As critical theory (CT) becomes more central to organization theory (OT), there will be a need to adopt a critical pedagogy. In this paper I seek to summarize the critical pedagogy (CP) that has become the basis of multicultural studies in education and resituate it to OT. There are several parallels between education's CP and the CT for the Frankfurt School. Both CP and CT call upon teachers and students to seek agency in changing global capitalism. This call for radical change is applied here to showing the ideological habits, which mask the saga of exploitative overseas labor practices of the Nike Corporation. A web site with numerous links to Nike stories and CP resources is also provided.

"When Nike enters a country to manufacture products, wages increase and poverty decreases." - from a packet distributed by a Nike representative to concerned students at the University of North Carolina, Chapel Hill in 1998

"Mr. Knight is like a three-card Monte player. You have to keep a close eye on him at all times" ("Nike Blinks" by Bob Herbert, New York Times, May 21, 1998).

Introduction

With the 1998 Academy pre-conference, critical theory (CT) is declaring its centrality to organization theory (OT) in the United States. The epistemology and method of Horkheimer, Adorno, Marcuse, and Habermas are antithetical and kaleidoscopic, resulting in multiple critical theories (CT's), rather than a unified and integrated critical theory. As these critical theories invade traditional OT, I think there will be a need to establish a critical pedagogy (CP). Here, I have several related writing objectives. First, to explore parallels between CP in education theory and CT. Second apply this nexus to the ideology that masks continued labor abuses of half a million Asian women by Nike Corporation. I want to look at Horkheimer's critique of ideology, Adorno's negative dialectic method, and Marcuse's historical materialism. Each extends a Marxist critique in ways that is relevant to an unveiling of Nike's labor practices and our inquiry into establishing a critical pedagogy in OT. My final objective is to take a radical position and seek to actually change Nike's labor practices through critical teaching. I will begin with parallels between CP and CT and then move into a CP that seeks to unmask and even change Nike.

Parallels between CP and CT. CT does not need to invent a CP. CP has been established in most colleges of education for decades. My friend, Dr. Herman Garcia, chairs a department of Critical Pedagogy in the College of Education at New Mexico State University. Upon learning of my objectives, he handed me a pile of books and directed me to immerse myself in the work by Freire (1993), Giroux (1993, 1996), Shor (1980, 1992), Gadotti (1994, 1996), Darder (1991, 1995), Macedo (1994) and others (e.g. Leistyna, Woodrum & Sherblom, 1996). Together these authors explore the underlying power relationships and ideologies gripping public education. While the central concepts and theories of multiple literacies, multiculturalism, democratic schooling in CP are somewhat dissimilar to the focus on labor practices, global capitalism, and Marxist critique in CT, there are several relevant pedagogical parallels to be explored and emphasized.

1. CP and CT are interdisciplinary in content and non-monolithic discourses. In CP and CT it takes interdisciplinary bridging to glimpse the asymmetrical power relations that enslaves minorities. For example, in CT, Third World female labor is enslaved to 1^st world multinational corporate capital accumulation using an ideology of deficit view of minority (in need of development and "fixing" by global capitalism to become "productive" labor.). And, after students put sociology, history, economics, philosophy alongside the restricted discipline of OT, they seek more than a relativist dialogue, they ask: "so what can we do about this?"
2. CP and CT are each rooted in a democratic and emancipator project. CP looks at the socialization of immigrants in white, English-speaking school systems, while CT examines the socialization of Third World (mostly female) labor into the ideology and labor practice of global capitalism. Both CP and CT seek to do more than demystify the hegemonic moves of multinational corporations. I seek more than a relativist position that can only declare there are multiple points of view. After I teach multiple perspectives, validate histories of multiple cultures, and juxtapose capital accumulation with labor misery, students want answers. "So what can we do about this?"
3. CP and CT both encourage the examination of the interrelationships of ideology, power, and culture. CP, like CT seeks to examine and interact with the underlying sociohistorical interrelationships between power, culture, and ideology that structures our world. As an alternative pedagogical model of OT, CP/CT would focus on the larger historical, ideological, economic, and cultural conditions of global capitalism to prepare students to be "critically conscious, socially responsible and politically active" (Leistyna, Woodrum, & Sherblom, 1996: 1). But, after students are aware of ideological manipulations that move capital from one class, race, and gender to another, there remains the question: "So what can we do about this?"
4. CP and CT are each marginal to a more traditional and dominant paradigms of academic scholarship and teaching. Conservative technocratic models dominate mainstream OT education. They are conservative because they support the perpetuation of the status quo by mollifying the pain of exploitation, not adjudicating its causes. OT, from a CP perspective, can be more than reductionist scientific inquiry, the teacher can be more than a passive or objective distributor of value-free information, and the student can be more than memorizer of OT uncritical concepts and models on his or her way to a corporate position. But, once the student sees how race, ethnic, and gender issues are masked and mollified in OT texts, they ask "so what can we do about this?"

Business college teachers and students are ill prepared by a curriculum that masks the interrelationship of work, consumer culture, government, capital accumulation, and media. What passes for OT pedagogy is to often a hodgepodge of meaningless classroom exercises, uncritical stories of business from the popular press, drills in esoteric vocabulary, and preparation for multiple choice exams and fill in the blanks in imitation of managerialist psychobabble. Nowhere in the MBA curriculum, let alone in OT courses, do students receive a rigorous critique of capitalism. I want to look at one prominent OT text to illustrate how Nike and Phil Knight are being portrayed uncritically as corporate role models and heroes.

