It was clear that there was no real bargaining going on; three months later an e-mail arrived to confirm that another bogus KKB had been signed with no meaningful improvements.
Nike, predictably, criticized our visit as unhelpful. In retrospect, we did not even need the factory visit. With the help of some Indonesian students, we spoke with scores of workers and did some rudimentary "faux bargaining" calculations. Had the workers won a meager seniority clause increase of 15 cents per worker per day for each year of seniority, a worker with four years' experience would earn $1.70 a day, instead of $1.10. This does not sound like much money, but in this huge factory, it would cost the contractor $10,000 a day! No wonder the vast majority of Nike contractors have set up shop where bosses can refuse to bargain with workers.
Jeffrey D. Ballinger, currently working on a Turkish constitutional law project at the Kennedy School of Government, is a member of the Advisory Council of the Workers Rights Consortium. He is also the founder and Director of Press for Change, a consumer-information NGO which monitors worker rights issues in Asia.