Adidas Day of Action

Today War on Want staged ‘exploitation games‘ outside of the Adidas’s flagship store on Oxford Street. This was part of a coordinated action on Adidas stores across the UK. Adidas pays its workers as little as 34p an hour, busts unions, and makes huge profits from this exploitation. Adidas has used their sponsorship of the Olympics to increase their sales and clean their public image. Please support War on Want’s campaign.

Telling Adidas to “stop sweatshop exploitation”

Counter-Olympic sports: activists play badminton

Filed under: campaigns, labour issues

Race to the bottom

Race to the bottom exposes the exploitation of Bangladeshi workers producing goods for Olympic sportswear companies; Adidas, Nike and Puma.

Adidas, Nike and Puma have all invested heavily in their associations with the London 2012 Olympic Games, either through official partnerships with London 2012 or sponsoring national teams and high profile athletes. As well as gaining access to worldwide audiences to promote their products they also aim to associate themselves with the Olympic values of fair play and respect.

Our research finds that for the workers making goods for Adidas, Nike and Puma in Bangladesh, there is little sign of fair play or respect. Five of the six factories covered by our research did not even pay their workers the Bangladeshi minimum wage, let alone a living wage that allow them to meet their basic needs.

On average workers were paid just 16p an hour, with two thirds of the workers work over 60 hours a week, in clear breach of Bangladeshi law.

See more here

Filed under: campaigns, labour issues

Olympic-hit businesses in court move

Scores of small businesses are planning a class action lawsuit against the organisers of the Olympics over planned road closures and security restrictions which they claim will put hundreds of jobs at risk.

The group of east London companies, which range from transport firms to printers, cafés, garages and retailers, have united to tackle the London Organising Committee of the Olympic Games (Locog) over restricted access to their premises, the lack of a compensation plan for any adverse impact on trading and the alleged failure to provide relocation packages for the worst affected firms.

Around 40 businesses, which employ a combined 550 staff, have committed to a “fighting fund” to tackle the Games organisers and have instructed a law firm to advise on their options. These include formal mediation or an attempt to secure a judicial review of Locog’s stance on firms directly outside the compulsory purchase zone, inside which 193 affected companies were given compensation and new homes.

Read the full article from The Telegraph

Filed under: labour issues

Playfair 2012

Playfair 2012 – campaigning for a sweat free olympics

The Playfair 2012 campaign wants the organisers of the London Olympics and companies to aim for gold and ensure that workers producing sportswear and goods with the Olympic logo have their rights respected.

Millions of people are employed in the global supply chains that produce kits for Olympic teams, and the sportswear and Olympic souvenirs available on our high streets. These mainly women workers, not just the athletes, help to make the Olympics possible.

But, evidence shows that the sportswear industry and Olympic movement have a poor track record on workers’ rights. Playfair 2008 research found workers employed by Adidas suppliers in China earning £20 per month for glueing sports shoes that sell for £50 plus, and others working 80 hours a week stitching footballs. Adidas is one of London 2012’s main sponsors and licensees. In another factory producing stationery, children as young as 12 years old were being forced to work 15 hours a day.

See more at: http://www.playfair2012.org/

Filed under: campaigns, corporate gain, labour issues