For example, Hodge, Anthony, and Gale's (1996) Prentice Hall, 5^th Edition text presents Nike and Phil Knight stories in three chapters of their text on Organization Theory written from a purposely, managerialist perspective. In chapter four, The Nike is applauded for bring a strong "work ethic" to the Third World workers, but for the authors the "real" problem is not Asian workers, but the unpredictability of over-paid sports labor in the U.S., counterfeit production of Nike and Reebok products by subcontractors, and rising costs of production (P. 88-89). In Chapter 8, "Patterns of Strategic Organizational Design," Nike is presented as a prime example of the "evolving design" for the "twenty-first century:" the "virtual organization" (p. 224-225). The chaos metaphor is held out as the role model to students. The only critique is from a U.S. perspective; the scarcity of those knowledge workers and the stratification in U.S. society. Finally, in Chapter ten, organizational cultures are either thick or thin and the more committed Nike employees follow Phil Knight's example and tattoo the swoosh somewhere on their body. Phil Knight has a long list of heroic qualities in the next quote.

I would like to assert that the stories constructed about Nike are linear in their pre-determined causes, and simplified plot structures, as well as ideological in their univocality, dualities, and singular perspective These stories present Nike as the progressive hero succeeding in business in the competitive, global marketplace. They are the "strong" and "innovative" corporate culture where workers prove their dedicated commitment by tattooing their bodies with the "swoosh."

Phil Knight is presented as exemplifying "antiestablishment and anti traditional business values" while the other side of the dualities goes unstated. Missing are the activist and critical media stories of workers. A linear story is presented of consumers who are beginning to rebel because of high prices, and not because of the world wide work of dozens of activists organizations calling for boycotts of Nike products in sixteen nations until Nike implements its own code of conduct.

The linear story of Nike is a company characterized by " swiftness, creativity, durability!" with an image of "free spirit, sport, fun, passion, innovation, athleticism, competition, and hard work." With lavish advertising across all media, virtual Nike is the symbol of high technology, progress, enlightenment, fitness, and competitiveness. Nike is presented as the victim, forced to have high prices because it must give away its sneakers to high school, college, and professional sports teams. Nike is the hero, promoting youth sports instead of drugs to save our nation from the violence of the inner city (Cole, 1997: 14). There are basic disputes about the facts of these stories, such as what constitutes a living wage and is there is there not sexual abuse, corporal punishment, and exposure to toxic chemicals in Nike factories? Nike is presented in this OT text as good for America and good for Third World unemployment.

There have been abundant reports of Nike corporal punishment: women in China being locked in cages for poor sewing (Chan, 1996), arrests of workers for organizing in Indonesia (Ballinger, 1997), seven toilets for ten thousand workers in Indonesia, forced marching while chanting corporate slogans like "Loyalty to your boss, loyalty to your boss" (Manning, 1997), sexual abuse in Vietnam (Nguyen, 1996, 1997), and the "ophoi nang" method of employee discipline (Manning, 1997). In Veitnamese, phoi nang means sun-drying.

Employees deemed in need of a bit of discipline are forced to stand in the tropical sun, which packs a wallop unfamiliar to those from more temperate climates (Manning, 1997).

The inability of these OT authors to see through obvious hypocrisy and self-aggrandizing PR works represents the effectiveness of Nike's deep indoctrination of mass culture. Nike develops and we in OT consume, self-deceptive stories that advantage managerialist interests over a more coherent and rigorous comprehension of Nike's world affairs. Without a critical pedagogy, the Nike tale as told in OT is much like the movie, "Wags the Dog." Fiction is fabricated as a substitute for reality. The question for me is how to teach the critical skills necessary to take the blinders off in order to see Nike ideology most clearly. To me the answer is a combination of CT and CP. Local stories of Nike workers can be presented and analyzed by students to explore the oppressive reality of global capitalism. When you juxtapose power, culture, and ideology, common items such as sneakers made by Third World labor pools have hegemonic meaning in the global marketplace. In the next section, I will explore how CT can be used in combination with CP in OT.

CT in Combination with CP. CT and CP are both enlivened by Marxism. CP and CT breaks with antihistorical pedagogy. Critical pedagogists such as Gadotti (1996) are skeptical of Rogerian, non-directive pedagogies, such as the recent training in experiential exercises, group dynamics (teams building), and management skills (and competencies). With the focus on exercise, skills, and PR stories of corporate heroism, the content can become secondary or go unexamined resulting in conservative OT pedagogy. "What is important in nondirective pedagogy is the success in interpersonal relationships, group life, the ardor of the discussion, and the pleasure of letting off steam" (Gadotti, 1996: 68). CP is focused on the content and relating that content to the common sense knowledge and experience of the student. Snyders (1974), for example, contends the student's common sense knowledge is often fragmentary, chaotic, and stereotyped. This is certainly the case when I begin to introduce students to Nike's overseas labor practices. Many have been so flooded by Nike advertisements about its own ethical values, they initially resist stories of labor abuse, as biased, one-sided, or exceptions to the rule.

The directive learning of CP explores how both teachers and students of OT are presented with fragmented, chaotic, stereotypes that construct the sociohistorical context of OT. Mills and Simmons (1995) text on OT is a notable exception. The text invites students to deconstruct how OT marginalizes or omits discussions on race, gender, and labor abuse. While exercises and self-directed discourse has its place in the OT classroom, there is also a need to look at the larger contextual realities and how to analyze the relation of the student to those realities. Students in my OT course (Boje, 1998) are invited to research the difference between what Nike espouses in its PR reports, stockholder meetings, and web documents against the reports of activists. Students have not been exposed to politicized readings of Nike stories. They are used to just accepting the scientifically-derived models of OT. This is what Giroux (1993: 36) refers to as a pedagogy that renders its representations in ways that leaves the working of OT ideology indiscernible. What Giroux (1993: 37) observes about conservatism in public education could also be a statement about OT: its unfettered conviction in science and technology as the engine of progress, its unflinching belief in the humanist subject as the unifeid agent of history, and its adamant insistence that Western culture is synonymous with the very notion of civilization itself.

