But according to a watchdog agency's stinging new report, the company's rhetoric is still outrunning reality. Over the last three years, Nike has treated this issue as a public relations inconvenience rather than a serious human rights issue. But Dusty Kidd, Nike's vice president of corporate responsibility, claims that the company has in fact met most of its commitments, and is working toward the others. For instance, in the wake of revelations in 1997 that workers in one Vietnamese factory were being exposed to toxic fumes at dozens of times the legal limit, Knight promised that all Nike factories would meet the US government's indoor air quality standards. But Global Exchange points out that Nike warns managers about pending inspections by its own monitors ahead of time, allowing them to minimize toxic fumes when the monitors arrive.
Workers claim managers do indeed take such opportunities to mask working conditions.
Knight also promised Nike would include non-governmental organizations in its factory monitoring, with summaries made public. Kidd acknowledges this process has proceeded slowly, but points out that it allowed the monitoring group Verite to visit Nike plants in Mexico, and that Nike made their report public. Global Exchange, however, says that judging from Kidd's own responses to its researchers inquiries, that appears to be the only such inspection that has taken place. Nike further pledged it would expand its micro-enterprise loan program to benefit 5,000 families in Vietnam, Indonesia, Pakistan and Thailand, and it has. I feel pretty happy about it.