"My Nike Nightmare" by D. Jayadikarta
"My Nike Nightmare" by D. Jayadikarta
July 20, 2009 at 10:05 AM
Team Sweat:
The following essay was written by a former employee of PT Feng Tay, a shoe factory in Bandung that has produced Nike products for more than 15 years.
Peace, JWK
My Nike Nightmare
Written by D. Jayadikarta
Edited by Wakidi
It was May 2000 and I found myself bouncing on a wooden bench masquerading as a passenger’s seat in a public mini-bus in Southern Bandung, West Java, Indonesia. I was on my way to a job interview with Fengtay Enterprises, Ltd., a Taiwanese-based company that proudly manufactured Nike footwear for overseas markets. The sun was perched high, the road was covered with dust, and potholes seemed to be everywhere. The mini-bus passed so many factories along the poor winding road that I did not even have time to read names on the sides of the buildings, they were producing everything here from chocolate to garments to electronics.
Although the road was designed for vehicles to access the factories in Southern Bandung, it was built with cheap materials – most likely some local official lined their pockets with the money that was to be spent to build a proper thoroughfare – and I stared to get car sick as the mini-bus swerved to avoid the potholes. I was desperate to arrive at my destination and I thought that my long, uncomfortable journey would never come to an end.
I finally arrived and found myself standing in front of a tall, pale blue, steel gate. The gate was emblazoned with a dark blue globe logo with the initials IW in the center. I later found out that IW was the Nike factory ID for Fengtay and that each factory in Asia had its own two-letter Nike identifier. There was no Nike Swoosh or pictures of Michael Jordan with his $200 basketball sneakers to be found. This was very different from the images I had of Nike, generated by their slick advertising in the Jakarta malls. I thought, “I cannot be in the right place. This doesn’t’ look like a Nike factory, it looks like a prison.”
I walked towards the security office and asked the guards stationed behind the glass sitting at their desk if this was where I was supposed to be. “Yes, Fengtay Enterprise, Ltd.,” he said with a cold, suspicious look. I was relieved. The last thing I wanted to have to do was get back on that mini-bus and I certainly did not want to be lost in the polluted slum that surrounded the factory complex.
A few weeks after the job interview, I was officially employed at Fengtay. But there was no feeling of the excitement that one usually gets when one finally lands a new job. Even though I was unemployed for a while, a result of the economic crisis in Indonesia, I just was not elated by my new position, something seemed wrong about it from the beginning. But what choice did I have? Since the crisis, people like me had lost hope of finding work that had real meaning or hope a future. You simply took the best job you could get to avoid poverty and hunger, unless you wanted to live on the street and attempt to survive on instant noodles everyday.
I was told that Fengtay employed around 9000 people from around the neighborhoods of Bandung and Banjaran. It was such a massive factory complex. I worked in the main office building in the Business Department. Due to the nature of my work, I had to leave the office more often than my co-workers and tour the factory floor where those famous Nike shoes are born. On my first walk through the plant, I was completely shocked to hear factory managers (you know them by the pink identity badges hanging from their shirt pockets) swearing at workers as if they were dogs. As if this were not bad enough, I saw women workers, late in their pregnancies, pushing massive cartloads of materials for making shoe uppers. I had never seen anything like this. Is this what all the factories were like in my country?
That night, back in my room at the boarding house, I could not sleep at all. I was haunted by the images of those young, female factory workers – most of them high school graduates in their late teens and early twenties - being verbally abused by the managers. I felt that I was trapped in a labyrinth of poverty and exploitation. Suddenly, the dream of making Nike’s world-famous sneakers became a nightmare. This nightmare would play itself out day after day, and I would not awaken from it until the day that I quit working at Fengtay.
The abuse was not limited to the factory floor, but could be found in the management offices as well. The Taiwanese bosses felt they had license to mistreat the employees whenever and wherever they pleased. Both the male and female bosses, had one thing in mind – meet the production target – and they did whatever the felt they needed to do to make this happen. If the target was not reached, they may get a low ranking from Nike (which could cost them future orders) and they would not let this happen. Through this single-minded focus on meeting targets, these women and men lost their sense of humanity. They became machines, slaves to Nike’s production quotas. The young women on the factory floor paid the harshest price and were abused regularly. It did not matter if it was your first day or your five hundredth day – you were to work, fast, like you have never worked before.
