Nike Audit Looked at Vietnamese Factory

An audit of a Vietnamese factory producing 400,000 shoes a month for Nike Inc. indicates that unsafe conditions existed when the audit was conducted a year ago. The report by Ernst & Young found that laborers at Korean-owned Tae Kwang Vina Industrial Ltd. were exposed to carcinogens and forced to work up to 65 hours a week for only $10. The factory employs about 10,000, mostly women. The report on the November 1996 inspection was submitted to Nike in January for internal use. But the San Francisco-based Transnational Resource and Action Center for workers’ rights received a copy and made it public. Nike said that since the audit, ventilation was improved and the factory began to comply with its code of limiting workweeks to 60 hours and with Vietnamese labor laws.