Thread regarding Nike Inc. layoffs

Will Nike make Best Work Place 2024? Haha

Of course it is true!!! Me Too!!! Toxic awful place. My last role at Nike (before I quit) I was told that i was occupying a “chair” and I had to show all kinds of respect for this “chair.”

The unspoken part is that there was no respect for the woman sitting in the chair. Also, the price to pay for occupancy of said chair - for me - was being paid less money than the previous man who “owned” the chair rather than just occupying it a woman does, given I saw his salary. I had more leadership as well as functional experience than the prior owner of the chair.

That’s how my last boss spoke to me about my last role. It has always bothered me. Like the job wore me, rather than I defined the role. A--hat.

idk probably all of them.

Plaintiffs in a sweeping 2018 s-x discrimination lawsuit against Nike last week claimed in a legal filing that Nike executives fueled the company’s alleged toxic culture.

The filing suggests people within Nike’s power structure, including vice presidents and higher, not only tolerated the company’s workplace problems, but participated in behavior ranging from getting or-l s-x from a subordinate at work to making s-xist remarks about female colleagues.

It’s the first time that titles — known to both sides in the lawsuit but previously withheld from the public court record — have been disclosed for individuals named in internal complaints. Nike, which did not respond to requests for comment about the filing, has previously insisted its problems were confined to an “insular group of high-level managers.”

The Oregonian/OregonLive is among the media outlets seeking to unseal the names in the complaints, which were part of a self-administered survey conducted by female employees in late 2017 and given to Nike’s senior executives in 2018. The employees were frustrated with Nike’s efforts to address a problematic workplace that some described as a boys’ club.

The complaints were turned over to plaintiffs’ lawyers as part of discovery in the s-x discrimination lawsuit, which was filed in 2018, but the complaints that were attached to filings in the case remained sealed.

Last year, U.S. Magistrate Judge Jolie A. Russo ruled to unseal the complaints and other records. But names remained redacted. In August, The Oregonian/OregonLive, Portland Business Journal and Business Insider challenged the remaining redactions in seven documents, including the names of Nike employees who allegedly behaved inappropriately.

In October, Russo gave a preliminary ruling in favor of unsealing the documents and the names, writing that the “public has an interest and right to access the documents that bear on plaintiffs’ claims even if those documents identify non-parties to the litigation.”

Nike has repeatedly asked the judge to block release of the names, arguing that the names are “completely unrelated” to the legal issue at hand, which is whether the case should be certified as a class action, and only “tangentially related” to the reasons for the lawsuit, which is about equal pay, not harassment.

Nike’s lawyers also have repeatedly characterized the effort to unseal the names as one that seeks to “embarrass and shame” Nike employees.

Judge Russo has not found that argument convincing.

“The mere fact that the production of records may lead to a litigant’s embarrassment, incrimination, or exposure to further litigation will not, without more, compel the court to seal its records,” Russo wrote.

In last week’s filing, plaintiffs’ lawyers said the names are critical to understanding how Nike “turns a blind eye to bad behavior of those with power.” They claim at least 22 Nike executives, defined by the company as vice president and higher, are named in complaints.

Nike had 377 vice presidents in 2017, according to the company’s 2018 corporate responsibility report.

Among the claims made in the filing:

A senior Nike VP told a former Nike VP, “You need a man in that role,” when she suggested three female candidates for a job, which plaintiffs allege shows a Nike executive gave “explicit instructions to discriminate on the basis of gender.”
A former Nike VP “turned a blind eye” when a Nike employee with a “boys club attitude” “te--orized” another employee.
A former male Nike VP told a female former Nike VP, “It’s like neither your boyfriend nor your husband are happy with you.”
A Nike VP is a “known philanderer” with “lower-level employees whom they exert influence and power over.”
A Nike VP “phoned in a favor” to protect another Nike employee who called an employee a “bi--h,” which plaintiffs allege shows a “Nike VP interfered with an HR harassment investigation in order to protect a friend.”
A Nike VP told a personal trainer, “Well, maybe if you dressed s-xier, I would be on time.” Another survey respondent claimed to have observed the same Nike VP getting or-l s-x in a massage room on Nike’s campus.
Nike’s lawyers have said the company hired an outside law firm to investigate the complaints. The law firm’s work was not turned over in discovery because it is subject to attorney client privilege. Several senior Nike employees left the company after Nike received copies of the complaints in 2018.

In recent filings, Nike’s lawyers have described the s-xual acts described in the complaints as “consensual.”

In last week’s filing, lawyers for plaintiffs took particular issue with that description.

“Nike takes the offensive and tone-deaf position of evaluating the complaints as if no power imbalance was at play; but this is key to analyzing unlawful harassment,” plaintiffs’ lawyers wrote.

“Nike can only maintain the fiction of consent based on the redacted complaints,” they wrote. “When the names are unredacted, and the male harasser is identified as a Nike executive … and the victims are identified as female employees in the roles of a personal trainer and a massage therapist … the nature of the harassing conduct becomes evident.”

In an email to The Oregonian/OregonLive, lawyers for plaintiffs said they made last week’s filing to correct the record.

“We were dismayed by Nike’s attempt to trivialize serious allegations of workplace discrimination and harassment and felt compelled to respond.”