Meet The Indonesian Workers Who Make Your Nikes: 50 Cent Hourly Wages, Beatings, And Humiliation

By Zaid Jilani on Jul 13, 2011 at 9:40 am

More than a decade ago, shoe giant Nike came under fire for its use of sweatshop labor in the production of its products. Most of the criticism focused on its Indonesian workforce, where workers, largely young women, were forced to labor under harsh conditions and abusive supervisors. In 1997, filmmaker Michael Moore made Nike’s abuses a subject of his film “The Big One,” and met with Nike CEO Phil Knight. Knight explained that the reason his company was using low-wage labor in Indonesia is because “Americans don’t want to make shoes.”