They work 10-12 hour days in often hazardous conditions. One Nike employee who wishes to remain anonymous for fear of being fired, described often working until 2am to meet production quotas. Instead of receiving legal overtime pay, workers at her factory, in Lop Buri, were paid by piecework. I have to leave my daughter at my parents' house because children are not allowed in the dormitories. In addition, thousands of Thai migrant workers are producing Nike products under abysmal conditions in Taiwan.
Workers often have to work for years just to pay off their travelling and installment costs.
A Thai worker producing Nike clothing would have to work for 14,000 days or 38 years to receive this same amount. On the contrary, Nike spends the equivalent of 14,000 workers daily salaries to pay Tiger Woods for just one day. A worker would have to work for 26.5 million days or 72,000 years to receive what Tiger Woods gets during his five year contract with Nike. Recently, factories producing for Nike in Thailand have been shifting production to subcontractors and non-union facilities and to the provinces where wages and benefits are even lower. For example, unionized workers formerly producing for Nike at the Thai Iryo Garment factory in Rangsit were laid off while Nike production shifted to the Garment Tech factory in Bangkok and VT Garment in Sathupradit.