On the other hand Nike has cut orders to subcontractors like Samyang, a South Korean-owned factory in Vietnam, in response to the gains workers were making in organising and collective bargaining. At the same time, Nike has increased orders to Yue Yuen, a Taiwanese-owned subcontractor, which is increasing the production capacity of its factories in Indonesia and Vietnam. For Nike, Yue Yuen has emerged as a 'reliable' subcontractor because it can ensure both lower prices and more effective repression of workers. An increase in wages or improvement of conditions for workers is thus treated by the Nike production network as 'damage'. As with any network, the damaged part is bypassed and made redundant.
Production flows 'through the channel of least resistance'.
It is important to note that, unlike purely informational and communications networks such as the Internet, the Nike network contains a definite command structure. This combines what Greenfield calls 'hyper-flexibility' with a powerful centre that has strong ultimate authority over the way the network operates. There can be no room for complacency for workers in the developed countries either. In manufacturing, they have already been largely bypassed in favour of workers forced to work for much lower wages and under worse conditions in the developing nations. Similar pressures for 'hyper-flexibility' are now asserting themselves in the service industries, particularly through privatisation and the subcontracting of jobs in the public sector.