Read These Nikes Suggestions in Young's report fell short of the hopes of labor activists familiar with Nike practices. To be valid, the worker interviews must be done outside the factory by people who can guarantee workers their anonymity. More dialogue, monitoring and grievance-airing are worthwhile in theory, but will not work in practice without aggressive enforcement by Nike, which Young did not seem to advocate in his report. The current approach of having no specific punishment for violating the Code of Conduct generates the impression that the Code has no teeth. Levy a stiff monetary penalty on the contracting company whenever it violates the Code of Conduct.
Companies tend to respond well to severe monetary fines.
With so many repeated violations after only 18 months of operation in Vietnam, this is the only course of action left to demonstrate to outsiders that Nike is serious about enforcing its Code of Conduct. Enforce the 60 hour work week specified in its Code. Be a good corporate citizen in Vietnam. Nike cannot assume that creating low paying jobs is good enough. We found that as long as the workers remain within the confines of the factory, they are very fearful and are not willing to talk about their conditions to anyone.