Rebecca Lake – Indonesia's Nike factories have sought to deny their staff the new minimum wage by pressuring them to sign an agreement forfeiting their right to the pay increase, according to workers union leaders and a labor rights organization.

A trio of groups – Educating for Justice, a US-based group focused on Nike workers' rights; the Alliance for Labor Unions in Indonesia (MPBI); and the Trade Union Rights Center – revealed on Monday the findings of a recent investigation into several Nike factories.

EFJ said that one significant finding involved Nike's Pratama factory in Sukabumi, 80 kilometers south of Jakarta, where local management had allegedly engaged in fraud to secure an exemption from paying the West Java city's new minimum wage of Rp 2.2 million ($228), matching that of Jakarta.

EFJ director Jim Keady said that 18 trade union officials from Nike's Pratama plant were deceived into signing an agreement to exempt the employer from paying the new minimum wage.

"The unionists were invited to lunch [on Dec. 20] and when they arrived they were asked to sign what they believed was a sign-in sheet for the luncheon," the director said.

Keady added that reports from the unionists claim the sign-in sheet was then "fraudulently attached to a document that stated the signatories agree to the factory management's requests to be exempt from the new minimum wage."

This document was then submitted to the Regional Wage Council in Bandung, Keady said. After hearing of the submission, the trade union then formally rejected the management proposal for the wage exemption on Dec. 24.

However, according to the EFJ investigative team, this action by the Pratama workers union was over-ridden by the plant's management, who approached workers on the factory floor and asked them to sign the wage agreement.

This action was caught on video and shown to Keady, who said: "There didn't seem to be in any of the video footage I saw an explanation to the workers of implications to what they were signing."

But what the activist believed to be of "greater concern" was that high-ranking members of the Indonesian military accompanied the managers as they asked for signatures, in what looked to be means of intimidating the workers to comply.

On Sunday, as a result of the salary agreement signed by more than 500 workers, the provincial wage council granted Nike's Pratama exemption from the minimum wage.

Nike spokesman Greg Rossiter said that company representatives are investigating EFJ's claims and Nike is aware that measures are being taken to negotiate exemptions to the minimum wage at local plants.

"We understand that some factories within the Nike contract supply chain in Indonesia have chosen to engage with their local governments to discuss the new wage levels and their implementation. We expect such conversations to take place within the provisions of the legal framework in Indonesia," he said.