Issues & Artists: Jim Keady

Thursday night was the 2nd event of Wilmington College’s Issues and Artists Series. In this series, the College gets speakers to come and discuss various political, scientific and international issues. Thursday night the speaker was Jim Keady and the issue was Nike sweatshops. Keady was a soccer coach at St. John’s University, his dream job. He was only making $4,000 a year, but he was also getting free tuition, studying to get his masters degree in theology. However, things changed when he was assigned his first paper. While researching Nike labor practices, he found that they violated all the basic Catholic teachings of the University. At this time, the University was negotiating a $3 million contract deal with Nike, so Keady’s speaking out against it was not appreciated or tolerated, and he was forced to resign. That set him on a new path. After several failed attempts to contact Nike and get the executives to listen, Keady and Leslie Kretzu took a radical step and went to Indonesia to live a month on the $1.25 a day wage Nike paid their workers. When they retuned, they started Education for Justice and began speaking to all who would listen about what was really happening in Nike’s factories. They can explain first-hand how humiliating it is to live in a  9x9 box with sewage in the surrounding streets, and how hard it is to choose between meals and medicine, or how much dignity is forfeited to survive. They give stories of individual workers who were beaten or threatened for trying to organize labor unions. However, they also explain how we can join the fight and help make a difference, who we can contact, what products we can buy that are “sweat free”. Keady was an impressive speaker; in fact, in response to his visit, we are actually starting a Students Against Sweatshops group on campus. Wish us luck!