https://hbr.org/2019/08/what-supply-chain-transparency-really-means
Here's a good article that outlines what it would take to have complete control (or at least awareness) of the entire supply chain of your product.
http://manufacturingmap.nikeinc.com/
here's nike site that shows they are at least getting somewhat more involved than they were during the "8 year olds sew your soccer balls" days.
the real problem here is public engagement. nike never would have gotten to this point if they weren't dragged over the coals for all the sweatshop shit years ago.
society has to truly give a shit if things are really going to change. and society over and over and over has shown that in our shitty consumer society CHEAP is the only thing that maters to most buyers. society would take cheap over "ethically sourced with workers paid a living wage" everyday day of the week. shit, people prefer cheap products to anything with actual quality.
if they don't even want to buy a quality version of a product, what are the chances that they'll ever care about a product's supply chain??
nike has all the money in the world. the could lock down the entire supply chain and make sure everything was legal, ethical, moral and whatever else.... but they never will because it would hurt the bottom line, and shareholder profits are the only thing that matters. anything that has been done to make it look like nike cares about their supply chain has been done as a PR tool, not because they give a shit.
I feel almost the exact same as you do.
But I’d like to add a few more points.
1- Of course it took consumers having to spend their own time, money, and effort to get people to know about the terrible labor practices.
Nike never had any intent on stopping those practices BECAUSE THE WERE THE ONES THAT DEVELOPED THEM. They were one the first to lead the charge overseas to exploit impoverished laborers.
2- Youdont really mention why consumers are buying cheap, immorally made products and not knowing/caring about the consequences.
And that’s because capitalism has created such an unequal and dangerously unstable economy that people don’t have much of a choice. They must buy products as cheaply as possible, because medicine, childcare, etc is so unreasonably expensive.
Which in turn creates more of a demand for cheaper shit, which the drives companies to look for even shittier conditions to exploit, until we are at the present: Nike using slave labor.