Everything had to be done to perfection to meet the target and Nike’s quality standards. If the managers feared this was not happening, workers were yelled at, they were called “dogs” and “goats.” At times the screaming of the managers rivaled the screaming of the machines on the production lines. Their mouths spewed filthy words, their weapons to motivate workers, to boost production on the lines to meet the export date targets. Targets – that was what it was all about.
The factory reluctantly supplied lunch to the workers. When I first saw what was served, I doubted that what was wrapped in the brown, plastic-coated paper could qualify for human consumption. Once I opened it, I felt pity and shame. The food was complete rubbish; low quality rice, stinky, tiny salty-fish, and chunks of a mystery vegetable. This menu for workers was repeated over and over again.
Not far from the giant lunch shed where workers ate was a nice, clean, modern building where the Taiwanese bosses dined. Their meals were of the highest quality. They also had modern accommodations on-site and even a little golf course to entertain themselves when they were stuck at the factory for the weekend.
These Taiwanese managers were so arrogant and dictatorial. They ran they factory like a totalitarian regime. You couldn’t even expect a smile from them, because to them, you were less than human. To them, you were “labor,” another line item on the balance sheet, a commodity to be bought and used at the cheapest price possible.
The Taiwanese all held the highest and most influential positions in each of the divisions at the plant and they walked around the factory complex like spies, keeping tabs on all the workers’ activities. If they found something that they didn’t meet their standards, they felt they could do anything they wanted to rectify it. If you were lucky, they only scolded and yelled at you in a “special meeting” with the Chinese-Indonesian interpreters. If it was your unlucky day, you were demoted to the lowest rank on the production line.
When I think of my time at Fengtay, I liken it to having your body covered with a rash. It itches and burns each day and you feel the discomfort, mentally and physically, but it does not kill you and you press on. Yes, my Nike nightmare brought me to the darkest point in my life. I no longer knew what it meant to be a human being, running freely and enjoying life, like Michael Jordan or any of the countless others at Nike that make their millions off our sweat and broken dreams.
I came to Fengtay to be a part of the Nike dream, to share in their success, and hopefully to help my nation move out of the economic crisis. But instead, I spun my wheels on the Nike treadmill and generated wealth for everyone – the Taiwanese managers, the Nike executives, the Nike athletes, the Nike shareholders – but my fellow countrymen and women. In the end, I was no better than when I started.
Then, some questions started popping into my head. How did these Taiwanese bosses get like this? Was their behavior the result of the pressure they were under from Nike to meet the production targets? Why were these things happening my country? Why had we Indonesians ended up being slaves in our own land to foreign interests?
One day I went to one of the fancy malls in central Jakarta. I stood there, outside the Plaza Indonesia, looking up at a giant Nike ad, the Nike Swoosh painted on a massive glass window display, and I started to cry. I could not get the workers out of my mind. And then I saw the prices being charged for the Nike shoes that were made at factories like Fengtay. I had to pause and take a deep breath to avoid being overcome with even more emotion. There were the Air Walks, the Air Macs, the Air Rifts, the Baby Jordans, the Jordans, and all the other latest models. Why were the shoes so expensive, priced at a level that only those in the highest class could afford? I knew what they cost to make and what workers were paid. It just was not fair.
The workers know that their jobs at the factory will not make them millionaires, but they do want fair salaries and a future for themselves and their children. Is that too much to ask from Nike? Perhaps if the Nike executives walked in their shoes for a while, perhaps if the Nike executives lived in the workers’ hovels in the villages, perhaps if the Nike executives felt the workers’ sweat poured out on the factory floor each day, then maybe they would understand. If they understood, then perhaps these Nike executives would show workers the respect they deserve and they would treat them with honor and dignity in their homeland.
https://www.facebook.com/notes/team-sweat/my-nike-nightmare-by-d-jayadikarta/100435731378
July 20, 2009 at 10:05 AM
Team Sweat:
The following essay was written by a former employee of PT Feng Tay, a shoe factory in Bandung that has produced Nike products for more than 15 years.
