A panel of representatives from Nike Inc., Human Rights Watch Asia, Columbia University and the AFL-CIO told an audience of about 150 people in Cook auditorium that workers in factories that supply Nike are probably not treated better or worse than those laboring for other companies.
A study released in October by students and professors from the Amos Tuck School of Business said Nike workers in Indonesia and Vietnam are paid enough to meet their basic needs with money left over for discretionary spending and savings.
Nike was later accused of withholding significant facts from a press release about the study.
The panel Thursday told the audience comprised mostly of Tuck students that Nike workers are probably not treated any better or worse than those laboring for other apparel and shoe manufacturers who subcontract in Vietnam and Indonesia.
"A high profile company can become a target for criticism," said Arvind Ganesan, a representative of Human Rights Watch Asia. But, he added, "the apparel industry as a whole has been a problem."
Dusty Kidd, Nike's director of international labor relations, criticized an Australian study which accused Nike subcontractors of abusing factory workers, who were as young as 11 years old.
He said the study had "egregious errors of facts" and included a factory which had never produced Nike clothing.
He said the sportswear manufacturer has actually done more to investigate the conditions in its Vietnamese and Indonesian factories than other companies with suppliers in those nations, including last year's Tuck study.
"We're the only company that asked a university to tell us how we're doing," Kidd said.
Columbia University Business Ethics Professor Elliot Schrage said Nike's efforts are at least equivalent to those of other manufacturers.
"Nike is probably doing as much, if not more, to respond to abuses," he said.
Although AFL-CIO Director of Corporate Affairs Ron Blackwell commended Nike on investigating its workers' salaries, he questioned the validity of investigations like the Tuck study.
He added that Nike should do even more to guarantee the well-being of workers in its factories.
Surveys like the ones distributed by the Tuck students do not necessarily reflect Vietnamese or Indonesian workers' standard of living or working conditions, Blackwell said, because labor unions are prohibited in these nations and many workers can not speak freely for fear of being fired.
He said Nike should help promote worker rights, among other activities on behalf of workers, and should challenge the rest of the industry to follow its example.
Blackwell criticized the company for moving most of its business out of Korea "as labor became more experienced" and more vocal about abuses, while the country was in transition between a military and democratic government.
Blackwell said moves by Nike and other shoe manufacturers cost the country about 100,000 jobs, information he told The Dartmouth he had acquired from a Harvard Business School Case Study.
"A company as large and as dominant as Nike can do a lot more," Blackwell said.
