Dozens of student activists rallied outside the NYU Bookstore on Wednesday, demanding that the university cut ties with Nike after the company was accused of not paying employees at a factory in Bangkok that supplies the bookstore with Nike-branded merchandise.
After a group of students attended the unveiling of the Triangle Shirtwaist Factory fire memorial, they marched to the bookstore, calling on the university to address the alleged mistreatment of the factory workers. According to Thai law, employers must pay reduced wages to temporarily suspended workers. However, after the factory — Hong Seng Knitting — closed in 2020 due to the pandemic, workers claimed they did not receive compensation.
At the protest, students displayed banners that said “NYU: Just Do It” and “Worker Rights Are Human Rights.” Sophomore Hazel Walrod said that the protest came after student clubs, including Sunrise Movement NYU, learned about the labor rights movement Pay Your Workers.
“NYU is a part of the Worker Rights Consortium and received a report on this issue, so they should be aware of the workers’ rights violations going on in Hong Seng,” Walrod said. “Because they conjure with Nike, they are still responsible on some level for this injustice.”
Sophomore Brandon Wu, who read out a letter addressed to NYU president Linda Mills, said if the university continues selling Nike-branded clothing, it would be endorsing the company’s exploitative labor contracts.
“[NYU] can choose to uphold its contract with Nike, in effect greenlighting their contracted factory’s practices of wage theft, coercion, and labor exploitation,” Wu said. “Or, NYU can uphold the commitment it made to the WRC, as well as its own expectations of licensed merchandisers, and protect the rights of the workers who’ve made the garments that tens of thousands of students wear.”
Managers at Hong Seng Knitting deny allegations of wage theft and intimidation and told the WRC that employees voluntarily gave up their pay at the height of the pandemic. However, some workers say the company used exploitative practices like firing employees or reporting migrant textile workers to Thai immigration services, which led one Burmese worker at Hong Seng to flee to safety in Myanmar. The WRC investigation also showed that affected workers lost more than $800,000 in wages during the factory’s closure.
“As a member of the Workers’ Rights Consortium (WRC), NYU is in frequent contact with the WRC and is aware of their findings regarding wage theft at the Hong Seng Knitting factory,” university spokesperson Carol Ourivio wrote in a statement to WSN. “We have raised these concerns with our partners, and are currently working on discerning the most impactful course of action.”
Nike rebuked the allegations of wage theft and intimidation and told the WRC that an independent investigation within the company didn’t find labor violations at Hong Seng Knitting.
Junior Ryan Jones said he thinks the university has to cut its ties with Nike as long as the company continues to deny labor exploration allegations.
“NYU could tell Nike to give Hong Seng an ultimatum,” Jones said. “[They could] say, ‘Hey, you guys can pay your workers, you can pressure your supplier to pay the settlement,’ or, if they won’t do so, cut the contract.”
Update, Oct. 13: This story has been updated with a statement from an NYU spokesperson.
Contact Connor Patton at [email protected].