Nike Says Its Factory Workers Earn Nearly Double the Minimum Wage. At This Cambodian Factory, 1% Made That Much.

Over the years, Nike has faced accusations of worker abuse—there’s even a dedicated Wikipedia page about its sweatshops—and has pledged to improve conditions in its overseas factories. But Rob Davis’s investigation into one Cambodian factory paints a different picture. A spreadsheet obtained by ProPublica details wages for 3,720 employees at Y&W Garment: “Just 41 people, or 1% of the Y&W workforce, earned 1.9 times the local minimum wage of about $1 per hour — even when counting bonuses and incentives.” As Davis notes, “labor advocates have long pushed brands like Nike to pay what’s known as a living wage, calling it a basic human right.” Yet both this data and workers’ own accounts show otherwise—and may be emblematic of Nike’s broader supply chain practices across Southeast Asia.

It was December 2021, workers said, when the company began trial production runs inside the expansive factory complex in southern Phnom Penh, about two miles from one of the notorious killing fields of the Khmer Rouge’s 1970s genocide.

Supervisors told ProPublica that the owner, a man they called “thaw kae” — the big boss — gave them a message to deliver to line workers: Nike was coming. Money and benefits would follow. And they wouldn’t have to work extra hours.

Workers were happy. Earning more would let them save, pay off debts and stop borrowing from friends to make it to the next month. They said they felt secure knowing that it was Nike, a company they had heard respected labor laws.

But the promise of the big American brand was never realized, according to the workers who spoke to ProPublica. “After Nike came, nothing has changed,” one worker said.