Nike, Inc. Corporate Responsibility Report FY07-09 DEDICATION
Nike, Inc. Corporate Responsibility Report FY07-09 DEDICATION We dedicate this report to Neil Kearney, general secretary of the International Textile, Garment & Leather Workers’ Federation and a champion of workers’ rights. Neil died in November of 2009, at the age of 59, in Dhaka, Bangladesh. For the last 15 years, Neil tirelessly represented labor to Nike on global supply chains. He taught us some of our most valuable lessons, sometimes painfully, but always constructively and with fairness. Neil’s career and life will forever reflect the story of globalization and the evolution of corporate social responsibility from unknown practice to mainstream business model redesign. I will give you a talisman. Whenever you are in doubt or when the self becomes too much with you, apply the following test. Recall the face of the poorest and weakest man whom you may have seen and ask yourself, if the step you contemplate is going to be of any use to him. Will he gain anything by it? Will it restore him to control over his own life and destiny? In other words, will it lead to Swaraj for the hungry and starving millions? Then you will find your doubt and yourself melting away. — Gandhi Neil Kearney’s Facebook profile tells us this was his favorite quote. We’re not surprised. In the 15 years that we knew him, he circled the world perhaps hundreds of times to fight for workers’ rights. The nameless, powerless women workers in Bangladesh, Columbia, Egypt, Honduras, Senegal and Turkey. He was their advocate, their champion, their voice.
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