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As athletes warm up for the Olympics, Oxfam is fresh out of the starting blocks with a campaign to ensure workers who provide the kit aren’t abused. Gary Flood reports
Gold medal for exploitation
The world’s eyes will turn to Athens for the summer Olympics in
August. One person who won’t be watching: Laila, who is going to
be either working backbreaking hours or snatching some sleep.
Laila slogs away in an Indonesian factory that produces some of the kit
possibly worn by the competing athletes in Athens, but certainly by the
millions of us who own trainers, tracksuits, and other forms of sportswear.
“There is no time [even] for housework. Our friends who have children,
tell us they feel very upset in their hearts that they never get time
to spend with their children and to watch them grow. During the spare
time we do have, we feel constantly exhausted,” Laila says.
Her plight – and those of hundreds of thousands of other people
working in the athletic shoe and garment firms that supply global brands
such as Fila, Puma, Lotto, Nike, Adidas and Asics – needs to be
brought into as much focus as the excellence of the sportsmen and women
we’ll be cheering on in August.
This is the message behind a major campaign by Oxfam, the TUC, global
unions, the Clean Clothes Campaign and Labour Behind The Label, called
Play Fair at the Olympics.
The campaign says too much sportswear is being produced by workers whose
rights are regularly violated, and sportswear firms – all of whom
stand to benefit from Olympics-related marketing and interest –
should be doing more to sort this out.
"The industry is spending heavily on marketing in the run up to this
year's Olympic Games, which is supposed to be a showcase for fairness
and human achievement. But the exploitation and abuse of workers' rights
endemic in sportswear is violating that spirit," says Guy Ryder,
general secretary of the 151 million-member International Confederation
of Free Trade Unions (ICFTU).
"We want companies to talk to us so we can work together for workers
in the industry,” adds TUC general secretary Brendan Barber.
Big firms are accused of pressuring their developing world suppliers by
cutting order times and reducing prices, which leads to local employers
squeezing their workforces through excessive and non-voluntary overtime,
sometimes unpaid, and wages too low to live on.
In peak season – like now, with major sporting events Euro 2004
and Athens on the horizon – seven-day working is the norm for the
mainly female workforce, who endure 18-hour days with few proper breaks
to make target.
Low pay and harsh conditions help keep costs to a minimum, and crushing
of trade union activity helps these employers satisfy the West’s
endless thirst for the latest cool trainers.
As a result the athletic clothing and footwear market was worth more than
$58 billion in 2002, Oxfam reveals.
This expose details troubling conditions in five traditional garment-producing
countries, Thailand, China, Cambodia, Indonesia, and Bangladesh, as well
as two European participants, Bulgaria and Turkey.
"Women workers are today being forced into excessive and often unpaid
overtime to meet consumer fashion demand," says Marcia Walker, campaigns
officer for Oxfam GB. "Millions of women have insecure, and often
temporary, jobs and are harassed, abused, discriminated, and denied union,
maternity, pension and other rights."
The reaction of the sportswear industry so far has been mixed. Nike has
said it welcomed the report and was working with independent groups to
improve working conditions, while Adidas said it already had a code of
conduct in place that requires its suppliers to comply with core labour
standards. Puma was "sceptical" of Oxfam's findings relating
to its clothing sources, while UK sportswear firm Umbro had no immediate
comment.
If you want to help, you could send an email to one of the manufacturers
through the campaign site, or even send a special electronic postcard
to the British Olympics Association (see left hand box).
This asks it to ensure that workers rights' are protected in the sportswear
industry, particularly those who make products bearing the Olympic emblem.
This is particularly important given the spirit of the games themselves,
says the Thai Labour Campaign’s Junya Yimprasert, member of the
Clean Clothes Campaign network.
"If hypocrisy and exploitation were an Olympic sport, the sportswear
industry would win a medal.
“It’s sacrificing human rights in the search for profits.
Should the race to outfit athletes mean a race to the bottom for these
workers?"
In Bangladesh, the National Garments Workers' Federation launched the Olympic Campaign on19 March with a Garment Workers Silent Rally (Photos: Oxfam GB) |
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