The problem for me is how to encourage students to engage Nike stories critically, as a part of what Giroux (1993: 39) calls a "broader discourse of ethics and politics that promotes a deeper understanding of the historical and cultural locations from which students might speak, act, and struggle?"

To understand the hegemonic power of Nike and its distillation into OT, necessitates a careful look into how Nike restructures and refigures its labor practices, and its continual attempt to mollify forms of resistance. I teach Braverman's (1974) labor process theory (LPT) and a deconstructive reading of OT (Mills & Simmons, 1995) to my MBA students along with a virtual web case study of Nike and activist on line documents (Boje, 1998). Figure One presents the key LPT concepts we cover in the course. LPT, to me, looks at the various ways in which capital is accumulated by exploitative uses of technology, division of labor, expert dependency, a weakened education system and the systematic deskilling and degradation of work. I add environmental abuse to the LPT for my own interest.

Figure One: Labor Process Theory

I also teach several approaches to critical analysis in order to arm students with alternative critical analytic tools to make their own sense of Nike propaganda, decenter my own activist perspective, and thereby open up the classroom space to multiple interpretations. Students report it is the only course in their MBA curriculum that actively critiques capitalism. In the next section I will illustrate three critical analyses that can be used in OT pedagogy. This section draws upon the Held's (1980) summaries of the critical theory and methods of Horkheimer, Ordorno, and Marcuse.

Immanent Criticism. Horkheimer's immanent criticism method allows us to contrast Nike' conceptual principles with the existent condition of its labor practices. Of the three methods we will look at, it is the most negative and least emancipatory. The method proceeds by changing Nike concepts and principles into the occurrence of their opposites. In this way we explore how Nike's espoused claims are contradicted by their own practices. One place to begin this analysis is to contrast Nike's Code of Conduct principles with its actuality. "Nike seeks partners that share our commitment to the promotion of best practices and continuous improvement in" (Nike's revised code as of May 12, 1998). The core principles are:

1. Occupational health and safety, compensation, hours of work and benefits.
2. Minimizing our impact on the environment.
3. Management practices that recognize the dignity of the individual, the rights of free association and collective bargaining, and the right to a workplace free of harassment, abuse or corporal punishment.
4. The principle that decisions on hiring, salary, benefits, advancement, termination or retirement are based solely on the ability of an individual to do the job.

Documentation and Inspection (Contractor) agrees to maintain on file such documentation as may be needed to demonstrate compliance with this Code of Conduct, and further agrees to make these documents available for Nike or its designated auditor's inspection upon request.

All four Code of Conduct principles are negated by Nike's own audit which observes seemingly undeniable violations of wage laws, overtime hours, safety, poor ventilation, exposure to toxic glues and solvents and violations of Vietnam environmental, health, and wage laws.

In violation of principle one, Ernst & Young found that toluene, a carcinogen, was in the air at different sites in the factory studied, six to 177 times the amount allowed by Vietnamese regulations, which itself is about four times as strict as American toluene standards. Extended exposure to the carcinogen toluene is known to cause damage to the liver, kidneys, and central nervous system, and can lead to birth defects.

Contrary to principle two, there is evidence that Nike's subcontractor is releasing pollutants into the atmosphere in violation of Vietnamese laws. According to the report:

Firing non-reusable garbage in combustors caused exhaustion of black smoke into the air. The company should consider that matter and accelerate measures and application to reduce black smoke.

In negation of Nike's claims that its Code of Conduct is being "independently monitored by Ernst & Young," Ernst & Young (1997) was also, for the first time, revealed to be "sub-contracted" by Nike and not acting as an "independent auditor or monitor" of Nike operations, as publicly claimed by Nike. This is contrary to how Philip Knight (1997) described the relationship to Ernst & Young in his 1997 speech to the stockholders.

In 1992, NIKE became the first company in our industry to have a Code of Conduct--in 1994, we became the first company, I believe in any industry, to have that Code of Conduct monitored by an independent third party. The party that we picked was a certified public accountant, Ernst & Young (Knight, September 22, 1997, emphasis mine).

As a sub-contractor, Nike dictates what is looked at, how it is measured, and controls the dissemination of the results of any legal violations. In its web documents (Nike FAQ, 1997) Nike explains in some detail how its "independent monitoring system" works and re-asserts that Ernst & Young is an "independent monitor."

Independent auditors like Ernst and Young are trusted to judge company performance for shareholders, securities brokers and financial regulators in governments all over the world. Their most important asset is a reputation for independent and accurate assessment of corporate performance, which is precisely what NIKE demands and receives in every audit done. The auditing teams are comprised of local, host-country nationals who speak and live in the culture of the worker (1997 NikeWorkers web site).

In negation of principle three, Ernst & Young (1997) reported that employees do not read Nike's Code of Conduct and do not know exactly what "Nike" is. Another startling revelation, contradicting principles one and three, is that 77 percent of the workers in this Bien Hoa City (Industrial Zone II near Ho Chi Minh City), South Vietnam shoe factory, suffered from respiratory problems because the Nike workplace is insufficiently ventilated and filled with carcinogens (Ernst & Young, 1997; Keown, 1997; O'Rourke, 1997; Greenhouse, 1997). This includes the use of toxic and illegal (both in the U.S. and Vietnam) chemicals such as Benzene, a glue that has been linked to leukemia. A month earlier, on October 3^rd, 1997, AMRC/KHCIC (1997) released a report that in two Nike factories (Yue Yuen and Wellco) in China, the toxic glue banned in the U.S. was being used by Nike employees who had no clue to its health hazards.