Peace, JWK
My Nike Nightmare
Written by D. Jayadikarta
Edited by Wakidi
It was May 2000 and I found myself bouncing on a wooden bench masquerading as a passenger’s seat in a public mini-bus in Southern Bandung, West Java, Indonesia. I was on my way to a job interview with Fengtay Enterprises, Ltd., a Taiwanese-based company that proudly manufactured Nike footwear for overseas markets. The sun was perched high, the road was covered with dust, and potholes seemed to be everywhere. The mini-bus passed so many factories along the poor winding road that I did not even have time to read names on the sides of the buildings, they were producing everything here from chocolate to garments to electronics.
Although the road was designed for vehicles to access the factories in Southern Bandung, it was built with cheap materials – most likely some local official lined their pockets with the money that was to be spent to build a proper thoroughfare – and I stared to get car sick as the mini-bus swerved to avoid the potholes. I was desperate to arrive at my destination and I thought that my long, uncomfortable journey would never come to an end.
I finally arrived and found myself standing in front of a tall, pale blue, steel gate. The gate was emblazoned with a dark blue globe logo with the initials IW in the center. I later found out that IW was the Nike factory ID for Fengtay and that each factory in Asia had its own two-letter Nike identifier. There was no Nike Swoosh or pictures of Michael Jordan with his $200 basketball sneakers to be found. This was very different from the images I had of Nike, generated by their slick advertising in the Jakarta malls. I thought, “I cannot be in the right place. This doesn’t’ look like a Nike factory, it looks like a prison.”
I walked towards the security office and asked the guards stationed behind the glass sitting at their desk if this was where I was supposed to be. “Yes, Fengtay Enterprise, Ltd.,” he said with a cold, suspicious look. I was relieved. The last thing I wanted to have to do was get back on that mini-bus and I certainly did not want to be lost in the polluted slum that surrounded the factory complex.
A few weeks after the job interview, I was officially employed at Fengtay. But there was no feeling of the excitement that one usually gets when one finally lands a new job. Even though I was unemployed for a while, a result of the economic crisis in Indonesia, I just was not elated by my new position, something seemed wrong about it from the beginning. But what choice did I have? Since the crisis, people like me had lost hope of finding work that had real meaning or hope a future. You simply took the best job you could get to avoid poverty and hunger, unless you wanted to live on the street and attempt to survive on instant noodles everyday.
I was told that Fengtay employed around 9000 people from around the neighborhoods of Bandung and Banjaran. It was such a massive factory complex. I worked in the main office building in the Business Department. Due to the nature of my work, I had to leave the office more often than my co-workers and tour the factory floor where those famous Nike shoes are born. On my first walk through the plant, I was completely shocked to hear factory managers (you know them by the pink identity badges hanging from their shirt pockets) swearing at workers as if they were dogs. As if this were not bad enough, I saw women workers, late in their pregnancies, pushing massive cartloads of materials for making shoe uppers. I had never seen anything like this. Is this what all the factories were like in my country?
That night, back in my room at the boarding house, I could not sleep at all. I was haunted by the images of those young, female factory workers – most of them high school graduates in their late teens and early twenties - being verbally abused by the managers. I felt that I was trapped in a labyrinth of poverty and exploitation. Suddenly, the dream of making Nike’s world-famous sneakers became a nightmare. This nightmare would play itself out day after day, and I would not awaken from it until the day that I quit working at Fengtay.
The abuse was not limited to the factory floor, but could be found in the management offices as well. The Taiwanese bosses felt they had license to mistreat the employees whenever and wherever they pleased. Both the male and female bosses, had one thing in mind – meet the production target – and they did whatever the felt they needed to do to make this happen. If the target was not reached, they may get a low ranking from Nike (which could cost them future orders) and they would not let this happen. Through this single-minded focus on meeting targets, these women and men lost their sense of humanity. They became machines, slaves to Nike’s production quotas. The young women on the factory floor paid the harshest price and were abused regularly. It did not matter if it was your first day or your five hundredth day – you were to work, fast, like you have never worked before.
