Nike Accused of Slave, Child Labor

So the word around is that Nike is being accused of Child Labor. Joel D. Joseph, head of Made in the USA Foundation, a union backed lobbying group with 60,000 members, charged on Thursday that Air Jordans are made in Indonesia by 11 and 12 year-old girls making 22 cents an hour. More than 60 years ago the United States banned child labor, sweatshops, long workdays and workweeks. But now we are subsidizing, encouraging and failing to criticize the enslavement of young people in the Third World says Josehp. Officials of the Nike Jakarta office declined to comment, saying that they are not permitted to comment to the media. Nike headquarters in Beaverton, however, said earlier that its employees monitor adherence to contracts that prohibit child labor and require compliance with labor and wage laws. It said that its overseas factories pay workers often twice the prevailing minimum wage. A Jakarta-based American analyst also defended Nike. Nike says "Modern machinery and young workers, but not children."