On Saturday, February 3rd, 2024, students from the University of Texas at Austin, the University of Michigan, New York University, University of Pittsburgh, the University of California Los Angeles, and the University of California Berkeley as well as international garment union leaders entered a Nike store in Washington, D.C. and staged a peaceful protest to demand justice for workers at Hong Seng Knitting Factory. They were met with violence.
We, as students paying tuition to these universities, are fed up with this lack of action. We demand accountability from both Nike and our respective universities. This action is the first of a series of actions we are planning to conduct in order to meet our demands. As more students representing more universities sign on and we grow this movement, it’s only a matter of time before our administrations must answer to their hypocrisies.
Press release from students present at action
What happened at the Hong Seng Knitting Factory?
In early 2020, Nike cut back its orders with the Hong Seng Knitting factory, a factory that makes Longhorn collegiate apparel, in Thailand. As a result, factory management temporarily suspended work during the pandemic; as per Thai labor law, they were required to pay partial wages for this suspension, instead, they manipulated workers into signing agreements accepting the suspension without pay. A lot of these workers were Burmese immigrants who did not speak the language and were not given the documents in a language they knew. Workers who pushed back against this theft were threatened so severely that one worker had to flee the country with his wife and newborn baby. Collectively, Nike stole $800,000 in wages and interest from more than 3,300 workers.
“UT and specifically, Jay Hartzell, has an extreme amount of power to hold Nike accountable for this wage theft. This movement has been gaining so much traction on an international level, and I hope that when the case is finally won and 800k is returned to the workers pockets, UT doesn’t have to gain the legacy of being the school that refused to take action when other school’s did.”
Aubrey McCabe, UT student present at the action
What happened in DC?
The demonstration brought together students who have been organizing in solidarity with Hong Seng workers on their respective campuses, in some cases for up to a year, with dismissive responses from their university administrations. Students and union leaders chanted in the store and attempted to deliver a letter to store management demanding they take complaints of Nike wage theft at Hong Seng Knitting to corporate executives. Students were joined by garment worker union leaders Kalpona Akter, president of the Bangladesh Garment and Industrial Workers Federation, and Evangelina Argueta, leader of the maquila organizing project at the Honduran union federation Central General de Trabajadore.
Nike store staff responded to the students’ peaceful protest with violence, assaulting students as they attempted to deliver a letter to the store manager. Students were shoved, pushed to the ground, and had posters ripped so forcefully from their hands one of the students reportedly was sliced completely across their hand.
University of Texas at Austin students present at the action expressed concerns about why universities continue to do business with a brand that refuses to correct violations of university codes of conduct, and that refuses to even accept letters from students, and instead meets them with violence.