Working conditions unsatisfactory in sportswear sector
A new report from Play Fair claims that working conditions in the sportswear sector continue to be substandard. Its new report, 'Clearing the Hurdles: Steps to improving working conditions in the global sportswear industry', claims that although international sportswear companies spend millions on Olympic and athletic sponsorship deals, their workers are often forced to work excessive hours for very little pay.
Based on interviews with more than 300 sportswear workers in China, India, Thailand and Indonesia, the report indicates that violations of workers' rights are still rife in the sportswear industry.
"Workers making the goods sold by brand leaders such as adidas, Asics, New Balance, Nike, and Puma are still earning poverty wages despite the fact that company profits are soaring into the hundreds of millions, sometimes even billions of dollars," said Neil Kearney, general secretary of the International Textile Garment and Leather Workers Federation, one of the organisations coordinating the Play Fair 2008 campaign in the lead up to the Beijing Games.
It found that at one China-based soccer ball manufacturer, overtime can reach 232 hours per month while average wages are almost half the legal minimum.
"For years, key sportswear brands have argued that they can’t raise wages single-handedly but we believe that collectively they can," said Jeroen Merk, of the Clean Clothes Campaign.
"These companies control the sportswear and sports shoe markets; by acting together and really leading the sector on wages and other key issues an end to the misery these workers endure is possible."
Clearing the Hurdles identifies four key issues the sportswear industry must act upon: low wages; abuse of short-term contracts and other forms of precarious employment; violations of freedom of association; and the right to collective bargaining and factory closures due to industry restructuring.
