Nike Invites Student Critics to Tour Factories

Nike Inc. is offering college activists a different kind of spring break, one that would take them on an inspection tour of the sports shoe and apparel company’s factories around the world. Beaverton, Ore.-based Nike is trying to improve the perception of working conditions at its contract factories. Many of the company’s harshest critics have been students, who contend the factories are dangerous sweatshops that hire underage workers and pay too little. The program will send about 10 students to the 41 factories in which Nike contractors make college-licensed apparel. The students will accompany teams of observers from PricewaterhouseCoopers, an accounting firm Nike uses to audit working conditions at its factories. Nike will pay for the trips and will ask the students to write a report on the working conditions they observe. The company posted application information online at https://www.nikebiz.com.