AMY GOODMAN: And you’re listening to Democracy Now!

Yesterday, Secretary of Labor Robert Reich conducted his Fashion Industry Forum at Marymount University in Arlington, Virginia. But there were some people who were not included in that forum. While there were many corporate executives there from many of the leading corporations in this country, the workers were not allowed voice there.

There was one worker who spoke early in the morning, but there was another worker who was kept out of the meeting. She was Cicih Sukaesih, and she is an Indonesian worker who was fired from a Nike plant in Indonesia in 1992 for organizing. This is what she had to say two days ago when she was standing in front of a Nike store called Foot Locker.

CICICH SUKAESIH: [translated] In January 1993, I and 20 other workers were fired because we were accused involved in the illegal meetings and agitating the other workers to get involved in the strikes. I would like to urge the owner and the boss of Nike to pay attention to the worker in Indonesia, for instance, by increasing their wages and their welfare.

AMY GOODMAN: And that is Cicih Sukaesih. She is a worker from Indonesia fired from a Nike plant. Pacifica reporter Don Rush was at the protest where she and others spoke in front of the Foot Locker store in Washington, D.C.

DON RUSH: Nike has come under fire from human rights groups for sweatshop conditions at the plants in Indonesia. Today, 32-year-old Cicih Sukaesih, fired for organizing workers at one of the Nike plants, called for Americans to boycott the company’s shoes. She spoke through an interpreter.

CICICH SUKAESIH: [translated] Boycott is very helpful for the workers in Indonesia. And by boycotting, maybe Nike will get less order, so the bosses at Nike will ask questions for themselves why it’s happened, so maybe they will be paying more attention for the workers there.

DON RUSH: Activists charge that for years Nike’s contractors in Indonesia even failed to pay that country’s minimum wage of a dollar and a quarter a day, until a major strike. But that is not enough, says Jeff Ballinger with a group Press for Change. He says his organization and others are demanding independent monitoring of Nike factories, increasing pay to $4 a day and reinstating workers fired as a result of the strike.

JEFF BALLINGER: Our experience has been that they only address the minimum wage question after a lot of pressure, a lot of strikes by these brave workers. And the next step is to fix a lot of the other problems of abusive conditions, the verbal and physical abuse of workers, forced overtime for these workers. Pay these workers a living wage, so that they don’t have to work long into the night to — for just a subsistence level.

DON RUSH: Nike did not return Pacifica’s request for response by deadline time. The use of low-wage labor has become a major issue for many Americans, as they see their once high-paying jobs disappear across the border. And companies say they must move their operations just to keep competitive. Conrad MacKerron, a researcher on social issues for Progressive Asset Management, a brokerage firm in Oakland.

CONRAD MacKERRON: There are many jobs that were in the U.S. five or 10 years ago that have been taken overseas for a variety of reasons, and competitiveness is only one of them.

DON RUSH: For instance, MacKerron suggests that some companies move their operations overseas simply to avoid unionization. And, he adds, companies almost inevitably wind up with serious abuses.

CONRAD MacKERRON: If you’re operating here in the U.S., where you have people who expect a tradition of tolerance and respect for labor rights, environmental practices and so forth, you can’t operate a company on that cheap a margin in a Third World country and not be engaging in some abuses, I believe.

DON RUSH: Don Rush, Pacifica Network News, Washington.

AMY GOODMAN: And you’re listening to Democracy Now! I’m Amy Goodman. Joining us in the studio now is Jeff Ballinger. He is with Press for Change, which is an organization based in New Jersey that has been focusing on Nike’s role in Indonesia. Later in the program, we’ll be speaking with Medea Benjamin, who’s co-director of Global Exchange, and she is taking the Indonesian worker Cicih Sukaesih around the country to speak out at Nike stores. And we’ll also be joined by Charlie Kernaghan, who’s head of the National Labor Committee. He was at yesterday’s Fashion Industry Forum, what many are calling the Sweatshop Summit, to get some comment.

But, Jeff Ballinger, let’s continue on this discussion of Nike right now. First of all, what got you interested in Nike? And what are your main complaints against their activities in Indonesia?

JEFF BALLINGER: Well, it goes back, actually, eight years, this story, as far as my involvement, because I joined a softball team in Jakarta in 1988, and one of the guys — a few of the guys on the team were from Nike.

AMY GOODMAN: What were you doing there?

JEFF BALLINGER: I was there with the AFL-CIO, has a trade union training program, the Asian American Free Labor Institute. I was their director in Jakarta. And I had only recently arrived, and there were about three Nike guys on this team, and one of them asked me what I did. And I said, “Well, the American unions have me here to help the workers get a better deal in Indonesia.” And he narrowed his eyes, and he said, “I’m your worst nightmare.” And I just kind of laughed it off. I thought he must be joking. It was the normal business-labor banter. And then, about six months later, we got a grant from AID, a human rights grant, to monitor minimum-wage payments in Jakarta.

AMY GOODMAN: This is the Agency for International Development.

JEFF BALLINGER: Yeah, Agency for International Development. And when we — when we interviewed 6,000 or 7,000 workers from about 400 factories in the Jakarta area, it turned out that these shoe companies were the worst. And I was under the mistaken impression that there was Western management, when I first thought about these shoe companies, because they had a lot of Americans there. These guys on my softball team were one indication. Then I found out they were all — all these shoes were made by contractors, South Korean or Taiwanese contractors, who were the worst. And now, much, much later, all of us know that the South Koreans, in particular, have a reputation, from Guatemala all the way to, you know, Saipan, as the worst violators of worker rights and the most brutal managers, these South Korean bosses. My point is, Nike knew exactly what it was getting when they brought these — enticed these companies from Taiwan and South Korea over to China and Indonesia. 1987, '88 is when that move occurred to Nike, was producing most of its shoes, virtually all of its shoes, in Taiwan and South Korea from the mid-'70s into the mid-’80s. But when democracy started to come to South Korea and Taiwan, they moved most of their production to China and Indonesia.

