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Film Synopsis:
SWEAT is the athlete’s version
of Erin Brokovich, The Insider and Serpico.
In 1997, a soccer coach at St. John’s
University said no to taking part in a $3.5
million dollar deal to endorse Nike products
because of Nike’s use of sweatshop labor.
He was forced out of his job and outcast from
the coaching ranks. People told him that he
didn’t know what he was talking about,
that work in a Nike factory was a “great
job for those people.” He went to find
out for himself. In the summer of 2000, he and
a friend took off to live with factory workers
in a slum in Indonesia and they lived on the
workers’ wages, $1.25 a day. They lost
40lbs collectively in the month, but more importantly,
by living in solidarity with workers, they built
bonds of trust. Over the course of three research
trips, workers shared the real human suffering
behind the Nike success story. Together with
workers, they have spent the past four years
educating tens of thousands of people about
this issue and fighting to end the injustice
that Nike’s workers face each day. SWEAT
is their story.
The Full Story:
While doing research for a term paper
in Theology, Jim Keady, a graduate assistant
soccer coach with the top-ranked St. John’s
University Red Storm, discovers that the Nike
Corporation is abusing its overseas workforce
in sweatshops. At the same time Keady is exploring
this issue, the SJU athletic department is negotiating
a $3.5 million dollar endorsement deal that
would require all coaches and athletes to wear
and promote Nike products. Feeling that coaches
and athletes would be walking billboards for
a company that exploits its labor force in poor
countries, Keady publicly challenges the SJU
administration. They respond with an ultimatum,
“Wear Nike and drop this issue …
or resign.” Keady is ultimately forced
to resign, and the story hits the major media,
including ESPN, HBO Real Sports, the New York
Times, the front page of the Village Voice.
In an attempt to silence critics at St. John’s
and uncover the story behind the statistics
about Nike factory workers, Keady assembles
a team and travels halfway around the world
to Tangerang, Indonesia to learn and document
first-hand Nike's overseas’ operations.
To gain a more human perspective on the lives
of Nike’s factory workers, Keady and college
friend, Leslie Kretzu live for one month in
an Indonesian slum on the wages that workers
are paid: $1.25 / day. In the process, they
encounter the local mafia, intimidation, starvation,
football-sized rats, fist-sized cockroaches,
raw sewage in the streets, massive burning of
toxic shoe rubber, corporate complicity and
cover-up.
Through their time in Indonesia, Keady and Kretzu
discover the reality of U.S. multinational corporations'
labor practices in the developing world and
how Nike's cutthroat, bottom-line economic decisions
have a profound effect on human lives.
SWEAT includes powerful interviews
with Indonesian workers producing for Nike,
Adidas, and the Gap; Former Indonesian President,
Abdurrahman Wahid; US Olympian, Kevin McMahon;
; Indonesian Democracy Leader, Dita Sari; US
Congressperson, Sherrod Brown; Best-Selling
Author of When Corporations Rule the World,
David Korten; Audioslave's Tom Morello; System
of a Down's Serj Tankian and Janeane Garofalo,
all offering suggestions on how things could
be done differently and how average Americans
can help to stop sweatshop abuses.
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SWEAT will engage audiences, spark
dialogue among viewers, raise new questions
about global trade, and break ground on what
everyday people can do concretely to end economic
injustice for factory workers globally. SWEAT
will show that with the right mix of faith,
conviction, and dedication, ordinary people
can change the world.
If this sounds like the kind of project you'd
like to be involved with, we ask that you help
us reach our fundraising goal of $200,000 to
complete the post-production of SWEAT.
If you would like to invest in SWEAT,
please contact us.
If you would like to donate to this project
now, please click on the box below:
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