From Reebok to Nike a year back. What now?

I bought two pairs of sneakers from a Reebok showroom some 2 years back, and I guess that made me an avid fan of Reebok. The sneakers were nice, glitzy and sporty – the perfect combination for showing off. All was well until a pair was stolen in a classic but unrecorded case of daylight robbery in my home in Bangalore. I suspect if the felon would’ve made more than 100 Rs. on that daring attempt of his. Given a chance, I would’ve paid him twice as much if he had disclosed his talent and intentions a priori. Unfortunately, the world doesn’t seem to work that way. No wonder we are late in recognizing talent. In the mean time, management students such as me are left to do a cost benefit alternative analyses for such things without rime or reason.

If you have a good deal of money as a bachelor – the kind of money they pay in IT industry - 2 models from the same company would sound boring. Since the only way left - as far as shoe purchase was concerned - for me was to go up, up I did go. I purchased Nike. A cute colored, light weighted shoe, with the classic tick that’s supposed to give the whole body a brawn par comparison. Again, all was good with Nike. It’s served me well for over a year, from plains to mountains, from rivers to ice. But the inevitable has happened. And an unspoiled, conservative old Indian brain has started to feel empathy.

I vaguely remember reading reports about child abuse by the likes of Nike, Reebok and Disney. Things came to spotlight after a case study about Human Right violations by Nike and Reebok that we did in our HR class yesterday. A specific line in the case read “Nike had the option of spending 1% of its advertising expenditure to place 15000 of its Asian employees above poverty line, and it chose not to”. That was a strong line. As curiosity has it, I researched more about the topic than ever, and I found startling amounts of information on the web, only if one chooses not to be ignorant. Nike, and to a lesser extent Reebok, has committed human rights violation by paying its contract shoe manufacturing Indonesian and South Asian employees far less than the average salary. The working conditions are allegedly traumatic, with little or zero consideration even for children and women. I found the following article especially strong:

Just do it. Boycott Nike: http://www.geocities.com/Athens/Acropolis/5232/edmonton.htm

According to recent reports, the situation has improved far from the 1980s, but there is still widespread exploitation on the part of such giants, particularly in countries like Indonesia and Pakistan where jobs are at a penny. It’s said that companies such giants give don’t give a damn to basic humanitarian considerations.

The question for us middle class Indian consumers is whether we are ready to boycott products from such companies if such inhuman policies come to light. We Indians did a lot to eradicate child labor from the cracker industries of Sivakasi, South India. Children abstained from Diwali celebrations, and we responded as a community. How do we respond if such policies of what are supposed to be flagship multinational giant companies come to light? As compunction pricks me, I’m quite clueless as to how the exact response should be from us consumers.