Monday, March 21, 2011

Sweatshop Activist to Share Nike Campaign


CHESTERTOWN—Jim Keady, the activist behind the Nike accountability campaign, “Team Sweat,” will visit Washington College Tuesday, March 22 to talk about his efforts to improve working conditions and wages in the sportswear giant’s overseas factories. Keady will speak at 4:30 p.m. in The Egg, a performance and meeting space on the first floor of Hodson Hall Commons. His interactive multi-media event includes role-playing, video footage, and a question-and-answer period. The event is free and open to the public.

Keady was forced to leave a soccer-coaching job at St. John’s University in New York in 1998 when he refused to wear the Nike logo on his team gear. He has since devoted much of his life to protesting the company’s workplace policies. He spent a month living among Nike workers in an Indonesian slum, allowing himself only the $1.25 daily wage a typical worker would receive.

He now serves as the director of Educating for Justice, a New Jersey-based nonprofit that educates and organizes citizens around issues of peace and justice. For more information: http://www.teamsweat.org


Photos: Top, a sign from a Team Sweat protest in Australia. Bottom, Jim Keady.

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