AMY GOODMAN: And what about the treatment of the workers in Indonesia?

JEFF BALLINGER: Well, let me give you one example of what we found. These workers are striking very often in these factories, and this is one indication that the conditions were never very good, never acceptable, even to these people who some people say are better off in these factories than having no job. They were demanding better treatment and a living wage for a long time. So, for four or five years, we had to put pressure. The workers put pressure, and there was pressure in the press, for them, their contractors, Nike’s contractors, just to pay the minimum wage. And what we found in 1994, when they finally — an edict came down from Nike in 1994 that they finally pay the minimum wage. And these contractors complied. They weren’t very happy about it, because they knew they could probably get workers in the factory for 30 or 40 cents less per day. If you have 6,000 workers, you know that adds up. So…

AMY GOODMAN: What is the minimum wage we’re talking about?

JEFF BALLINGER: We’re talking about now $2.30 a day roughly.

AMY GOODMAN: $2.30 a day. Jeff Ballinger, I didn’t see you yesterday at the fashion industry summit that Labor Secretary Robert Reich called out in Virginia at Marymount University. You’re a longtime activist on these issues of corporations abroad, on sweatshops. Why weren’t you there?

JEFF BALLINGER: Well, that’s a little distressing to me. I let the Department of Labor know over three weeks ago that Cicih Sukaesih was coming here. I had hoped that she’d be able to say — give some brief remarks. I know they had pretty much a domestic focus. But, my god, look at the garments sold in this country. They’re 80% sold from abroad. So, I think that if you’re going to have a sweatshop summit and you have a worker coming from 12,000 miles away, you ought to give her five minutes to tell the audience, and the industry people there especially, what’s going on and why she was fired and why her case is now before the Supreme Court in Indonesia. And I never heard back from the Department of Labor, and I never got an invitation myself for this summit. So, we went out there uninvited in the morning and were told to leave the campus, that it was private property and that we weren’t invited, and we were shown the door.

AMY GOODMAN: Well, again, as I said, in little while, we’re going to expand this from Indonesia to look at Central America, as well, and sweatshops there, with Charlie Kernaghan. But I wanted to bring in now the voice of the head of corporate communications of Nike. It’s based in Oregon. She’s Donna Gibbs. She was at the Fashion Industry Forum. I got a chance to speak to her just a few minutes ago about your complaints, Jeff, as well as the situation for workers in Indonesia. This is Nike spokesperson Donna Gibbs.

DONNA GIBBS: Well, Nike has had manufacturing — subcontracted manufacturing operations in Indonesia for about six years now. We’ve been manufacturing our shoes all along in Asia. In fact, the very first Nike shoe was made in Japan 25 years ago. It then progressed to South Korea and Taiwan, where we still have the largest presence of any athletic footwear company. And today we’re manufacturing in those two countries, in addition to Indonesia, China and Vietnam.

AMY GOODMAN: Why did you choose Indonesia as a place to make your sneaker?

DONNA GIBBS: Well, you know, interestingly, if you go back to the late '80s, we were actually asked to join an organization called the US-ASEAN Business Council, which was the vision of Cyrus Vance to create this organization to bring a larger business presence to Indonesia and other parts of the ASEAN region, to replace a reduced military presence. And it was actually Charles Robinson, who sits on Nike's board of directors, who first formed the US ASEAN Business Council. And so, we were encouraged, both by the council and the U.S. State Department, to look at economic development opportunities there. And that’s when Nike and its partners in — you know, its production partners in the Asian region looked at Indonesia as a potential opportunity.

AMY GOODMAN: Donna Gibbs, in a few minutes, we’re going to be joined by Jeff Ballinger, who is with the organization Press for Change and has been a fierce critic of Nike’s operations in Indonesia. And we’re going to also hear from a worker named Cicih, who was fired from an Indonesian — from a subcontract — who was fired from a plant that was making Nike sneakers in Indonesia because she was attempting to organize in that plant. What are your — what are your responses, since you’ve heard Jeff Ballinger’s, you know, comments before, to his criticisms, for example, his call for an increase in the wage?

DONNA GIBBS: You know what? I’m going to have to put you on hold for just a moment. There’s somebody at my door.

AMY GOODMAN: Yeah, you could just respond.

DONNA GIBBS: Well, that particular case dates back to 1992, and it’s currently before the Supreme Court of Indonesia. The case is actually between the striking workers and the minister or the Bureau of Manpower of Indonesia. I think it’s important to point out that that particular factory that she worked in has since been taken over by different operators. It is now managed by an Indonesian — Indonesian management. The abusive practices that they allege have ceased, and the minimum wage is being paid. And in fact, on average, the wages in that facility are twice the minimum national wage. So, I think this is proof of the benefit that Nike brings in helping to oversee these kinds of facilities and practices and upgrading — upgrading practices over time.

AMY GOODMAN: There was a piece in The New York Times a couple of months ago about a strike in one of the plants that made Nike running shoes. And when the workers struck, the Indonesian military moved in and detained them in the plant. What —

DONNA GIBBS: That is not true. That is not true. And Ed Gargan of The New York Times was given the facts, both by us and by the factory management. And I’m going to have to — someone is at my door again. Can you hold on?

