The other shift in consumer tastes-?toward casual street fashion-?was not of particular help to this industry as leather products tend to dominate that category of footwear. The United States is the world’s largest importer of footwear, accounting for one-quarter of the world’s imports. Asian and Middle Eastern manufacturers are responsible for about 70 percent of worldwide production. The major manufacturing countries include China, India, and Indonesia, where many U. S. Companies also produce a large portion of their own shoes to take advantage of lower labor and materials costs.
This fact has, in recent years, generated controversy for the footwear industry as a whole, as news of harsh labor practices in U. S. Manufacturing facilities unleashed a backlash against the use of sweatshop labor in particular, and exploitative labor practices in general, and spurred calls for regulations establishing worldwide labor standards, including minimum wage and safety provisions. This industry consists primarily of two product categories. One area includes the waterproof footwear worn over shoes to protect them from inclement weather.
Such products are often referred to as overshoes, rubbers, galoshes, and arctic’s. Also included in this area are rubber boots that are not worn over shoes but protect the feet from mud and water. In addition to the retail market, protective footwear is more or less guaranteed a strong institutional customer base with restaurants, large construction crews, municipal snow-removal workers, and a host of other industries in relatively stable need of retroactive footwear. Within these limits, there is a great deal of specialization, with consists of rubber soled canvas shoes, generally known as sneakers.
While nearly all sports shoes have a rubber or plastic sole, and athletic shoes other than the canvas sneakers featuring rubber soles and a fabric upper are considered in this category, those with leather uppers belong to other SIC classifications. The rubber footwear industry is largely based on the ability of rubber to protect against water and rain. An early breakthrough was made around 1920 by a Scottish chemist, Charles Macintosh, ho developed rubberier waterproof cloaks that became known as “mackintoshes. ” Later, Macintosh’s associate, Thomas Hancock, devised ways to process rubber so that it could be used as a material for footwear.
By the sass, the manufacture of footwear required more rubber than that of any other product except tires. The sewing of uppers to rubber soles had been superseded by the use of adhesives or balkanizing directly. Current Conditions There were 50 manufacturers of rubber and plastics footwear in the late sass. They employed 6,425 workers in 2000, down from 9,600 in 1995. Of these, 5,009 were reduction workers earning an average of $9. 35 per hour. U. S. Employment in the industry had decreased steadily since the early sass due in part by moves to lower cost suppliers overseas.
This pattern was predicted to continue into the early sass. In the late sass, U. S. Manufacturers produced an average of 50 million pairs of rubber or plastic-soled, fabric-upper shoes per year. Just under half of these were athletic shoes, including sports shoes made with cleats and spikes. Athletic shoes, however, accounted for about 70 percent of the shipment value for this area. Total industry shipments declined from $1. 3 billion in 1998 to $1. 02 billion in 1999. In 2000, shipments dropped under the $1 billion mark to $976 million.
The cost of materials fell from $542 million in 1998 to $497 million in 2000, and the number of total industry employees declined from 8,198 to 6,425 over the same time period. Sports manufacturer Nikkei received worldwide criticism because of substandard conditions and harsh treatment of workers, including corporal punishment and child labor abuses, at its factories in both Indonesia and Vietnam. The firm hired the Godhood’s International Group, headed by former United Nations ambassador and RYO of Atlanta, Andrew Young, to review a new code of conduct for its overseas factories in the late sass.
Nikkei also expanded its U. S. Advertising team, adding Goodbye, Silversides & Partners to help counteract the bad publicity. Criticism of Nikkei, however, has hardly abated, despite its return its continued profit margins; in fact, it has generalized into a more widespread outcry affecting the entire apparel industry. Labor activists, human rights groups, and religious organizations have forced politicians to take action against such practices, and President Clinton created a task Orca to mitigate the abusive child labor practices employed by U.
S. Manufacturers in Third World countries. As the issue becomes more integrated into social consciousness, manufacturers in this industry will be further obliged to take note, while some analysts expect that refraining from such practices can be turned into a selling point. Industry Leaders Leaders in this industry included large, diversified shoe and apparel manufacturers and smaller firms focusing on more specific products. Decker’s Outdoor Corporation, employing 200 workers, generated revenues of $112. 9 million in 1999 from its
