Nike, world’s leading manufacturer of sports shoes and apparel, is one of the main firms
deploying global outsourcing.1
Nike started its venture in Vietnam in 1995 and its share
in the country’s Gross Domestic Product reached 5 percent by 1999. Despite Nike’s
contribution to the Vietnamese economy, the corporate giant failed to prevent the
violation of the labor code in the Vietnamese sweatshops during the mid- and late-1990s.
The five Nike factories in Vietnam, owned by Korean and Taiwanese subcontractors,
employed over 35,000 people, predominantly young women, who left village farms to
earn better wages.
The Tae Kwang Vina Factory (VT), a Nike sweatshop in an industrial estate in Dong Nai
province, employed around 10,000 people (over 85 percent of whom were women).2
Most workers were immigrants from northern and central Vietnam who left their homes,
families and work in rice fields for a better city life. VT became operational in 1995 and