AMY GOODMAN: OK. You were just saying that that’s not true.

DONNA GIBBS: Yeah. What happened was the factory there implemented a new bonus policy for one of the areas of the factory. Some of the workers did not like the new bonus policy, and they barred the work area. They were intimidating and taunting their co-workers. So it was factory security, not the military, that escorted these workers to a conference room, where they met with factory management.

AMY GOODMAN: The factory security, were they Indonesian?

DONNA GIBBS: Yeah.

AMY GOODMAN: Well, in Indonesia, Indonesian security is one large apparatus, whether it’s Indonesian police, the military.

DONNA GIBBS: No, no, no. These are private — these are privately employed individuals that work in the factory. They have nothing to do with the military. They are private individuals, just like the workers in the facility are private individuals, that are hired by factory management.

AMY GOODMAN: But isn’t that a problem if they were — if the workers were taken into a room and kept there?

DONNA GIBBS: They were taken to a conference room to meet with factory management to discuss their grievances. They were barred from returning to the work area, where they were attempting to disrupt other workers. They were not locked in. They were allowed to leave at any time. They were paid their full wages. They were given free meals. And each day, they reported to the conference room to continue discussions with factory management. And Nike representatives were there to witness it.

AMY GOODMAN: What is your comment, overall, about the critics who say that the reason, really, that Nike — and not just Nike; Reebok and other companies — are in Indonesia is because it’s a fiercely repressive regime, one of the worst in the world, it doesn’t allow union organizing, and that is the kind of environment that would allow a company to come in, pay very low wages and profit handsomely?

DONNA GIBBS: I would say that you need to take a look at the recent U.S. State Department report on Indonesia, which indicates that workers have a right to associate. I can tell you, in the 12 facilities in which Nike operates, or Nike has subcontracted operations in Indonesia right now, there are both formal and informal worker associations. There is labor representation in every one of those facilities.

AMY GOODMAN: Is there a union, outside of the only union that Indonesia allows, which is the state union?

DONNA GIBBS: There is a national union. And there is also — there are also both formal and informal worker association groups in each of these facilities representing the interests of the workers as a whole to management.

AMY GOODMAN: And that is Nike spokesperson Donna Gibbs talking about Nike’s contractors in Indonesia. You’re listening to Democracy Now! This follows yesterday’s sweatshop summit that was held by Secretary of Labor Robert Reich. When we come back, we’ll get a response from activist Jeff Ballinger with Press for Change, and we’ll be joined by Charlie Kernaghan, talking about sweatshops in Latin America. This is Democracy Now! Stay with us.

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AMY GOODMAN: I’m Amy Goodman, and this is Democracy Now!, Pacifica Radio’s daily grassroots election show. And we’re talking today about sweatshops, sweatshops that are run by U.S. corporations or their surrogates, their subcontractors around the world. We just heard from Donna Gibbs, the Nike spokesperson, who was at yesterday’s sweatshop summit. And we’re joined by Jeff Ballinger from Press for Change, who has made Nike a focus of his activities.

What’s your response to some of the things that Donna Gibbs said? I mean, she says that they pay workers more than the minimum wage, that they’re — in fact, later in the interview, a part we won’t play, she says that they’re — these are very sought-after jobs, the Nike workers have privileged positions, they get health, they get transportation benefits, in addition to their wages — of how much a day?

JEFF BALLINGER: It’s $2.35 cents a day is the minimum wage currently in Indonesia. And it’s ludicrous to think that these contractors are paying much more than that, maybe 10 or 15% more in a few cases, because they fought bitterly and complained even publicly in The Economist in 1994, as I mentioned earlier, when the edict came down from Nike, finally, pay the minimum wage, when their contractors were finally forced to pay the minimum wage. They complained that, look, their margins don’t go up. Indonesia is referred to in the business press as a buyer’s paradise for these companies, because they know what all the components cost, they know what the shipping costs are, they know what all of the costs are. And when these contractors are in competition with one another for 100,000 Air Pegasus or something, then, you know, their margins are pretty thin. They’re making money, but they’re going to squeeze those workers, because they’re paying bribes to operate in this kind of union-free environment.

AMY GOODMAN: She said it’s not a union-free environment, that they have official and nonofficial labor activity going on.

JEFF BALLINGER: Well, anyone who’s read the State Department’s human rights reports know that there’s a lot of wishful thinking going on in there. And she referred to one thing that said that there are — now, the government, which has banned the only true independent trade union in Indonesia and jailed its leader for over two years, has come up with some artifice, say, independent associations. And it’s not — it’s not what the workers need to make their conditions better.

AMY GOODMAN: Now, one thing Donna Gibbs said is there are 200,000 Nike workers in Indonesia. Now, according to figures I’ve heard, they make less than $20 million a year altogether, which is the amount that Michael Jordan gets paid to be a spokesperson or symbol for Nike.

JEFF BALLINGER: Those numbers — this industry is changing so rapidly, and they’re expanding so quickly, that those — that comparison between what Michael Jordan earns and what all these workers in Indonesia earns is a bit old. It’s a couple of years old. So, I think the total wage bill for the shoe factories, and I just watch the shoe factories, maybe about 22,000 workers in that area, that the wage bill is probably about $50 million. So, it’s not quite half of what Michael Jordan’s — he’s not getting quite half of what all the workers in Indonesia making shoes are getting.

AMY GOODMAN: Has Michael Jordan responded?