In contrast to principle three, the conditions depicted in the Ernst and Young (1997) report conform to the official definition of a "sweatshop." The U.S. General Accounting Office has developed a working definition of a sweatshop as "an employer that violates more than one federal or state labor, industrial homework, occupational safety and health, workers' compensation, or industry registration" (Corporate Watch, 1998).

In contrast to principle four, the following direct quotes from the Ernst & Young (1998) report reveal several glaring discrepancies between principle and practice (VT is the code name of the factory).

Pay and Overtime.

• There were 50 employees without any indication of salary payment.
• There were 20 cases of eligible employees who worked for Company more than a year but were not paid severance when they left the Company.
• VT's night shift working hours is currently 8 hours (7 working hours and 1 rest hour). VT's salary payment for night shift workers is calculated as follows: working hours x 135% of the day time payment) + (1 hour rest time x 100% of the day time payment). As stipulated by laws in Vietnam, the 1 hour rest time should be multiplied by 135% of the day time payment, because the resting hour should be considered as working hours according to Article 71 (breaktime) of the Labor Code.

• Our general review of the personnel register as of October 1996 indicated that there are 104 persons under 18 which contradicts VT's policy.

The concepts that dominate the public image of Nike are enacted as their opposites. Workers in Nike factories experience social injustice in an impoverished and toxic life world. In this way the immanent critique reveals Nike's own inherent negativity. Nike contradicts its own principles and claims about itself. Horkheimer used immanent critique to show how "bourgeois society moves from keeping its revolutionary promise of 'justice, equality and freedom'" (Held, 1980). The Nike ideology being preached by Phil Knight, posted on Nike web sites, and being advertised to investors, suppliers, consumers, and overseas emplyees conceals a reality that enslaves Asian women and children and entraps them in misery and suffering. Nike markets a view of itself that is contradicted by its own standards and principles.

Immanent criticism does more than establish the negation of Nike's espoused theory. Horkheimer's method also allows us to assess the closed-off possibilities. Although, as we shall see below, positive possibilities are more the focus of Ordorno's and especially Marcuse's methods. In the face of the Ernst & Young and other reports, Nike maintains its claim that its code of conduct has been monitored and implemented since its inception in 1992. By insisting it is living up to its code of conduct, Nike closes off any possibility for improvement. For example, Nike maintains that it pays the minimum wage in each country or the industry standard (whichever is higher). But, a minimum wage is not the same thing as a living wage. Countries such as Vietnam, Indonesia, and China have lowered the minimum wage to less than poverty level in order to attract multinational corporate investment. Phil Knight said in his May 12, 1998 address, "we are rooted in our claim to be good corporate citizens" (See Nike web site Nikebiz). A good corporate citizen could work to close the gap between theory and practice, instead of maintaining the illusion that its behavior is congruent.

Negative Dialectics. In what follows, I want to explore how Adorno's method of negative dialectics gives insight into the contradictions between Nike's espoused theory and practice. Like Horkheimer's approach to immanent criticism, this method examines the gap between what an object (e.g. Nike) claims for itself and its actual performance (Held, 1980: 211). But, Adorno also does more than Horkheimer. Adorno sought to break the grip of conceptual systems that reified objects by attending to their subjectivities (Held, 1980: 213). Identity thinking, rational identity, and non-identity thinking (negative dialectics) are keys to this analysis. Identity thinking would take the local story of the Vietnamese worker we are about to tell to you and dissolve it into the universal story of all Nike workers. In rational identity, we might naively assume that Nike is identical to its code of conduct and press release stories. But, as we saw in the previous analysis the guiding concepts of Nike are far from being actuated. If Nike possessed rational identity it would not fail to fulfil its own code of conduct. Negative dialectics or non-identity thinking allows us to see the falseness of claims in Nike's identity thinking and rational identity. "Negative dialectics assesses the relation between concept and object, between the set of properties implied by the concept and the object's actuality" (Held, 1980: 215). Nike's conceptualization of itself may change over time, perhaps becoming more enlightened in the face of its own contradictions and unrealized possibilities.

In keeping with Adorno's ways of writing up his inquiries using irony and juxtaposition, I offer a story of one Nike worker to further unmask Nike ideology. Here by ideology I mean, action and words that "conceal or mask social contradictions on behalf of a dominant class or group" (Held, 1980: 186). As discussed above, Nike's code of conduct is a mask concealing many contradictions between identity thinking, rational identity and non-identity. These do benefit Phil Knight's, capital accumulation. It also sustains the illusion that global capitalism is benefiting young Asian women in Nike factories.

The following story is constructed by me to de-romanticize Nike labor practices in juxtaposition to Nike's celebrated place in popular culture. My story attempts to give more voice to one Vietnamese worker's sense of the inner history of Nike than to it usual spokesperson, Phil Knight. As such, it is a reversal of the Nike narrative that one might find in OT, such as in the text by Hodge, Anthony and Gale (1996), reviewed above. This local story is also part of the wider political, social, and economic discourse of late multinational capitalism. As a subordinate group, the Nike worker through elaborate PR hoaxes is made invisible to OT and absent from the history of Nike, their workers silenced by Nike's rhetorical moves.