Everything had to be done to perfection to meet the target and Nike’s quality standards. If the managers feared this was not happening, workers were yelled at, they were called “dogs” and “goats.” At times the screaming of the managers rivaled the screaming of the machines on the production lines. Their mouths spewed filthy words, their weapons to motivate workers, to boost production on the lines to meet the export date targets. Targets – that was what it was all about.
The factory reluctantly supplied lunch to the workers. When I first saw what was served, I doubted that what was wrapped in the brown, plastic-coated paper could qualify for human consumption. Once I opened it, I felt pity and shame. The food was complete rubbish; low quality rice, stinky, tiny salty-fish, and chunks of a mystery vegetable. This menu for workers was repeated over and over again.
Not far from the giant lunch shed where workers ate was a nice, clean, modern building where the Taiwanese bosses dined. Their meals were of the highest quality. They also had modern accommodations on-site and even a little golf course to entertain themselves when they were stuck at the factory for the weekend.
These Taiwanese managers were so arrogant and dictatorial. They ran they factory like a totalitarian regime. You couldn’t even expect a smile from them, because to them, you were less than human. To them, you were “labor,” another line item on the balance sheet, a commodity to be bought and used at the cheapest price possible.
The Taiwanese all held the highest and most influential positions in each of the divisions at the plant and they walked around the factory complex like spies, keeping tabs on all the workers’ activities. If they found something that they didn’t meet their standards, they felt they could do anything they wanted to rectify it. If you were lucky, they only scolded and yelled at you in a “special meeting” with the Chinese-Indonesian interpreters. If it was your unlucky day, you were demoted to the lowest rank on the production line.
When I think of my time at Fengtay, I liken it to having your body covered with a rash. It itches and burns each day and you feel the discomfort, mentally and physically, but it does not kill you and you press on. Yes, my Nike nightmare brought me to the darkest point in my life. I no longer knew what it meant to be a human being, running freely and enjoying life, like Michael Jordan or any of the countless others at Nike that make their millions off our sweat and broken dreams.
I came to Fengtay to be a part of the Nike dream, to share in their success, and hopefully to help my nation move out of the economic crisis. But instead, I spun my wheels on the Nike treadmill and generated wealth for everyone – the Taiwanese managers, the Nike executives, the Nike athletes, the Nike shareholders – but my fellow countrymen and women. In the end, I was no better than when I started.
Then, some questions started popping into my head. How did these Taiwanese bosses get like this? Was their behavior the result of the pressure they were under from Nike to meet the production targets? Why were these things happening my country? Why had we Indonesians ended up being slaves in our own land to foreign interests?
One day I went to one of the fancy malls in central Jakarta. I stood there, outside the Plaza Indonesia, looking up at a giant Nike ad, the Nike Swoosh painted on a massive glass window display, and I started to cry. I could not get the workers out of my mind. And then I saw the prices being charged for the Nike shoes that were made at factories like Fengtay. I had to pause and take a deep breath to avoid being overcome with even more emotion. There were the Air Walks, the Air Macs, the Air Rifts, the Baby Jordans, the Jordans, and all the other latest models. Why were the shoes so expensive, priced at a level that only those in the highest class could afford? I knew what they cost to make and what workers were paid. It just was not fair.
The workers know that their jobs at the factory will not make them millionaires, but they do want fair salaries and a future for themselves and their children. Is that too much to ask from Nike? Perhaps if the Nike executives walked in their shoes for a while, perhaps if the Nike executives lived in the workers’ hovels in the villages, perhaps if the Nike executives felt the workers’ sweat poured out on the factory floor each day, then maybe they would understand. If they understood, then perhaps these Nike executives would show workers the respect they deserve and they would treat them with honor and dignity in their homeland.
https://www.facebook.com/notes/team-sweat/my-nike-nightmare-by-d-jayadikarta/100435731378
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