T A B L E++T A L K

Is being a kid today truly more difficult than it was 10 or 20 years ago? Join the discussion in the Social Issues area of Table Talk

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R E C E N T L Y

No turning back
By Sallie Tisdale
At what point do you need to tell your child he can't come home again?
(05/28/98)

My son, the cross-dresser
By Lisen Stromberg
Why are tomboys cute but "janegirls" weird?
(05/27/98)

Back to my future
By Lori Leibovich
Dancing cheek to cheek with your high school self
(05/26/98)

Coming clean about her trashy life
By Lori Leibovich
In "Other People's Dirt," a housekeeper dishes about her dirty work
(05/22/98)

Violence or entertainment?
By Dwight Garner
Media violence's vicious circle
(05/21/98)

BROWSE THE MOTHERS WHO THINKARCHIVES

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Mamafesto
By Camille Peri
Why it's time
for Mothers Who Think

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NIKE'S LABOR PRACTICES HAVE MOTIVATED A WAVE OF YOUTH ACTIVISM, BUT WHERE DO THESE CHILDREN GET THEIR IDEAS?

BY DAWN MacKEEN | They came by the trash bag, old shoes plucked from their dusty graveyards behind doors, under beds and in the darkest corners of closets. In the past year, about 200 young adults from the Edenwald Gun Hill Neighborhood Center in the Bronx have gathered these shoes -- all with the trademark Nike swoosh -- and returned them to the Nike Town in Manhattan to protest the athletic company's treatment of its workers. While the shoes were just a symbolic gesture, the young activists wanted Nike to know that they will not support a company that allegedly hires even poorer children than them and then works them in sweatshop conditions. For many it was their first taste of being political. "We have the power to make or break this company," 16-year-old Christina Burton says as she and the others are in the midst of planning yet another shoe return. "If it weren't for the youth and the parents who are spending their last money to make their kids happy, they wouldn't be the sneaker giant that they are."

If it weren't for the youth? Christina's right about that: Nike's core consumers are from 12 to 22 years old. But just how did she learn this, and how did other kids, some as young as 6, become aware of Nike and its alleged child labor indiscretions? Seven-year-old Joey from San Francisco's Clare Lillienthal Elementary School learned about the dark side of Nike from his teacher, who wears a "Just Don't Do It" T-shirt to school, and from another child his age. "They make kids work for peanuts," he says. "It made me sort of mad at them." Just like that, Joey decided to not buy Nike shoes. While not as vocal as the Bronx teens, many children across the country have developed strong political views when it comes to the swoosh. Waging an unofficial boycott of Nike products, children are quietly turning away from the latest Air Jordans to buy other brands.

"This is a new phenomenon. Children are discovering that they don't have to be helpless because they can have an impact by getting together," says Janet Nelson, who works on children's rights at UNICEF's Geneva office. On the international level, children have come together in the fight against child labor by walking alongside adults in the Global March Against Child Labour. Sponsored by more than 1,000 organizations, the global march is actually four marches -- through Asia, Africa, Europe and North and South America. All of the marches will converge in Geneva this weekend for the International Labor Organization's convention on the most "intolerable" forms of child labor. Ironically, the conference doesn't single out Nike as a perpetrator of the worst child-labor violations. According to UNICEF, the most egregious forms of child labor occur not the confines of large multinational companies like Nike, but in homes where kids are domestic slaves, in businesses where they're exposed to chemicals, in brothels where they're forced into prostitution.

But for the last two years, Nike has come under attack from human rights activists, children's rights advocates and members of Congress for allegedly employing underage workers and operating sweatshops. The accusations have been so widespread that even the company's chairman and chief executive, Phil Knight, admitted that the "Nike product has become synonymous with slave wages, forced overtime and arbitrary abuse." So when Knight stepped forward earlier this month and announced its new corporate policies -- raising the minimum age and improving conditions in its factories -- the company's critics took credit. And the adult activists are sharing the credit with the littlest voices of opposition: kids. (The policy raises the age to 18 for factory workers and 16 for apparel, accessory or equipment workers; and improves the air quality in overseas factories. While activists applaud Nike's announcement, some have voiced concern that these may be hollow promises that will never be fully implemented.)

"Kids haven't had their sense of moral outrage dimmed and when they hear what Nike's been doing, they're incensed," says Trim Brissell, national coordinator for Campaign for Labor Rights. "Their first reaction is outrage and their second is: 'What can we do?'"

Both corporations and their opponents are engaged in the battle for the hearts and minds of America's children.

N E X T+P A G E: "It's not good practice to use students as pawns in a political or commercial enterprise"