Students demand university cut ties with Nike over $900K in stolen worker wages

On March 28, Syracuse University senior Nina Tran, founder of SU’s chapter of Students for International Labor Solidarity (SILS), walked with five other students to the Office of Academic Affairs to deliver a letter. 

It was their third time doing so. 

In the letters, SILS demanded that the university end its 43-year contract with Nike. This partnership allows Nike to use the SU logo to provide student-athletes and coaches with gear while granting the university the right to profit from the sale of branded apparel. 

SILS’ demands are rooted in a call for the reimbursement of workers’ stolen wages at one of Nike’s subcontracted factories: the Hong Seng Knitting factory in Bangkok. 

An investigation by the Worker Rights Consortium (WRC) revealed that in May 2020, Nike “conducted a scheme to avoid paying workers legally required wages during repeated suspensions of employment,” resulting in what is now $900,000 in unpaid wages owed to over 3,000 workers. 

Photo by Haley Moreland

The student-led group SILS is protesting Nike’s alleged theft of $900,000 in wages from more than 3,000 workers.

“They’ve lied to them, coerced them,” Tran said. “And for some people who refused, they threatened to deport them.”

She explained that Nike tricked workers at the Hong Seng Knitting factory into taking “voluntary” leave without pay to avoid suspending them during low-production periods caused by the COVID-19 pandemic. 

“You have to put food on the table, take care of your children,” Tran said. “In no sense during a pandemic would you ever just sign away money that you’re legally owed.” 

Initially, the factory owed their workers $400,000 in wages. Now, due to Thai labor law, that amount has grown to $900,000, including interest. 

In February, Nike released a remediation plan that called for the alleged reimbursement of 100% — $211, 539, according to the Fair Labor Association — of workers’ wages at the Hong Seng Factory. However, workers can only receive this compensation in the form of paid time off (PTO). 

According to sports analysts from Samford University, Nike has contracts with 68 universities, including SU, and reported $51.4 billion in total revenue last year. Syracuse University’s total revenue is not publicly available, but financial reports indicate that the university brought in $1.4 billion in operating revenues alone and $2 billion in endowment. 

“Eleven students paying full tuition dollars would fully reimburse the money that Nike has stolen,” Tran said. 

SU is a member of both the Worker Rights Consortium and the Fair Labor Association, and has called on Nike to address the issue. 

Rachel Duffy, director of strategic partnership and licensing at Syracuse University’s Trademark and Licensing Office, said, “The university is optimistic that Nike’s response (…) and commitment to a corrective plan represents significant progress.” 

Using what Tran and SU junior Lillian Parr describe as “the sandwich method,” SILS is working to pressure Nike into reimbursing their workers rather directly than attempting to compensate them with PTO.

“You have the workers at the bottom of your supply chain pushing up and saying, ‘This is not fair,’ and then you have your students at the very top of the supply chain pushing down and saying, ‘This is not fair,’” Parr said. “The corporation in the middle, which is Nike, is kind of being pressured on both ends.” 

SILS chapters at other universities have also called on their administrations to cut ties with Nike for the same reason, and members at SU are working in collaboration with students from SUNY ESF and other SILS chapters across the country. 

SILS is one of 15 chapters across the country working to support the workers at the Hong Seng Knitting factory. 

Parr said that while working on SILS isn’t always glamorous, it’s meaningful.

“The emotional and mental well-being you get from putting work into something like this and seeing it kind of makes all of that tedious work feel so worth it at the end,” she said.

SILS is actively seeking new members who are interested in continuing this campaign. Similar efforts have already succeeded at UCLA and other schools.

“University settings aim to breed new activists, new change makers,” Tran said. “I think that it’s really important to recognize our power.”