The Case Nike , long in the vanguard of U.S. companies producing in Asia, is now leading Corporate America s charge into Vietnam. Twenty-five thousand young Vietnamese workers currently churn out a million pairs of Nike shoes every month. Nike is providing needed jobs in Vietnam. However, the lure of Vietnam is obvious. The Vietnamese press contains frequent allegations of verbal, physical, and sexual abuse of workers.
Most Nike workers are young women from poor rural areas of Vietnam.
They have no work in countryside and their families cannot support them, so they are forced to come to Ho Chi Minh City to look for work. These are young women used to working on farms, used to poor living conditions. They work in noisy, hot factories that are filled with the smell of paint and glue. Nike does not run these factories directly. Nike contractors provide many Vietnamese with jobs they would otherwise not have.