JEFF BALLINGER: Michael Jordan would only talk when — they were in the middle of the finals, the NBA Finals, and he said, “Look, I’m a little busy right now,” seeming to leave the door open. But he has not chosen to come in off the golf course and address this issue, now that he has three months to relax and he could examine this. And in a heartbeat, if he paid some attention, I think there would be some major changes. I think all he’d have to do is kind of step up, and we’d really have some action.

I just want to say one thing about my — I’m not a single voice out there. Sometimes Donna Gibbs and others at Nike want to say there’s this — you know, this strident critic of theirs out there. I want to show you a book called Just Do It by Donald Katz, that’s two years old now. But he was given real access to the highest levels of this company. And it was a very friendly book, very friendly to Nike.

AMY GOODMAN: Right. I know that when he appeared in Oregon at a Portland bookstore, Phil Knight came, the CEO of Nike, to be with him as he read from his book and signed them.

JEFF BALLINGER: They appeared together on The Charlie Rose Show. This book is recommended to young people who call a Nike 800 number and ask about information about the company. They recommend this book. He describes a scene in Indonesia as “management by terror.” That’s Donald Katz. That’s not Jeff Ballinger. That’s not Medea Benjamin. That’s not, you know, these other critics in Europe. They’ve been going on for two or three years, this company’s been taking heat over in Europe.

AMY GOODMAN: Well, we’re going to talk more about sneaker companies like Nike and Reebok, who do their dirty work in Indonesia. But I wanted to expand the conversation right now. Michael Jordan, the NBA star, the basketball player, did not show up at yesterday’s sweatshop summit, but there was one celebrity who did, and she was Kathy Lee Gifford. Actually, the day before, she testified at a hearing in the House that was held by New Jersey Republican conservative Congressmember Chris Smith, who has been speaking out quite fiercely on child labor and banning, doing away with child labor. And just before she testified at that hearing, she held a news conference, and I got a chance to question her about her activities. People may know about the whole Kathie Lee Gifford saga. A couple of months ago, Charlie Kernaghan of the National Labor Committee testified in Congress that in 1995 her clothing line, that is sold by Wal-Mart, the Kathie Lee line of clothes, was made in a sweatshop in Honduras and was being produced partly by child labor. This caused a great deal of distress to Kathie Lee Gifford, and she went on her show Live with Regis and Kathie Lee, and she cried. She blasted Charlie Kernaghan, said he was a person simply seeking celebrity. Since then, though, she has admitted that this happened, although she said it did not happen when — she said she did not know about it. And so, she has become — she says she will be a leader speaking out against child labor. At her press conference, I did have a chance to talk to her.

AMY GOODMAN: Ms. Gifford, there is an Indonesian worker in the room who was fired from Nike in 1992 in Indonesia because she tried to organize. Will the organization that you set up also monitor the right of the workers to organize? That’s the first part of the question. The second part is, before you took on this issue, it was the work of human rights and labor activists.

KATHIE LEE GIFFORD: Yes.

AMY GOODMAN: You are here because Charlie Kernaghan made this a major issue. Will you apologize to him for smearing him on national television?

KATHIE LEE GIFFORD: On the contrary, he’s apologized to me for smearing me in the halls of Congress.

AMY GOODMAN: But will you also apologize to him?

KATHIE LEE GIFFORD: We met, and we have a good understanding. I understand why he basically picked me out of a great group of people that have loaned their name to products to make a statement. And I didn’t have a problem with making a statement about something that’s wrong out there. I had a problem with the manner in which he did it, and I took great offense at it. He knows it. We have a great understanding now. We’re working together. You know, at the time, I felt like the victim, because I was raising money for crack and AIDS babies in New York City, and I felt like I was doing more than my part. So, to be singled out unjustly was, I think, the wrong route to take.

But that’s way behind us, and — and I almost see it now as something that is a privilege to be a part of, because, as the congressman said, it’s hard to get a group of journalists to come into a room and for the consumers to take notice of these kinds of issues until there is somebody like myself involved. So, it hasn’t been pleasant, but recently it’s become exciting, because we’re seeing legislation passed. We’re seeing Congressman Smith’s legislation being presented.

I am sure that it’s going to pass, because when people find out about these things, the American public is going to say, “Wait a minute, this is wrong. We don’t want to be a part of it.” I know I don’t want my name personally going on anything that’s made in an exploitive way. Frank and I have been raising millions of dollars to help little kids. We don’t want to hurt any of them. And we don’t want to hurt an adult, either. We don’t want anybody to be hurt in the manufacture of a product. And as long as my name is on a product, I’ll do everything I can to make sure it doesn’t happen.

AMY GOODMAN: Will your organization monitor the right to organize, as well?

KATHIE LEE GIFFORD: I think that’s a basic right. I would certainly support anyone’s right to unionize, absolutely.

AMY GOODMAN: And that was Kathie Lee Gifford at her news conference two days ago, just before she testified before a House subcommittee on child labor. And we’re joined by Charlie Kernaghan, who is the director of the National Labor Committee, which is based in New York. Charlie Kernaghan made this a major issue, got Kathie Lee Gifford to speak out about child labor. What do you think of her response, Charlie?

CHARLES KERNAGHAN: Well —

AMY GOODMAN: Are you working together, by the way?

