquiladora history. \nThey shared that story at IU Sunday with No Sweat, a student-run anti-sweatshop organization. The forum was the first stop on a 10-day, 12-university tour to champion the cause of labor rights and to thank colleges for their role in helping the Kukdong workers.\nMuñoz spoke for the factory employees. She told the crowd through a translator how they overcame both the obdurate Nike factory and Mexican history, something that once seemed an impossible sueño. \n\"In Mexico it is an unprecedented thing to have an independent union,\" Muñoz said. \"It was thanks to the students that we were able to continue our struggle, a struggle that seemed to us a dream in the beginning.\"\nNike media representatives did not return a phone call Monday.\nIn a press release on its Web site, Nike said that it \"supports the rights of workers to organize and collectively seek fair and independent resolutions to disputes such as these. Nike shares the concern … that all workers at Kukdong are treated with dignity and respect.\"\nWhen Muñoz and the laborers went on strike in Jan. 2001, the WRC responded with an investigation of worker complaints. The WRC, a university-mandated organization that monitors labor rights abuses at factories where college apparel is produced, uses these reports to make recommendations to universities.\nIn its report of Kukdong, it found that wages were \"grossly insufficient to meet even the barest needs of a family of three,\" and that \"Kukdong managers subjected workers to physical abuse-slapping, pushing, and pulling.\" \n\"It was very sad the way they treated us,\" Muñoz said. \"We were being paid about $3 a day and to survive we need 10. Not only was there verbal abuse, but physical abuse.\"\nIU\'s role in creating change at the Kukdong factory was critical, explained Scott Nova, executive director of the WRC. \nJoining other universities in a campaign, IU wrote letters to Nike demanding that it improve the situation for workers at its factory. Because Nike has contracts with IU to produce its apparel, IU was able to use this leverage to make Nike cooperate with Muñoz and the Kukdong workers. \nJunior Megan Hise, a member of IU\'s No Sweat! who participated in the letter writing campaign last spring, attended the meeting and called it \"rejuvenating.\"\n\"I got to see where all my hard work and energy paid off,\" she said. \"It\'s upsetting to hear what they went through, but I got to be a part of helping. It made it more real.\"\nMexican academic Huberto Juarez Nuñez talked about the ramifications the Kukdong victory has on labor rights throughout Mexico. The battle between garment workers and the maquiladoras remains a classic 'David versus Goliath' struggle. However, the Kukdong breakthrough may be symbolic of greater change beginning in Mexico, he said.\nMuñoz told the crowd how the factory has changed since Nike agreed to meet the demands of its workers and recognize their union, SITEMEX.\n\"Now they don\'t dare yell at us or hit us,\" she said. \"The management team treats us with respect. We now even have microwaves.\"\nThe conditions have improved dramatically and it looks promising that they will stay that way. Just last Friday, Nike placed orders at the factory for further production, Nova said.