PORTLAND, OR - Jobs With Justice and United Steelworkers of America representatives led a delegation today that called on Nike (NYSE: NKE) at its annual meeting to end what the organizations contend is a systematic violation of workers' fundamental rights. They criticized the Company's ongoing devastation of Canadian workers and communities through plant closures and drastic downsizing. They also criticized Nike for its continued failure to police some of its Asian contractors' labor practices.

A small group of organized labor activists and officials rallied and distributed handbills outside of Nike's annual meeting, held at the Oregon Convention Center. The group included representatives from JWJ, USWA, the Oregon AFL-CIO, the Communication Workers of America and the Portland Association of Teachers. The group then attended the meeting, and representatives from USWA and JWJ addressed Nike officials and other attendees during the question and answer session.

The labor activists were there to protest Nike's continued pattern of workers' rights violations. They specifically raised concerns about Nike's ongoing restructuring of its operations in Canada.

Nike acquired the assets of what is now its wholly owned subsidiary Bauer Nike Hockey, including three Canadian union-represented facilities, in 1995. The Company announced in late 2003 that it will close two of these facilities and drastically downsize the third, a USWA represented facility in Quebec. By carrying out this restructuring, Nike will virtually eliminate union representation among its over twenty-four thousand employees around the globe.

The United Steelworkers of America has obtained information through international labor allies that Nike is outsourcing Bauer work previously done at these Canadian facilities to a Thai contractor that is forcing employees to work overtime, exposing workers to excess heat and violating local wage laws.

"Nike eliminating the jobs of hundreds of skillful, dedicated unionized employees- many with decades of service- is a tragedy in itself. The fact that these are some of the massive global corporation's only unionized employees raises serious questions about Nike's willingness to allow workers to freely associate and form unions," said USWA Quebec District Director Michel Arsenault. "Nike's outsourcing of Bauer work to an abusive contractor is further indication of the Company's continuing failure to respect workers' basic rights."

"Nike should rethink its unfair, anti-union restructuring in Canada and show that it is not hell bent on winning a race to the bottom," added Arsenault.

"Nike apparently purchased Bauer in 1995 with a predatory strategy- extract a brand name and outsource the work," said Brad Witt, Secretary Treasurer of the Oregon AFL-CIO. "In executing that strategy, Bauer Nike is destroying hundreds of jobs and devastating communities."

"We expect local companies to be responsible citizens. We have been involved in demanding that Nike meet some basic standards in its labor practices for many years: this is just the latest evidence that Nike is still not accountable to the workers and communities in which it operates," said Margaret Butler, Director of Portland Jobs with Justice.

USWA is a diversified union representing over 500,000 workers throughout the US and Canada primarily in the metals, manufacturing and mining industries as well as the service sector.

United Steelworkers (USW)

United Steelworkers (USW)

The USW is the largest industrial union in North America with 850,000 members. It represents workers employed in metals, rubber, chemicals, paper and mining, plus the energy sectors of oil refining, nuclear, gas and electric service utilities, wind, solar and bio-fuels.

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