The Lap Nguyen Stories. In telling this story I will put Nike's side of the story in highlighted boxes, and focus the main text on Ms. Nguyen's telling of the story. What would you do if you were poor, young, female, and the only job open to you was to work for Nike? What would you do if you were directed to talk to the media? Talking to the media can get you fired in repressive havens like Vietnam.On April 30th, 1998, a female Nike factory worker, Lap Nguyen, who cooperated in interviews with ESPN in February 1998 and CBS News inquiries in July 1996, was finally forced to resign.

The story begins November 10, 1996 when Ms. Nguyen went to work for Sam Yang as an assembly line worker making $36 a month. Sam Yang is a Korean-owned, Nike sub-contractor factory in Cu Chi, Ho Chi Minh City, Vietnam. An industrious, even model employee, by February 1996 she was promoted to team leader at a salary of $52 a month, responsible for supervising 50 other women on the Nike assembly line.

The cost of labor for NIKE products varies slightly by model, volume and source. As a general rule, labor represents about 15% of the price NIKE pays the factory for the product. Because NIKE's cost is about 25% of retail cost, labor accounts for about 4% of the retail cost (Nike FAQ web site).

 "As a team leader," Ms Nguyen told a NY Times reporter after her forced resignation:

"I made sure that the assembly line of 50 workers is going along. I also helped other workers, watched the total count to ensure that we meet the daily quota. I helped train the new workers. I helped other workers out if they got stuck" (Herbert, 1998).

In March, 1996 Ms. Nguyen, was one of 15 team leaders lined up and each one slapped in the head with a Nike upper sole by their Korean manager, Ms. Jaeng Mi Baek. The incident followed an inspection by a Nike official who had reprimanded the manager for producing shoes with the wrong color patterns. The story became widely circulated in the Vietnam press. In July 1996, Ms. Roberta Baskin, a reporter for CBS News ' 48 Hours program, interviewed Ms. Nguyen. The 48 Hours story aired October 17^th, 1996 (CBS News 48 Hours, 1996).

Baskin: (Voiceover) Thuy and 14 other team leaders were singled out and punished by their Korean supervisor, Madame Baeck, seen here sitting at a table with the Nike shoe she used to hit the women. It was in retaliation for some poor sewing. Madame Baeck's reply? Quote, "It's not a big deal. It's just a method of managing workers."

 Did she hurt you?

Thuy: (Through Translator) The physical pain didn't last long, but the pain I feel in my heart will never disappear (excerpts from CBS 48 Hours segment, October 17, 1996).

As Ms. Nguyen recounted her side of the story after her forced resignation (Herbert, 1998):

I don't know how Roberta find out about me. One day I and my friends who were also hit by the manager was told by the confederation of labor to meet with a reporter outside the factory after work. After work, we went outside to the restaurant, in front of the factory, and talked to her.

In the French press McCall (1997) reported the slap on the wrist fine paid by Nike's subcontractor:

The company was prosecuted and the woman forced home after receiving a three-month suspended jail sentence. But the 200-dollar fine imposed on the firm would not be considered a major deterrent by many overseas concerns.

American-Vietnamese business man and labor activist, Thuyen Nguyen (author of the Vietnam Labor Watch Study) reported how Phil Knight tried to minimize the 15 women receiving corporal punishment story as a overblown incident involving only one of Nike's 400,000 workers (June 17, 1997):

By September last year, many Vietnamese newspapers had published articles about 15 women workers who were hit on the head by a Nike factory supervisor. But at a shareholders meeting at Nike's headquarters, its chairman Phil Knight minimized the story into an incident involving only one worker who was hit on the arm by a supervisor.

The classic issue here is the glass half-empty or half-full perspective. Does Nike by its presence foster higher levels of respect for rights -- at least in the factories? Or does our presence foster repression in countries where governments do not recognize some of the rights we in western democracies hold dear? Nike firmly believes -- and the record supports -- the concept that our presence helps (Nike FAQ web site)

Nike also uses endorsements to curtail further CBS coverage of corporal punishment incidents. On February 11, 1998 the 48 hours reporter, Roberta Baskin, whose 1996 report focused public attention on Nike corporal punishment practices, reports to another reporter that she has been preempted by her boss from doing follow up stories about Nike labor practices (Kurtz, 1998). She wonders if there is an endorsement relationship between Nike and CBS News, as it covers the Olympic games sporting the Swoosh logo. On February 20^th it is confirmed by Focus on the Corporation (email newsletter, 1998) that there is an endorsement contract between CBS News and Nike. This can be verified by watching CBS newscasters as they cover the 1998 Olympics required in exchange for endorsement fees to wear the Nike logos.

Ms. Lap Nugyen was once again interviewed in February, 1998. This time by a ESPN reporter, Mr. Ley. In April (Ley, 1998) ESPN aired its report on Nike labor practices, which reported two more incidents of corporal punishment during its visit to the Sam Yang, Nike Vietnam sneaker factory. An ESPN producer observed a supervisor slap a female employee sharply across the forearm for not spreading glue slowly enough, and another supervisor was observed throwing a sneaker angrily at an employee. After the ESPN program, "Outside the Line", went on the air during the Olympics.

Before I left the factory to be interviewed by ESPN, the general manager told me to say nice things about the factory and that the factory is having problems and that's why workers are also facing problems. I told him that I will tell the truth as I know it. I told him I cannot speak for the entire factory. I will speak for myself about what I know (Herbert, 1998).

Ms Nguyen was grilled by her Sam Yang factory managers for speaking with ESPN (Herbert, 1998).

