By Leni Oktira Sari
My name is Leni Oktira Sari, and I have spent the last 14 years making Nike shoes in an Indonesian factory. On May 29, I will visit the University of Oregon campus with two other garment workers from Nike’s supply chain.
We are flying from the other side of the world to demand wage increases and human rights protections from Nike, and we’re coming to the UO to demand recognition of how our work funded the renovation of Hayward Field.
We have heard from our allies in Oregon, including our brothers and sisters from the Graduate Teaching Fellows Federation, that Nike founder Phil Knight has used some of his billions of dollars in corporate profits to pay for buildings and exert influence at the UO. Hayward Field has particularly caught our attention because it received millions in Nike and Knight funding at the same moment that Nike’s supply chain low-wage garment workers saw our salaries cut.
Knight led the effort to pump $270 million into the renovation of Hayward Field in 2020 and 2021. Nike has found ways to further profit from these donations, even listing products in the brand’s own “Hayward Field Collection.” But we think the UO community needs to know what was happening to me and other workers in 2020.
The COVID pandemic was the hardest moment of my life. Thousands of my coworkers and I saw our pay cut and workdays reduced in 2020. A typical wage for Indonesians who make Nike products is about $1 per hour. When I was infected with COVID and had to be quarantined, there was no support from my factory, even though I had a 6-month-old baby at home. My union, GSBI (Center of Indonesian Labor Struggle), opposed the wage cuts. As a result, we faced threats of dismissal just for standing up for our rights and our families.
In spring of 2020, right as my coworkers and I lost our income, Nike paid $74 million in dividends to the Knight family. By 2022, while we were stuck in debt and unending crisis, Nike authorized $18 billion in stock buybacks benefitting shareholders, none more so than Phil Knight.
So the money that could have spared my family from malnutrition and debt in 2020, money I earned from making Nike’s products, instead went to the billionaire Knight family — and a good amount of it to pay for Hayward Field.
There are 1.2 million garment workers in Nike’s supply chain. Most of us are young women in South and Southeast Asia. We are done creating profits for Nike with no recognition and poverty wages. Since 2023 we have been organizing with our unions across international borders, brought together by the visionary Asia Floor Wage Alliance and supported by powerful U.S. allies organized by Global Labor Justice. And despite all the odds against us, three of us are finally arriving in Oregon to bring our demands to Nike’s doorstep. We won’t be invisible anymore. Nike will have to see us and hear us.
When we come to the UO and we see the buildings built with the profits from our hard, underpaid work, we are bringing a proposal.
Rename Hayward Field. Rename it after us, the people who really made its renovation happen. In Indonesia we are taking risks and fighting hard. When we are in the streets rallying and protesting injustice from brands like Nike, we have a unifying chant — “Hidup Buruh!” It means “long live the workers,” and it lifts us up, the workers who make the world’s clothing, the workers behind Nike and other iconic fashion brands.
So, let’s change the name. Let’s rename Hayward Field as “Hidup Buruh Field.” When athletes sprint across its famous track, let it be a tribute to workers like me, workers who have given our lives to creating great sportswear. Workers without whom Nike could not exist, this stadium could not exist. And let it be a reminder that we are fighting for the pay and human rights protections we truly deserve.