CHARLES KERNAGHAN: Not too directly. I would say that the meeting that she was referring to, where I was — when we met in Archbishop Cardinal O’Connor’s — the cardinal’s residency in New York, and we met with the 15-year-old Wendy Diaz from Honduras, who had produced the pants, the Kathie Lee pants. And what actually happened is, Kathie Lee’s response to Wendy, when Wendy was telling the story about working from 8:00 in the morning to 9:00 at night, being screamed at, working under armed guards, what it’s like to live on 31 cents an hour, what it’s like to have to raise your hand to use the bathroom, and that’s limited to twice a day, what it’s like to be fired if you try to organize or to raise your voice to defend yourself, what it’s like to come out at 9:00 at night, little kids in a dangerous neighborhood without public transportation, and run home in groups together, whistling because of their fear, what it’s like to live in a house with 11 other people in one single room, this sort of thing, I could see that Kathie Lee’s response was pretty much the same as U.S. people. I mean, she was just floored. It was a very interesting meeting, because Kathie Lee was, of course, with her handlers, the public relations people, with the attorneys, with company representatives. And here was this 15-year-old from Honduras who had never traveled more than 10 miles from her home. Here was this 15-year-old looking at Kathie Lee, and Kathie Lee is apologizing to the 15-year-old and saying, “Wendy, I’m sorry. If I had known that these conditions existed — you must believe me, I didn’t know. Now that I know, I’m going to do everything I can to work with you and work with other people and clean up the conditions. It won’t happen again. I give you my word.”

And then the lawyers started grilling the 15-year-old, and the PR people started to grill the 15-year-old. And it was amazing. I mean, she was handling all the questions they were asking her. “What’s a living wage?” You know, and here she is, arguing with, you know, million-dollar attorneys about what a living wage is in Honduras. And they were throwing her trick questions. The public relations people said, “Wendy, suppose Kathie Lee sets up a watchdog group. Would that help the workers? A watchdog group to monitor the factory, would that be useful to the workers in Honduras?” And Wendy looks back, because the issue of cost was independent monitoring. “Would the companies be allowed to hire their own employers and own employees, who would so-called, you know, monitor the factories, as opposed to local, independent human rights organizations monitoring the factories?” And little Wendy looks back at the million-dollar PR people and says, “No, we would prefer independent human rights monitoring by the Committee for the Defense of Human Rights. And she took on all their questions and wiped the floor with them. So, it was a very interesting meeting.

AMY GOODMAN: Well, Charlie, this last point is a very interesting one, because it’s one that came up repeatedly yesterday at the sweatshop summit. You had the corporate executives there from Wal-Mart, from Kmart. You had people from Nicole Miller and Liz Claiborne. And the issue of independent monitoring came up, and it sounded like there was a kind of consensus that there’s going to be a private industry, a new private industry that’s growing, which is the monitoring industry, which is not human rights groups, which is not labor groups, that will be employed by the companies, like Kmart and Wal-Mart, like, in fact, Nike is doing right now with an accounting firm called Ernst & Young in Indonesia, which nobody is happy with. Proprietary information of the corporation, how can you trust it?

CHARLES KERNAGHAN: Oh, you can’t. I mean, it was interesting for, I think, a lot of people yesterday to watch the companies squirm, because when the issue came out of the bottle, they can’t put it back in. So, I was sitting there, and, quite honestly, it was very interesting. And they were trying to put this issue back — the sweatshop issue back into the bottle, and they couldn’t do it. And so, now they’re really squirming, and we’re watching them wiggle, and we’re watching them, you know, go through these contortions. And they’re coming up with this idea of so-called independent monitoring, which would be privatized. And they’re going to be farming it out to detective agencies. Kathie Lee Gifford mentioned the Kroll agency in New York. It’s a detective agency. They’re mentioning Ernst & Young, Arthur Andersen, all the big auditing firms.

Well, of course, they can’t audit. They can’t monitor. And Walt Disney just recently proved that in Haiti, where we were confronting Walt Disney with paying starvation wages, treating their workers like animals in Haiti, firing the workers if they dare speak up. When we confronted Walt Disney with this, Walt Disney sent down one of their own investigators to Haiti, you know. And in walks this guy from California with a crew cut and starts demanding to see the books of the company. And, of course, you know, that’s something, to take a look at the books. But then he attempts to speak to the workers. Well, what are the workers in a place like Haiti, living at the edge of misery, the edge of starvation — what are they going to say to a U.S. executive walking around the shop floor with the manager with him, with the local management with him? Every worker is smart enough to tell the U.S. boss exactly what the U.S. boss wants to hear, so that they keep their job. So, the thought that Ernst & Young or, you know, a detective agency or Arthur Anderson — the thought that these groups could monitor, be even referred to as independent monitors, it’s out of the question. And we need to kill that. We need to knock that right on its back immediately.

AMY GOODMAN: Jeff Ballinger with Press for Change, you’ve seen it in Indonesia. You’ve seen Ernst & Young, this accounting firm, do the monitoring. What do they do there?

JEFF BALLINGER: Well, it’s been going on for two years, over two years now. And I think Nike even realizes that when journalists give no credence to these — what they do is they trickle out the information that makes them look not so bad. They would take sort of, if you can call this, best practices among these 12 contractor factories, and say, “Well, the workers are getting this.” Well, the journalists might ask, “Well, which workers, where, are getting this?” And then it kind of breaks down. The system breaks down, because, as you say, it’s proprietary information. They’re not going to let us look at the raw data, you know, human rights critics or journalists. So, Nike started themselves, I think, are trying to — starting to look at this Ernst & Young deal and say, “Look, we thought we’d get cover from this, but we don’t get anything from paying Ernst & Young to do this false monitoring.”

AMY GOODMAN: What about human rights groups in Indonesia and nongovernmental organizations? How do they feel about the Ernst & Young accounting?