Q. Tell us more about your interview with ESPN.

A. My talk with ESPN mainly involved wages. The conversation revolved around wages and why we signed the contract. I told ESPN that there was a strike and we did not like the contract and that's why we went on the strike. I joined the strike with other workers because I did not want to sign the contract. But after the strike, the company forced the workers to accept the contract. I told ESPN about how the contract was not good for the workers because the Vietnamese currency keep losing its value and we were getting pay at an old rate that gives us less money. The factory keeps using an old exchange rate and did not adjust the rate to the latest rate causing many of us to lose money.

NIKE's Code of Conduct provides that NIKE will seek to do business with contractors that recognize the rights of workers to freely associate and bargain collectively -- which in its simplest form means that we believe workers should have the opportunity to form unions and negotiate with management on a collective basis (Nike FAQ web site).

Q. Was the factory manager happy with your interview?

A. I told the managers afterward about my interview at ESPN. They did not believe me. They did not believe that all I talk about was wages. They asked whether I told ESPN that workers are being abused. I said that I told ESPN that physical abuse do not happen any more. They keep asking me over and over again about the interview.

In addition to that, a lot of our critics say that our Code of Conduct has no teeth, it's just a piece of paper. But I think you saw in USA Today, that not only do we post our Code of Conduct on the wall of all the major rooms in the factories, in addition we are handing out plastic cards showing the Code of Conduct to all the workers in these factories in his or her native language. In addition to that, over these last few weeks, we have terminated four factories which have not lived up to NIKE's Code of Conduct--that's two apparel factories and one glove factory (Knight's speech to stockholder meeting, Sept. 22, 1997).

Q. What happened to you after the interview with ESPN?

A. I was interviewed by ESPN on the 22^nd. On the 23rd, I was transferred to be a team leader of a different line. This line was made up of only 43 workers who were just starting, but we have to make the same quota as the other line of 50 workers. I was having a hard time keeping up and could not meet the quota. I worked so hard to keep up but I can't. There was only 43 workers and they were all beginners. The other line has 50 experienced workers.

Q. What else happened?

A. I became really sick, had high temperature. This is because I have been working 100+ hours of overtime in Feb and March. So I asked the manager to let me go home. I can not obtain a doctor note because it's after 10:00 AM. The manager said that you can not be a team leader and take sick day off. While I was working because I was sick so I keep my head down for 10 minutes. The manager screamed at me that team leader cannot keep their head down while working. The next day I got a doctor note. The doctor said I have 40 degree fever (104 degree F) and I took one day off. After coming back, they demoted me. The manager keep moving me from one job to the next. The manager followed me around and yelled at me. The manager recalled every mistake I had made in the last two years and yelled at me for every little thing. The manager then told me that my new job is to clean the bathroom, that I'm worthless, I'm not good enough to work for the company. And I'm only good for cleaning the bathroom.

Since this issue [toxic work conditions] has come to the headlines literally around the world, I haven't had a single Taiwanese or Korean shoemaker that I've talked to that's been with us for a long time that hasn't made the observation that if a shoe worker in Korea or Taiwan had gone to sleep in the shoe factory there ten years ago and wakened in a shoe factory in Indonesia or Vietnam today, wouldn't have thought that he or she had died and gone to heaven; the conditions have improved dramatically (Knight's speech to stockholder meeting, Sept. 22, 1997, additions mine).

Q. What else happened?

A. It is not my job to the clean the bathroom. I don't have to do that.

There are people who are hired to clean the bathroom. It is not my responsibility. I was not hired for that. In 1996, after I was hit I did not want to work there anymore. But the general manager asked me to stay on and so I stayed.

And I'll point this out: that on any given day in Southeast Asia, there are at least 500,000 people working on NIKE shoes and clothes. That's a community that's only slightly smaller than the city of Portland. And you do not see [Portland Mayor] Vera Katz being charged with abusing the citizenry whenever there is a crime or an exception to the laws in this community, and I would suggest that you hold us to the same standards (Knight's speech to stockholder meeting, Sept. 22, 1997).

Q. Tell us how you cleaned the bathroom, did you use a mop?

A. I used a rag and a bucket. I took water from the bathroom to wipe the floor.

Q. Did you clean the actual toilet?

A. I did not clean the toilet. I refused to do that. I felt ashamed of doing this kind of work because I was a team leader. I did not have to do that. I have never heard of a case of a team leader being forced to clean the bathroom before.

Currently we have more than 1,000 NIKE employees worldwide to monitor the operations at the subcontractor level. In addition to production issues, these employees are specifically trained and are responsible for Code compliance issues NIKE believes it is important to coordinate our enforcement procedures so when Code compliance enforcement issues develop, the Labor Practices Division can respond quickly to address and remedy the problem (Nike FAQ web site).

Q. Do you think talking to ESPN is the reason why you were demoted?

A. Talking to ESPN must be the reason why the manager turned on me. I was a model worker for two years. I did a lot of good things to help the factory. I got bonuses in 1996 and 1997. For the last two years, if I made any mistake the manager would just tell me. Why then suddenly they followed me around, why then did they continue to yell at me for every little thing?

Although violations of the Code can and do occur, the correction and prevention of further violations is usually managed through a partnership process that includes an exchange of information on the violation, agreement on an action plan, and monitoring to assure that action is completed to NIKE's satisfaction (Nike FAQ web site Nikeworkers.com)

After these bouts of threats and deliberate humiliation, the Nike factory forced Ms Nguyen to sign a letter of resignation (Campaign For Labor Rights 5/13/98). Ms. Lap Nguyen, despite her excellent employment history was demoted to cleaning the toilet from a team leader position after talking to ESPN and NBC News reporters. Nike executives have refused multiple pleas to review her case. One reason may be that Sam Yang, unlike the four subcontractors Phil Knight reported severing ties with (Nike web document, 1998 stockholder's meeting; Manning, 1997), this sub contractor from Korea controls a significant portion of Nike's overall production.

