U.S. Olympic sprinters Michael Johnson and Marion Jones
have crossed the SAG's picket lines to film Nike ads,
according to Dave McNary of DAILY VARIETY. Nike Manager of
Corporate Communications Scott Reames "defended Nike's use
of Johnson and Jones in the ads." Reames: "These people are
athletes. We're using them as athletes. We're not taking a
job away from an actor" (DAILY VARIETY, 6/20). Johnson's
agent Brad Hunt said Johnson's decision to shoot the Nike ad
was a "very easy one." Hunt: "Michael has a contractual
commitment to Nike and, this being an Olympic year, the
opportunity to be effectively utilized by one of his primary
sponsors in advertising is even more important" (AP, 6/20).
NIKE: In DC, Tom Knott wrote on Nike's campaign
featuring Marion Jones, in which Jones "raises the issue of
pay equity" in sports: "Nike knows how the free-market
system works, and given the shoe giant's embarrassing record
with Third World laborers, it should be the last company to
raise the issue of pay equity. ... Please, Nike and Jones,
spare everyone your insulting, deceitful social activism"
(WASHINGTON TIMES, 6/19). In the N.Y. TIMES, Thomas Friedman
writes an Op-Ed on Nike CEO Phil Knight "withdrawing" a $30M
gift to the Univ. of OR after the school joined the Worker
Rights Consortium: "Knight is dead right and Oregon wrong:
the best way to create global governance -- over issues from
sweatshops to the environment -- when there is no global
government is to build coalitions, in which enlightened
companies, consumers and social activists work together to
forge their own rules and enforcement mechanisms. That's
what the [Fair Labor Association] represents and it's what
the W.R.C. doesn't" (N.Y. TIMES, 6/20).
