McCallion
Quest

Are Shoes Really Worth What the Big Companies Are Charging Us???

By: Lucian Arendse 

Do you know what grinds my gears? The price you have to pay for shoes. If you walk into a shoe store you may see prices ranging from $29.99-$299.99. Most of the big name shoe companies such as Adidas, or Nike are selling shoes at very outrageous prices. For example: the Adidas “Control” running shoes (whatever Control shoes mean- as if you don’t have control of your feet in other shoes) is selling at $168.99 (not including taxes). Also the cushion running shoe is still selling at a ridiculous price of $349.99! Who would buy those shoes?

            These aren’t even amazing shoes either, they’re just your average running shoes. The real story though is in how these shoes are actually made. Are they made with the same amount of care and money you put into buying shoes, or is the markup of these shoes so extreme, you’re simply paying for the name behind the actual shoe? Trying to justify the exorbitant cost of these shoes, I asked myself the same question. One interesting fact came up while researching this question. In the 1980’s many people boycotted Nike shoes because of the known fact that their shoes were made in Indonesia, China and Vietnam by workers, sometimes children, at sweatshops. Sweatshops, usually employing minors (children under 17), demand that their workers work very hard, long hours and mostly at minimum wage. It was these sweatshops that were primarily in charge of producing Nike’s top selling shoes.

What disgusts me even more is that these child workers put so much effort in to making these shoes yet they don’t even get a decent salary. Yet the shoe companies, who charge us an arm and a leg to get the shoes, are all about profit. I could understand the cost of the shoes being $200 if their labour costs were similarly high. However, labour groups estimate that a livable wage in Indonesia, and China was about $4.00 a day. In Vietnam, the minimum wage was lower than Indonesia’s and China’s by 20 cents, which is a mere $1.60 a day. According to Thuyen Nguyen, a Vietnam Labor Watch member, the wage needed to survive and support you in Vietnam is approximately $3 a day. Therefore the hourly wage for most of these child labourers was a fraction of that.

Most people in the world don’t think that sweatshops exist but the United Nations still finds them spread out across different countries. On a more sour note, Kevin Danaher of Global Exchange and editor of Corporations says, “When hiring overseas subcontractors became a fashionable cost-saving procedure, Nike was among the trend setting elite, eliminating nearly all of their U.S. work force by 1992 in favor of low-wage Asian producers."

Nike's own promotional materials acknowledge that its labour costs for producing a pair of shoes are just $4.90 while the shoes retail for $150. That amounts to a profit of $146.10 per pair of shoes that Nike produces. In my opinion shoes are an expensive rip off that we need to boycott wearing. Brand names are acceptable to the peer group, but at what cost? Is it right that for us to fit in with our friends and be fashionable that we approve of kids slaving away in some third world country??? 

Before we begin paying outrageous sums of money for brand name shoes,  I advise everyone to do their research and find out about the company before purchasing their shoes. From my perspective, they are just not worth the price we are paying.