From the perspective of Adorno's method, the Lap Nguyen story has several implications. The rational identity posited in Nike's press releases and web documents preserves a place for the utopia thinking of Nike executives. They point to what is possible to achieve if their code of conduct could be realized in actuality. Nike's self-identity embodies ideals that are more and less than the story of Ms. Lap Nguyen. The story reveals the less, in that Nike has ideal qualities it is not able to real. The story reveals the more because Nike comprehends the implications of labor exploitation and abuse. The story reveals that Nike is other than its ideal code of conduct. Nike has a non-identity; it is other than its ideal and its potentiality; Nike's here and now is different. Nike's claimed identity between the equal rights and protections enforced on behalf of all its workers and the present state of affairs as told by Ms. Nguyen is false. This negation points our analysis to what ways in which Nike restricts and restrains its potential.

How does Nike restrict and restrain its potential? Nike, to me, has confused advertising with propaganda. In advertising, it is accepted practice to make false claims about a product: "buying this sneaker will make you into a Michael Jordan or Tiger Woods." But, to make false claims about labor practice is to engage in propaganda in order to attract consumers and investors. The labor practices department of Nike, employing over 1,000 monitors, is, for all intents and purposes, a public relations force. As read from Phil Knight's speech extracts, Ms. Nguyen's story is seen as an exception to policy, an isolated incident that is not of great concern. The general code still holds even though the particular case is outside that code. Yet, within this particular story, the universal seems to breakdown. Nike is not able to control the behavior of its subcontract firms. Nike is unable to perceive its own subjectivity in its treatment of particular employees. Through its self-characterization as a virtual company, who does not itself produce anything, Nike distances its identity from the factory floor of its subcontractors. By this rationality, Ms. Nguyen does not work for Nike, she works for Sam Yang. In this way Nike lives within its own illusion. This is an illusion that becomes the working reality of Sam Yang and Ms. Nguyen. Yet, there is an ideal which Nike would like to realize, the ability to monitor the labor practices of its subcontractors and to bring about health, safety, and fairness to its factory workers.

Historical Materialism. In this section I want to briefly apply Marcuse's approach to dialectic analysis. Like Horkheimer and Ordorno, Marcuse posits a gulf between extant human existence and the unfulfilled potential. But, Marcuse focuses more on the historical realization of unrealized potential. For Nike, this means looking at the development of new labor practices within the boundaries set by Nike's old labor practices. For example, after growing consumer protest to Nike' use of child labor in the manufacture of soccer balls in Pakistan, Nike changed the age limit to 16 and created schools for workers' children. After the release of the Ernst & Young audit and the ESPN expose of Nike labor practices during the Olympics, Phil Knight said Nike was going to implement fundamental changes to its labor practices. Phil Knight announced on May 13^th, 1998 (Campaign for Labor Rights, 1998):

1. Committed to "expanding its current independent monitoring programs to include non-governmental organizations (NGOs), foundations and educational institutions and making summaries of the findings public."
2. Committed to "adopting U.S. Occupational Safety and Health Administration (OSHA) indoor air quality standards for all footwear factories." and
3. Committed to "increasing the minimum age of footwear factory workers to 18, and the minimum age for all other light-manufacturing workers (apparel, accessories, equipment) to 16."
4. Committed to "expanding education programs for workers in all Nike footwear factories; increasing support of its current micro-enterprise loan program to 1,000 families each in Vietnam, Indonesia, Pakistan and Thailand; and funding university research and open forums to explore issues related to global manufacturing and responsible business practices such as independent monitoring and air quality standards."

In Phil Knight's recent concessions, there is nothing about raising the daily wage by one dollar, a move that would elevate the worker from poverty wage to living wage. And the history of Nike is that when wages and worker solidarity rises, Nike deserts for another country, again revealing itself as negative to worker interests. The cultural and ethic experiences of Asian women are suppressed by a colonial ideology that sets up Western culture as a more developed than Asian culture.

Q. "Is the minimum wage enough to provide for a livelihood?"

A. The picture of workers who are malnourished because they can't afford to eat is repeatedly refuted by unbiased, tangible evidence. On the broadest level, the research firm Jardine Fleming, a subsidiary Jardine Matheson, Honng Kong, has developed what it calls its NIKE Index. In simplest terms, the NIKE Index tracks a developing economy's economic development by NIKE's activity in each country. Economic development starts when NIKE products are starting to be manufactured there(Indonesia, 1989; Vietnam, 1996). The economy hits the second stage -- development at a level where per capita income indicates labor flowing from basic industries like footwear and textiles to advanced industries like electronics and cars (Hong Kong, 1985; Korea, 1990); and an economy is fully developed when NIKE has developed that country as a major market (Singapore, 1991; Japan, 1984; Korea, 1994) (Nike FAQ web site).

Nike's ideal self-identity is that it promotes economic development as it transfers production to repressed countries with poverty labor havens. The Nike PR machine functions in the interest of White-male dominated Western capitalist interests. Asian women are victims of Nike policies that restrict pay to poverty levels, sanction corporal punishment, and design toxic production processes into sneaker manufacture.Yet, from Marcuse's historical materialism perspective, what we are observing is the ongoing struggle of capital and labor. For Nike to be what it espouses it must be transformed into what it is not: Nike must overcome its ideology or worker potentialities will not be realized. Can Nike become its opposite or will it remain a contradiction? As Nike moves to make its code of conduct real, it is gradually abolishing cruder forms of labor exploitation (e.g. child labor, corporal punishment, and health hazards). But, the exploitation of Asian women in a male system of Western domination does not appear to be changing. The story of Lap Nguyen contradicts the alleged dignity of the Nike worker in its code of conduct. The story presents us with an entire class of labor that negates Nike's revered principles.