JEFF BALLINGER: Well, this is where — this is where Nike is in the — is in the worst of all possible worlds for them, because they won’t agree to independent monitoring, but they have independent monitoring. We have four NGOs, nongovernmental organizations, in Indonesia, that are all over these shoe factories and talking to workers outside the factory, where they’re not intimidated, and getting the truth. So, Nike has no ameliorative steps it can take, because it’s not in an independent monitoring arrangement. It’s just getting all the mud splattered on it from the real story that’s coming from these groups in Indonesia.

AMY GOODMAN: Do you think there would ever be a situation where the corporations would actually hire — and I don’t even know if this is a good idea — human rights groups? Because then the corporations would be paying human rights groups to do the monitoring.

JEFF BALLINGER: Clearly, there are — there are problems, but they can work out problems. When piracy was a problem for these shoe companies, they hired spies, put them in the factories and counted where the — which direction the shoes were going. They knew which contractors were stealing from them. When the contractors are stealing from workers, it’s not so urgent for them. But they can work out a way. These are big companies.

AMY GOODMAN: Charlie Kernaghan?

CHARLES KERNAGHAN: One interesting thing that came out of the conference yesterday, the sweatshop conference, was the companies now have added another category that they have to deal with. They mention the mainline media occasionally, when the main line media investigates their conditions in the United States, their operations, or offshore. They mention the U.S. government. For the first time, yesterday they started mentioning human rights organizations as one of the groups that they have to please if they’re to do business, which addresses exactly what Jeff just said. They can set up any phony operation they want, but they can’t empower that operation to reach the U.S. people. And the only reason that meeting ever took place yesterday was because the people in the United States got a little glimpse of how these big companies operate, and that glimpse was enough to bring the companies to their knees, at least for a little while. And we need to keep up that pressure. It’s all driven by pressure.

AMY GOODMAN: Now, it’s interesting, your strategy in bringing workers around, taking workers from sweatshops in Honduras and El Salvador and bringing them to the United States. In a minute, we’re going to be hearing from Medea Benjamin, who’s doing that very thing with this fired Nike worker. She’s headed to New York tomorrow and then will be going out to Oregon, where Nike headquarters is, as well as Chicago, to find Michael Jordan. But you did this with the Gap. And yesterday, the Gap was mentioned at the news conference that Robert Reich held in the middle of the sweatshop summit. He was there with Kathie Lee Gifford and also two Wal-Mart executives. And I asked them if labor organizing — I asked them if human rights groups would be considered as monitors. Now, Wal-Mart got up, and they said, “Well, in fact, in the last three weeks, we have been talking to the Gap.” Now, you brought up — you brought the world’s attention to the Gap. You ended up negotiating with the Gap. In fact, are they allowing human rights groups to monitor their plant in El Salvador?

CHARLES KERNAGHAN: I think the Gap has come a long way. In fact, the Gap is being — its contractors’ factories in El Salvador are being monitored by the Jesuit university, the human rights department of the Jesuit university, by the Catholic Archdiocese’s human rights office, Tutela Legal, and by a labor research group called Centra. So, here we have the model, or like Jeff was speaking about, the nongovernmental organizations with tremendous prestige on the ground. And they have the hearts and souls of the people on the ground.

Going into a factory and taking a quick stroll around a factory teaches you almost nothing. They tried to make a big deal of that yesterday, but that’s a nothing. You need the workers’ trust, so that they’ll come to you with the real problems, with the real repression, with the real violence.

So, it is up and working, and Gap is beginning to say some interesting things. Someone asked the Gap, “Well, why are you doing this?” And the Gap said, “Well, no one believes us anymore. No one believes the companies any longer.” So, the Gap is, in fact, going to expand its contractors in El Salvador to take advantage of independent monitoring, to get this off their back. And we’re moving on to Honduras with other companies, as well.

AMY GOODMAN: Charlie Kernaghan, we’re going to be back in a second, in actually 60 seconds, and then we’re going to join with Medea Benjamin in learning about what she’s doing and also what you did with the Gap, what Jeff Ballinger has been doing on workers in Indonesia, and what grassroots action can be done in this country to bring more and more attention to this issue, that’s not only an issue for sweatshop workers abroad, but an issue for workers here who lose their jobs to those sweatshops in other countries. You’re listening to Democracy Now! We’ll be back in a minute.

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AMY GOODMAN: I’m Amy Goodman, and this is Democracy Now!, the program that dares to ask the questions the corporate media won’t. And we’re joined by three guests. Charlie Kernaghan is director of the National Labor Committee in New York. Jeff Ballinger joins us from New Jersey. He heads an organization called Press for Change. And we’ve just been joined by Medea Benjamin, who is co-director of Global Exchange, which is a San Francisco-based organization. I heard about Medea years ago as she did her work in Chiapas in Mexico, as she was there finding out about what was happening with the Zapatistas and the Zapatista uprising. She has really gone around the world working for human rights, and now has taken up the issue of sweatshop labor, particularly Nike sweatshop labor in Indonesia. Why don’t you tell us, Medea, what it is that you’re doing with Cicih Sukaesih, who we just heard from at the beginning of the show, the young Indonesian worker who worked in a Nike plant until she was fired for union organizing in 1992?

MEDEA BENJAMIN: Well, we followed what Charlie had did by bringing Wendy Diaz here, and thought that that was an absolutely brilliant strategy, that the media likes it, but, more important, Americans, when they hear from real people, they start having real feelings. And we thought, “Wow, you know, we should do that with some other areas.” And then we saw the columns that Bob Herbert did in The New York Times about Nike, which were really — there were four in a row. And if people have a chance to go back and look at them, they should get a hold of them, because they were so hard-hitting.

