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Olympic Torch Bearer to Run Barefoot in Solidarity with Nike Factory Workers

Asbury Park, NJ, December 21, 2001 - Educating for Justice (www.nikewages.org) announced today that its co-Director, Leslie Kretzu, who has been chosen to run in the Salt Lake 2002 Olympic Torch Relay, will run barefoot as a show of solidarity with Nike's overseas factory workers. Kretzu will begin her segment of the relay in downtown Philadelphia at 4:29pm on December 22, 2001. She will carry the torch for 0.2 miles on Broad Street, from Reed Street to Federal Street.

Kretzu is no stranger to bringing attention to what critics call Nike's abusive labor practices. She works full-time as a campaigner for Educating for Justice's Nike Corporate Accountability Campaign. She is also no stranger to using the Olympic Games as a platform to awaken people to the realities that Nike workers face in countries like Indonesia. At the 2000 Games in Sydney, she and EFJ co-Director Jim Keady, were at the center of three week international media campaign following the one month they spent living in solidarity on a $1.25 a day with Nike's factory workers in Tangerang, Indonesia.

When Kretzu learned that she was chosen to be a member of the Olympic Torch Relay Team, she immediately began to brainstorm how she could use the opportunity to raise awareness about the plight of Nike's 550,000 global manufacturing workers. "It would be hypocritical for me on such a special day, to turn a blind eye to the people I am committed to every other day of the year. The women and men working in Nike's factories, who produce athletic equipment for Olympians are regarded and treated by this multinational corporation as "cheap labor" and not as human beings. They work up to15 hours a day, 6-7 days a week for the most profitable sportswear company in the world and they cannot afford their basic human needs. Among other things, the workers are threatened when they attempt to form independent unions, and are forced to go through grave humiliations in the workplace, including having to prove menstruation in order to take a day off from work. Given the call of the Olympic charter, 'encouraging the establishment of a peaceful society concerned with the preservation of human dignity' we must speak out against the injustice that one of their major sponsors inflicts on its workers. It is time that Olympians and the International Olympic Committee pressure multinational sponsors to live up to the Olympic ideal." To this end, Kretzu made the decision that she would run barefoot.

Kretzu continued, "At the 2002 Olympics in Salt Lake City, more than 2000 athletes, representing more than 70 nations will compete in 78 different events. In line with the International Olympic Committee's promotional campaign 'Celebrate Humanity,' my participation is dedicated to the millions of unrecognized persons in our global family who produce the uniforms and athletic equipment that allow women and men to compete and celebrate all that is great in sport and competition."

Kretzu will also make issue of the fact that her Olympic Torch Bearer uniform was manufactured in Burma, a country with one of the worst records for human rights violations. Educating for Justice and the Free Burma Coalition will hold a press conference at the corner of Broad and Federal streets immediately following Kretzu's carrying of the torch.