Insider and other members of the press were able to uncover some court
documents pertaining to accusations of harassment lodged against Nike.
Now, these accusations date back to 2018 and the harassment or
the allegations are clearly harassment should they be proven.
Now, we'll get back to the disgusting allegations in just a moment.
But here is the backstory the context to kind of understand where
the allegations are coming from.
So in early 2018, female Nike employees were frustrated with the company's
response to claims of sexual harassment and gender discrimination.
So they actually anonymously surveyed each other about the experiences of
the company.
Now in these surveys, the people who responded,
the women who responded alleged pretty disgusting sexual behavior,
corporate bullying, fear of retaliation and a lack of faith in Nike's
willingness to address accusations of harassment in the workplace.
Now in one survey, a respondent wrote that she had been told by
female coworkers to dress sexier and show some skin at the office.
Another described certain executives as well known philanderers
with lower level employees whom they exert influence and power over.
And a third wrote that she caught a male executive receiving
oral sex from a lower ranking female in the campus gym.
The fourth alleged,
sloppy drunk men put their arms around female coworkers on work travel and
others asked female subordinates to work dinners in hopes of sleeping with them.
And fifth respondent relayed a story about a male manager saying, no
one gives an f about female empowerment, which I think he was being true there.
I think he was being honest about what he genuinely thinks about female empowerment
and maybe what some of his colleagues think about it.
But, I got to be honest with you guys, none of this is surprising to me at all.
I think that this is the kind of stuff that happens in a lot of different work
environments across the country.
I think even after the whole, me too story blew up,
I think a lot of it continues to happen [LAUGH] In a lot of ways.
>> So, I guess I have to confess that I'm a little surprised that it's happening at
these giant companies and so that's my fault for being a little surprised by it.
But I guess I would have thought that they would have a more professional setting
because they're more likely to be sued.
Because they so much bigger and have so much more money.
And that they would have been more professional,
like a smaller mid sized company run by local Yahoo well whatever it might be.
Yeah, I'm sure that goes on all the time and I just,
but now it's absolutely clear, it turns out it was everywhere.
The biggest companies in the world were like lawsuits, we're not gonna get sued.
These chicks have no power, I don't know what they were thinking but
now there's 5000 people in this lawsuit >> There are a lot of people involved in
this lawsuit, right?
So, if it's one one or two accusations, I think for people who have like
some vested interest in dismissing those claims, they might be able to do it.
But when you have this many women agreeing that
this culture existed in the workplace.
I mean you can't just brush it away or brush it aside, it's clearly a problem and
the executives in this case seem to have an interest in keeping it going.
>> Yeah, for those who are not like who don't come anywhere
near this stuff, it's more surprising to us.
Because like I just can't believe that in this day and
age people are still doing this crap.
So like it's one thing when Harvey Weinstein does it.
He's like a guy, he runs his own company basically has a lot of power in Hollywood,
but it's not a giant corporation is like a perfect toxic blend to abuse women
unfortunately, right?
But, I have to confess I was even surprised about the Roger Ailes stories.
Not that he like Roger Ailes, the guy who ran Fox News.
Not surprised at all that he was toxic and horrible but trying to have
sex with on air anchors while in the building, in the offices of Fox News.
I mean it's crazy, it's just totally nuts.
And here they are Nike trying to do similar stuff and now it looks like
there's gonna be a piper that's paid, by the way, let alone the fact that
they've apparently been underpaying women on a regular basis for all of this time.
Because now they're saying, okay,
we're gonna increase the salaries of 7000 employees cuz they were underpaying them.
You guys knew that and didn't do anything.
That's crazy.
>> Now these surveys were given to Mark Parker, Nike's CEO at the time.
This is back in March of 2018.
He is now the executive chairman for Nike,
according to Stanford Chairman is an unacceptable title.
I don't know what I'm supposed to call him.
>> Chair person or just chair.
>> Right, chair, got it.
That is offensive to chairs though.
Anyway, let me move on.
10 days after he received the surveys, Parker did take action, he announced
a management reshuffle and he apologized to Nike's employees in an email.
At least 11 executives left Nike at the time.
So then last month, 10 of these surveys were included in unsealed
records from an ongoing gender discrimination lawsuit against Nike.
The surveys still have some redactions,
including the names of respondents and those accused of misbehavior.
Ak, we don't know if those men were ever disciplined or fired.
So that's a little bit of an issue, but based on what we do know,
it seems like Parker did take some action and that's a good thing.
Now Nike has declined to respond to the new revelations though.
They did respond to the New York times back in 2018,
when they ran a story about Nike's boys club environment or atmosphere.
In that response, Nike attributed inappropriate behavior at
the company to an insular group of high level managers in pockets of
the organization who protected each other and looked the other way.
And that really is the problem, right?
The reason why these guys think they can treat people
the way they do in the workplace is because everyone in positions of power
in the company look out for one another.
Yeah, and look, if you watch the show regularly,
you know that we don't just go okay.
Whatever one side says we're gonna go with it.
Are there cases where people sue companies and it's not true.
Yeah, of course there are, right.
But in this, so how do you tell?
How do you tell which stories real which story is not real?
Well, number 1, 14 women were going to sue and
they had very specific claims, some of which we read to, right.
Now, look it's a giant company.
So, but 14 is a big number.
But now it's been opened up to a class action lawsuit where 5000 women are going
to join.
So no, there's no place where 5000 women sue and they didn't do it.
>> So, okay, so let's talk about that just briefly because there is a problem or
an obstacle at least for those who want to join the class action lawsuit.
So plaintiffs in the lawsuit argue that the documents demonstrate
that the problems that Nike were systemic and
that it wasn't limited to a handful of executives.
So the plaintiffs want to pursue this class action lawsuit,
but they recently lost a bid to convert the case to a class action lawsuit.
However they plan to appeal.
So they're not done yet.
We'll see how this all plays out.
But I love that they're fighting.
And when they're fighting for a better work environment at Nike
understand that it's not just about Nike that has ramifications for
every major company across the country.
It sets an example and it shows, hey, this type of behavior does have consequences.
>> Okay, first, thank you for that clarification.
They have not won yet.
So, number two though, on the part of the actions that Nike is already taking,
that's the other startling number that I mentioned earlier.
If you say 7000 women who are being underpaid that's not an accident.
That's not like, oops, I or it's sometimes it'll be a midsize company.
A small company where, hey, yeah, but that one person has a lot of expertise and
it's not, it's apples and oranges to the other jobs.
No, if you're running a company with thousands of people,
you're systemically underpaying the women, that's not anywhere near an accident.
So, I guess I shouldn't be surprised by it.
But I am quite surprised that companies this gigantic, with this much of
a public facing brand apparently are pretty brazen behind the scenes anyway