AMY GOODMAN: In fact, the last one was last Friday.

MEDEA BENJAMIN: Yes. And he did a piece on Cicih before she got here. And then we heard Jeff Ballinger on Pacific Radio and thought, “Aha, Nike is the perfect target to go after, and we should follow what Charlie and the National Labor Committee had done, using that same strategy of bringing workers here.”

AMY GOODMAN: You know, it’s interesting. For so long, corporations have benefited from globalization, going to far-flung places, setting up, and now it’s being used against them, because there is a message coming from those places, and it’s a global message. And they didn’t count on the power of the grassroots being able to be heard in the way that they have reached out for many years.

MEDEA BENJAMIN: Well, it’s a very powerful message. And even yesterday at that entire forum, they had one worker all day long, and she was very powerful. She was from a New York sweatshop. And when she gave her testimony, people had to sort of perk up and start listening. So —

AMY GOODMAN: But Cicih wasn’t allowed.

MEDEA BENJAMIN: No, Cicih, wasn’t allowed in. That was too much to have two workers. But it’s been amazing. We just — Cicih has only been here for a couple of days, and the press has been incredibly interested. All of a sudden, Nike is really squirming now. There have been people like Jeff who have been doing this for years and years and years. Other groups, like a Canadian group called Development and Peace, that has gotten over 80,000 signatures sent to Nike, calling on them to do independent monitoring. Other groups around the country who have been protesting around Nike, but now the media is interested. So, we’re taking Cicih around. We’re on our way to New York, actually, this afternoon, then going to —

AMY GOODMAN: You’ll have a press conference, what, tomorrow?

MEDEA BENJAMIN: Tomorrow.

AMY GOODMAN: In front of the Nike Town that’s being built?

MEDEA BENJAMIN: Yes, we are going to be outside of Nike Town, which is on East 57th Street, tomorrow.

AMY GOODMAN: Right next to Trump Towers?

MEDEA BENJAMIN: Right. Then we’re going to be going on to Chicago, the home of Michael Jordan, and then to Nike headquarters.

AMY GOODMAN: Do you have plans to meet with him?

MEDEA BENJAMIN: Well, we’ve been trying to. You know, he has, as Jeff said earlier, not been responding. But we want to increase the pressure on him and then go directly to Nike headquarters, where they have been reluctant to respond, as well, although I think they’re being forced to respond right now, the fact that Donna Gibbs gave you the interview and gave a number of interviews yesterday. Previously, they’ve been very — they’ve been very reticent about giving out interviews.

AMY GOODMAN: Now, they are under a lot of pressure in Oregon. You’re going to Beaverton, Nike headquarters, right outside of Portland. Jeff Ballinger, maybe you can tell us about this. And this is quite an amazing phenomenon, with both Nike and Reebok, that make many of their sneakers in Indonesia. Are they buying up the athletic facilities of public universities, like University of Michigan, University of — that’s Nike, University of Wisconsin, that’s Reebok? And now in Oregon, Phil Knight, the CEO of Nike, has given, what, $25 million to his university, his alma mater?

JEFF BALLINGER: That’s a gift. The $25 million from Phil Knight is a gift. The rest are strictly business for this company. University of Michigan has an $8 million deal with Nike, that the trustees are actually meeting on Thursday. And I think at the last trustees meeting, somebody was waving around this Bob Herbert column and said, “Who are we hooked up with?” So…

AMY GOODMAN: Is it true that when the athletes are at these athletic facilities, the college athletic facilities, they have to wear the logo of either Nike or Reebok, depending on who’s bought the athletic facility?

JEFF BALLINGER: We have some of the contracts, and they’re — they go into great detail about how these athletes should not deface them or cover them in any way, the logos on their shoulder pads or their T-shirts or whatever, yes.

AMY GOODMAN: But there is one person who has been speaking out — a number, actually, around the country, but in Portland, on the Portland school board. How much has Nike offered the Portland schools, which are in very bad shape?

JEFF BALLINGER: In April, Nike announced they’re going to give a half a million dollars to the Portland schools, which are really strapped. And everything was fine until this June issue of Life magazine came out with the picture of the youngster sewing up a Nike soccer ball in Pakistan. And a Chinese American member of the school board in Portland said, “Hey, I don’t think it’s right for our kids to benefit from the sweat of Asian kids.” And a lot of people in Portland area agreed with him and said, “Look, we know our schools are in trouble, but maybe we ought to look at this gift.” And next week, they have to decide. The school board has to decide whether to give it back. Now, if the students out at the University of Oregon smell blood in the water, who knows? They might ask to give this $25 million back to Phil Knight. I don’t know what’s going to happen there.

AMY GOODMAN: This Chinese American school board member, he met with Phil Knight at Nike headquarters?

JEFF BALLINGER: Ten days after Joe Tam made this very principled stand, he and two other members of the Portland school board met with Phil Knight, after seeing some of their other top corporate officials. And one glimmer of hope I see here is that they talked not to public relations people, but to production people. And for the last six or seven years, journalists have only been able to talk to public relations people, who are just spinning this thing. They don’t know a thing about production. They don’t really know what’s going on in these factories. But the encouraging thing to me is that, you know, this Joseph Tam actually got to meet with production people. And at the top of his list of demands was independent monitoring.

AMY GOODMAN: And was he satisfied with his meeting with Phil Knight? What did he say at the end?

