ACADEMICS STUDYING NIKE - BULGARIA NIKE SUBCONTRACT FACTORIES

 

EXHIBIT A - BULGARIA 

 

There are reports that there are Nike factories in Eastern Europe, but we do not know where other than Bulgaria (see below). Nike only discloses about 50 of its 620 factory locations worldwide. It uses these as model factories to demonstrate that there are no problems in All subcontract factories. We do know that Adidas closed its Eastern European factories to follow Nike to Asia and imitate its practices there (Both Nike and Adidas are still in Bulgaria). Time in an article JANUARY 20, 1997 VOL. 149 NO. 3 
http://www.time.com/time/magazine/1997/int/970120/business.adidas_goes.html  reports on the European manufacturing. 

EXCERPTS ABOUT BULGARIA
Source on Bulgaria http://www.cleanclothes.org/companies/savina99-11.htm 

Suppliers to adidas and Nike 

Sandanski District, Bulgaria.

Profile based on visits to the company in April and November 1999

30 November 1999

Ivanka Laleva, correspondent for the Bulgarian newspaper Trud ("labour"), 
(Translation from Bulgarian: Alain Kessi)
Tel. and fax: +359-73-32295 (Bulgarian or Russian)
or via Alain Kessi: tel. and fax: +359-2-9809652 (also English, French, German)

Bettina Musiolek, Clean Clothes Campaign - Germany
Tel and fax: +49-2103-63375
e-mail: B.Musiolek@knuut.de
The Savina factory in the town of Sandanski produces sportswear for adidas and Nike. Savina produces garments under the Outward Processing Trade scheme (Ishleme). It also has a branch in the village of Strumiyan in Sandanski District. Eighty machinists work in the Sandanski factory, and the same number in the Strumiyan branch. Ninety-nine percent of the
workers are women. 

 

The company is owned by Hristos Karanidis, a Greek citizen. The Sandansky District is near the Greek border. Over the years, complaints have been
mainly about: 

  • low pay 
  • compulsory, unregulated overtime 
  • impossibly high production quotas 
  • creative accounting on the part of the owners. 

The information given by the two workers was confirmed by the regional chairman of KT Podkrepa, Dancho Petkov, from Sandanski. "We get many complaints about the back-breaking quotas that the machinists are expected to fulfill," said Petkov. "Some of them are forced to work overtime in order to catch up with their colleagues. One worker came to me who had managed to make only 25 DEM in a period of 17 days. I tried to discuss the matter with management, but they categorically refuse to doscuss the issue." 

The incentive for Greek owners to locate production in Bulgaria is low labour costs (five times lower than in Greece), and the lower tax rates charged to foreign investors. The production site in Sandanski is an old hall equipped with old machines and stools, approximately 10 by 30 metres, without air conditioning and without accessible emergency exits. In September 1999, an adidas representative visited the factory to check the conditions under which the women work, but the only points raised during his visit were the absence of fire extinguishers and inadequate lighting. Workers did not raise the issue of working conditions - either because they were not asked or, possibly, because they are afraid of losing their
jobs if they complain.