College students protesting outside Nike stores around the country. Workers recently laid off at a factory in Honduras holding a rally to condemn the sportswear giant’s treatment of employees. Activists in a group called United Students Against Sweatshops (USAS) organizing a“Global Call to Action Against Nike” to draw attention to allegations of mass fainting, wage theft, and padlocked exits at factories. It may seem like a flashback to the 1990s, when Nike became the poster child for corporate irresponsibility and was regularly targeted by anti-sweatshop activists. Over the next decade and a half, the company made serious efforts to reform its practices, adopting one of the business world’s first codes of conduct and winning praise from labor activists. But in recent months Nike has lost much of that goodwill, amid similar allegations, and is sparking new protests led by a new generation of activists. BenjaminSimonds-Malamud, a sophomore at Northeastern University, recently took an interest in workers’rights. Several weeks ago, he joined a conference call hosted by USAS in which union leaders at the Honduras Star factory discussed what had happened to workers when Nike abruptly ended its contract.“We heard about how this had devastated the local economy there and how those workers were fighting for production–and their livelihoods–to come back,”Simonds-Malamud says. “Hearing about that firsthand had a big impact on me. I’m down to support any campaign that will improve people’s lives and show solidarity with people who are being exploited.”

When reached for comment, a Nike spokesperson clarified that it was not Nike’s decision to leave the Honduras factory. Instead, it was kicked out by Gildan Inc., a large apparel company that recently acquired American Apparel, when it took over the facility. “Nike, along with the other brands in the factory, were informed that Gildan would take over 100% of factory production, replacing current brands with their own apparel brands,” Nike’s spokesperson said. “We have been advocating that Gildan work to minimize the impact on their workers.”

Angeles Solis, a national organizer for USAS, makes it clear that Nike is just one of many corporations that she claims violate workers rights around the world. Her organization has also gone after Adidas, REI, North Face, and many other corporations. But since Nike is the biggest sportswear brand on the market, it is important to shed light on what it is doing and try to change it. “Nike has been a target in the past because it does have a history of sweatshop violations,” says Solis. “Nike is not going to go away: It is the biggest sports apparel manufacturer in the world. So our goal is to improve worker conditions and practices.” But the Honduras factory layoffs are just part of a broader pattern of activity on Nike’s part that has outraged these students. Two years ago, Nike stopped allowing independent inspectors to monitor working conditions at Nike factories, saying that it would instead carry out these checks on its own. Since then, there have been reports of terrible working conditions inside these factories. In Cambodia, for instance, 500 workers inside a plant that supplies products to Nike, Puma, Asics, and the VF Corporation were hospitalized after fainting out of exhaustion and hunger as a result of working 10-hour shifts, six days a week, in 98-degree heat. Defying Nike’s policy that bars the entry of investigators into their factories, watchdog group Worker Rights Consortium managed to get access to a plant in Hansae, Vietnam. It was able to document a string of alleged abuses there including wage theft, forced overtime, restrictions on the workers’ use of toilets, exposure to toxic solvents, and padlocked exit doors. “Workers (were) collapsing unconscious at their sewing machines due to heat and overwork,” the report said.

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