Nike Head Halts Gifts to U. of Oregon Over Sweatshop Issue

The University of Oregon has lost a $30-million pledge from Philip H. Knight, chairman of Nike, because of the university’s decision to join an anti-sweatshop group that will monitor labor conditions in factories.

Mr. Knight, a graduate of the university, has already given $50-million to the school to support academics and athletics. The additional $30-million was to have gone to help the school renovate its athletic stadium.

But he said he would no longer give any money to the University of Oregon because the university’s faculty, administration, and students voted to join the Worker Rights Consortium. The consortium, organized by student and human-rights groups and the Union of Needletrades, Industrial and Textile Employees, or UNITE, intends to visit factories around the world to determine whether they are complying with codes of conduct adopted by many universities to ensure the fair treatment of workers who make products the schools buy.

Mr. Knight and Nike back a competing monitoring group, the Fair Labor Association, which has the support of the Clinton administration. The major differences between the groups are that the association has representatives of the apparel industry on its board (which the consortium does not) and that the consortium plans to make unannounced inspections of suspected sweatshops (which the association would not).

Nike, along with other apparel makers, has been under fire from human-rights groups, labor unions, and student groups that charge that the company’s products are often produced in sweatshops where workers are mistreated and underpaid. UNITE and United Students Against Sweatshops issued a report following Mr. Knight’s announcement that he would no longer give to the university. The report criticized Nike for manufacturing many of its products in China, where independent unions are banned and workers are paid no more than $1.50 to produce shoes that sell for some $100 a pair.

In a statement issued last week, Mr. Knight countered that his company has “increased minimum-age requirements for footwear workers to an industry high, 18 years of age, increased wages for Indonesian workers by more than 70 percent,” and taken a number of steps to improve factory conditions.

Responding to the controversy, Dave Frohnmayer, the University of Oregon’s president, thanked Mr. Knight for his previous generosity to the college and added, “We are very disappointed to hear that he plans to curtail future contributions to the University of Oregon.” Mr. Frohnmayer also noted that any decision by the university to remain in the consortium would depend on how the organization deals with several issues.

“We have the same concerns a large number of your member universities have already expressed,” Mr. Frohnmayer wrote in a letter to the consortium. These include, he added, putting business representatives and university officials on its board, making sure meetings and decisions are open to the news media, and disclosing all contributors and affiliates.