Marcuse, more than Horkheimer and Ordorno, see this unfulfilled potential as the basis of radical revolution. "If revolution fails to further human fulfillment, it betrays its purpose and, as a consequence, cannot justify itself as progressive" (Held, 1980: 233). Nike's portrayal of self-identity is as a progressive instrument of revolution; Nike is bringing economic transformation to the Asian world. Of course, Marcuse is not talking about one institution's transformation, but instead the revolution from capitalist relations to a labor process, which is self-directed and free in its activity (Held, 1980: 236). Yet, we can ask, how is Nike advancing the human existence of half a million Asian workers? Nike's purpose is not the fulfillment of its workers' human potential, it is the accumulation of capital. As the accumulation of capital exacerbates poverty, and rapid technological change leads to the 'rle of dead matter over the human world,' the fundamental nature of workers' alienation is exposed' that is, their alienation from their product, process of work 'fellow-man,' and species being (Held, 1980: 237).

The Swoosh is a product of Asian labor that is independent of the worker because the Nike worker has no control over the labor process. Nike is restricting the possibilities for wage-workers to take control of the labor process through democratic action. Working to produce shoes in a system they do not control and producing what they can not afford to wear negates the self-fulfillment of Nike workers. The fundamental transformation of the Nike labor process through some Third World revolution does not appear to be on the horizon. The emancipatory revolution of Ms. Lap Nguyen to attain work in a Nike free of contradictions is a dialectic without historical synthesis" " the dialectic is, as it was for Horkheimer, unconcluded and open" (Held, 1980: 241). The boycott efforts of activists to educate consumers, strikes for more bathrooms and livable wages by workers, Nike's revisions to its code of conduct, and our own critical gaze at Nike's labor process does not add up to a revolutionary movement that would transform Nike to what it is not.

Conclusions

The fact that Ms. Nguyen's story along with Ernst & Young audit has been widely circulated means Nike PR can on longer silence Asian workers and keep them sequestered from investors and consumers. The immanent criticicism of Horkheimer, the negative dialectics of Adorno, and the historical materialism of Marcuse have been illustrated in this paper to suggest that Nike is experiencing a breakdown in its culture construction machine, but not transcending its inherent contradictions. The voices of Asian women are emerging to protest against exploitative, even illegal labor practices which Nike's code, in theory, is designed to control. But, this is not enough for revolution.

Nike sweatshops are not near to collapse. For many of my own students after being taught to read Nike through a critical theory still believe Nike has every right to operate a sweatshop in Asian countries where sweatshops are part of the economic fabric. Nike can be viewed as a powerful media culture player using libidinal and psychic controls and seduction in hegemonic and even visible ways to separate production from the prying eyes of consumers and investors (Best & Kellner, 1997: 118). Nike's spin tactics are so effective, that scores of anti-Nike and Nike-boycott organizations are unable to mobilize beyond their token protests and media spectacles into wide-spread consumer and investor resistance to Nike labor practices.

Nike is the story of Western global capitalism. In this story Western multinational have set up sweatshops in Third World countries to exploit poverty wage conditions, health risks, and environmental degradation. But, the story also speaks to the racism and colonial enterprise relationship between the First and Third Worlds. Race exploitation is being sustained in a myriad of ways. Asian, women workers are not treated with quite the same dignity and respect as Beaverton, Oregon workers. In the name of Western economic development, the sweatshop is held out as the key to progress and the solution to poverty. The daily life experience of close to half a million Asian women is rooted in Nike's racist and colonial ideology. As an apologist for Western capitalist interests in cheap labor, orthodox OT can no longer ignore democratic values and multicultural ethics.

I am ready to conclude that the dominant values and meanings in most OT texts are mostly complicit in the toxic health and undignified labor practices reeking misery to Asian women in Nike factories. The blind reverence for Western economic development masks a good deal of human misery. The Nike fortune is built on the backs of Asian women, working like slaves in cruel and inhuman conditions. Nike is an vulgar and ironic marriage of chic popular culture, media savvy, and sweatshop production. First, it is ironic that while Nike pays Michael Jordan and Tiger Woods twenty and thirty million dollars in fees for their endorsement, Air Jordans are being made by women making sub-poverty wages. Second, it is ironic that Nike is the cutting edge of American fashion and culture produces shoes in Vietnam where such tragic American history was written. Third, a company known for fashioning its own image has had its image tarnished by the issue of worker rights.

AS CT adopts a more CP, the issue of teacher and student agency will take on more importance. We will want to do more than say there are multiple ways of looking at the behavior of a Nike corporation, that Nike is full of contradictions and irony. We will want to do more than expose the ideological manipulations by contrasted espoused theory with practice. We will want to do more than document the interaction of activists and Nike. We will want to do more than take a relativist position that declares Nike's way ethically acceptable. To get my students involved, I ask them to post their Nike critiques on the web. It is a small way to change reality. I would be happy indeed if they joined the "Boycott Nike" movement. But, for now, attesting to the labor practices that enslave close to half a million a million young Asian females, so that Phil Knight and a few elite share holders can accumulate rapacious sums of money, is as critical as it gets.

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