Keady: Nike 'just doesn't do it' in sweatshop debate
By SAM DERHEIMER
As assistant soccer coach at St. John's University, James Keady faced a tough decision. His team wore Nike uniforms, but Keady discovered severe human rights violations in Nike sweatshops through his masters research paper.
"I was told to wear Nike and drop the issue publicly or resign," Keady said.
He lost the coaching job of his dreams.
Keady, speaking Monday during the second session of the University's sweatshop symposium, called Nike "one of the grossest violators of human rights in the world.
"Nike has consistently shown that they will not operate in good faith toward their workers," said Keady. "St. John's and Notre Dame, by associating with such corporations, are giving a stamp of approval to this type of behavior."
Keady challenged the Notre Dame community not to compromise its Catholic mission. He urged the audience to let the administration know that associations with corporations repeatedly ignoring social justice will not be tolerated.
Keady cited three main problems inherently wrong with sweatshops: corporations' failure to pay workers sufficient "living" wages, the refusal to publicly disclose work cite locations, and the refusal to allow workers in these shops the right to organize.
"Only through full disclosure and education can such problems hope to be alleviated," Keady said. "The University must be pressed. How can we deal with Nike, and still follow our Catholic mission and the teachings of the gospels?
"Because I protested the way student athletes and coaches were turned into walking billboards, I was silenced," Keady said. "It is an abomination the way athletes get prostituted by universities and corporations."
Paige Doub, a member of the Master's Peace Study Program, praised the message of action called for in the symposium.
"I think this is an essential part of our existence on campus," said Doub. "Things happen when individual people start calling for changes. Students who pay tuition at this University deserve a voice."
"I could not allow myself to sit back while my university was making profit off the backs of the poor," said Keady. "Now I challenge the community of Notre Dame also to take action, in accordance with Catholic social teaching, on this issue."
The symposium, which can be taken for class credit, marks the continuing effort of the University to eliminate the use of sweatshop labor in the manufacturing of Notre Dame products, and is primarily organized to showcase the complex issues the University's Task Force on Anti-Sweatshop Initiatives must deal with. Four lectures still remain in the series.
Todd David Whitmore, director of the task force, also spoke Monday night.
All News Stories for Tuesday, September 28, 1999
