Advocate Jim Keady can sum up what’s wrong with the Nike Corporation in two words.

“Nike lies,” he said in his presentation his recent Great Issues Committee speech.

Keady has been campaigning against Nike and their use of sweatshops for the past fifteen years, presenting at numerous high schools and colleges around the country about the many human rights grievances Nike commits.  He has created quite a stir for the popular sports apparel company, but Keady’s motivation is not the trouble he causes. His inspiration instead comes from a foundation of Catholic social teaching.

“I consider myself a liberation theologian,” said Keady, “And I believe if Jesus the revolutionary was around in 2010, he would be in place like Indonesia.”

Indonesia is one of several countries that hosts Nike sweatshops, a fact Keady learned while doing research for a paper as a graduate student at St. John’s University. At the time, Keady was also coaching the men’s soccer team at St. John’s. Nike sponsored the team, and as Keady learned more about the practices occurring in Nike factories, he came to believe that this partnership contradicted the school’s Catholic mission.

When he became vocal about his belief, the school gave him a choice.

“I was given an ultimatum. ‘Wear Nike and drop the issue…or resign’,” Keady said.

Rather than consent to a system that he was morally against, Keady resigned. Since then, he has made it his mission to raise awareness about Nike sweatshops and social justice.

“Nintey-five percent of the stuff we are wearing right now was made under sweatshop conditions,” said Keady.

In a large number of Nike factories, workers are not paid a living wage and usually have to work overtime just to make ends meet. Their living and working conditions are subpar and many workers are harassed in the workplace. Workers who try to unionize effectively are often verbally and physically intimidated and raises in salary are practically unheard of. Keady said that these conditions are not only morally wrong, but deny the human dignity of the factory employees.

“But we have seen some progress,” Keady said. “One area we have seen progress is with this issue of menstrual leave.”

By law, Indonesian women are allowed two days off when they are menstruating. In the sweatshops, however, women were required to prove this to their supervisors before they were given leave.

“But because of outrage from students like you,” said Keady, “In the ten factories I have been actively monitoring in Indonesia, this has stopped.”

Keady also stated that thanks to the activities of students, progress has been made in way of union organizing. By implementing unions, workers have a better chance of improving working conditions.

There are still areas that Keady would like to see improve. One of his current primary concerns is how Nike’s scrap rubber is disposed of. Most of the rubber is burned, creating numerous environmental and health hazards. Despite having visited and documented the dumping and burning sites, Keady has had a difficult time getting Nike to acknowledge this practice.

“This is public relations 101: tell people we are doing good things that are related to the issue we are being criticized on, and then override the credibility of whoever is criticizing us,” Keady said of Nike’s press releases regarding this issue.

Keady would also like Nike to raise the wages of the factory workers. For them to actually have a living wage, their current wage of about $1.25 a day would need to be tripled.

“Labor is not a commodity,” Keady said. “Labor is people. They are not just cogs in the machine of production. They are people with human dignity.”

For real improvements in policy, however, Keady stressed the importance of student activism, especially on campuses like Saint Louis University whose sports teams partner with Nike.

“Our student athletes are being prostituted by athletic directors and our coaches, turned into walking advertisements,” said Keady, “Does anyone know what [Rick Majerus’s] personal service agreement with Nike entails? Do we want Saint Louis University represented at a Nike events?”

Keady stated that any real change would not happen at the top with famous athletes and sports teams, but at the bottom with people and students who really care.

“Students are not just consumers, they’re citizens. So along with trying to support companies who are doing the right thing, you need to civically engage the companies who are not doing the right thing,” Keady said. “This isn’t just about assuaging your Catholic guilt by buying fair trade. You’ve got to do the activism as well.”

Keady closed his speech by encouraging students to support his campaign, or at least become activists for another issue they feel passionate about.

“The speech was very intriguing,” sophomore Anne Marie Batzel said. “As a business major, I’m interested in cooperate. I think we need to create change and do the right thing in situations like these.”