JEFF BALLINGER: The report I have is, at the end, he said to Phil Knight, “Look, I’ve heard what you’ve said and what your people have said, and I’ve read what the journalists and the human rights groups have said.” And he said, Joseph Tam said, “Look, you haven’t convinced me that they’re wrong.” That was what he said at the end of the meeting.

AMY GOODMAN: So, they will — the school board will decide next week about whether to accept the Nike money. You’re listening to Democracy Now!, folks, and that’s what we’re talking about, attempts at democracy now. So, Medea Benjamin, you then head to Oregon, and you will try to meet with Phil Knight and corporate executives there at Nike with Cicih?

MEDEA BENJAMIN: Yes. And then there’s also a number of groups affiliated with the local Amnesty that have been doing a lot of good work. In fact, they’ve been leafletting in front of Nike Town there for quite a while. So we’re going to hook up with them. It’s amazing. All over the country, there is a coalition of groups coming together. And I would say, you know, thanks a lot to Charlie’s work, people in the labor movement, the human rights movement, the religious community, youth groups, women’s groups, you know, this touches on so many different networks.

AMY GOODMAN: You know, one group that I was just talking to earlier is the East Timor Action Network. And in fact, they’re having protests all over the country today, in San Francisco, in Los Angeles, in New York, in Washington, because today also happens to be the 20th anniversary of Indonesia announcing it had annexed East Timor. This was six months after it had invaded East Timor, and now has killed 200,000 people. So, I know that the East Timor Action Network has also been working on this issue of Reebok and Nike taking over university facilities, athletic facilities, and saying that we should not be profiting, especially student — ETAN activists are saying we should not be profiting from corporations that are giving legitimacy to the Indonesian dictatorship. In fact, I believe Suharto went to East Timor today to celebrate the fact that they have taken over East Timor, although it has never been recognized as being taken over by the United Nations, and the people continue to be persecuted there. Charlie, how did you first come up with this idea — I mean, it seems like such a simple and obvious one — of bringing the workers to this country? When you did it against the Gap, it caused an amazing stir. How many cities did you go to?

CHARLES KERNAGHAN: Well, we were in over 20 cities across the United States and Canada. And it was a very simple idea. In the past, what had happened is, even if unions brought up workers from Latin America, say, they always brought the union presidents. And you have this bureaucratic talk. You’d have a 50-year-old Latino man sitting there telling you about the ins and outs of the labor movement, and everybody would go to sleep. And, of course, this was totally ineffective. We always thought the best voice would be the most direct voice, in a sense, the most innocent voice, you know, the most uncompromised voice. And these young women, we’ve brought them up for quite some time now, from El Salvador and Honduras. They’ve been amazingly effective. They are so brilliant, and they’re so compassionate. They’re so motivated.

And the other aspect of this is that even a lot of us in the work grow cynical, that maybe the U.S. people don’t care, that maybe the U.S. people are as out of it as they sometimes appear as or that they’re as low as the corporations want them to be, and as the corporations go after their lowest instincts. We find it, in actual reality, to be very different. The U.S. people are very decent. And when they hear these stories face to face, like what’s going to happen now with this Indonesian worker, they are angry. They’re really angry. And that’s what happened with the Gap campaign. When we went across the country with these two young kids from El Salvador and Honduras, people not only heard the stories, but they were very moved. They were emotional about it. They were angry. They got off their seats. People started giving up their Saturdays to go leaflet. And they took over the campaign. All across the country, they spontaneously started to grow up in grammar schools, high schools, colleges, women’s groups, unions, religious organizations. In fact, when we signed the agreement with the Gap in December, late December of last year, it was completely out of control.

AMY GOODMAN: How did you get the Gap to negotiate? I mean, in fact, weren’t they advised by corporations around this country not to cave to you, to the National Labor Committee, to labor and human rights activists, because that could start the ball rolling?

CHARLES KERNAGHAN: Well, I think it was pretty clear that what the advice that the Gap was receiving, particularly from the Retail Association and those sorts of groups, was, “Lay off. Don’t deal with these people. You know, it’s getting cold. It’s winter time. They’re all going to go home. Demonstrators usually get tired. The holidays come. They’re going to go home to eat. Just hold on.” That was actually the advice that they were receiving. And they just kept getting pounded and pounded and pounded.

The Gap tried to get out of it at one point by saying, “All right, all right, all right. We’re going to pull out of El Salvador.” And they would think that would be an answer to it. The U.S. people came back and said, “That’s no answer. You don’t cut and run. You know, exploiting young women or teenage girls for years and then just cutting and run, that’s no answer. Go back and use your work to clean up the factory and put in independent monitoring.” So, then, a whole additional campaign came on to drive the Gap back into El Salvador.

And we had a demonstration in New York in December, where it was a good demonstration. Lots of UNITE people from the textile union, lots of construction workers came. It was real fiery. All of a sudden — and we had college students that dressed as animals, like animals for human rights, and the Gap doesn’t pay wages that would feed a chicken. And we had people dressed as chickens and bears. And we had Santa Claus there and all this kind of stuff. Really interesting. Then, all of a sudden, we heard this loud screaming and chanting. And we looked up, and across the street were coming 40 young teenage girls from Notre Dame Catholic girls’ high school in New York. They needed the permission of their mothers and their parents to come to the demonstration. They had to get waivers from their parents. They came across the street chanting and joined the demonstration. And you could see, like, the eyes of the cops. Like, what was going on here? And I looked inside the Gap store at one time, and I could see the management was going completely nuts. How do you deal with 40 high school girls in New York City demonstrating in front of your store?

And this just started happening all across the country. I agree with what’s been said. There’s an enormous network out there that could do tremendous work. And the companies are going to take notice of it.