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Before the 2004 Summer Olympics in Athens, the Play Fair at the Olympics Campaign – the biggest international worker rights mobilization of its kind ever undertaken – brought the world’s attention to the underside of the sportswear industry: the abysmal working conditions endured by the young women and men, and children, who make the shoes, jerseys, footballs and other items in contract factories and subcontract facilities around the world.
In anticipation of the Beijing Summer Olympics, in the spring of 2008 MSN wrote a paper for the Play Fair Campaign entitled “Clearing the Hurdles: Steps to Improving Wages and Working Conditions in the Global Sportswear Industry.” The paper found that substantial violations of worker rights were still the norm for workers in the sportswear industry.
Clearing the Hurdles identifies four central hurdles that need to be overcome by the sportswear industry to make real progress on the litany of worker rights violations plaguing the industry.
These are:
Read more, below, about how MSN and its allies are challenging sportswear brands to overcome these hurdles.
A sportswear working group involving the Maquila Solidarity Network, the International Textile, Garment and Leather Workers Federation, the Clean Clothes Campaign and the International Trade Union Confederation has set out steps sportswear brands need to take to begin to overcome four hurdles that have hindered progress on worker rights in the industry.
With the FIFA World Cup in South Africa just days away, the soccer world's leading organization is being asked to take a closer look at the dismal realities faced by soccer ball stitchers. Workers stitching soccer balls in Pakistan, India, China and Thailand continue to experience alarming labour rights violations, including child labour, non-payment of the minimum wage and extensive use of temporary labourers.
In the run-up to the February Vancouver Winter Olympic Games, an international coalition of worker rights organizations is releasing its rating of commitments made by major sportswear brands to eliminate sweatshop abuses in their global supply chains. The ratings are being released on the newly launched Clearing the Hurdles website.
The entire Olympic movement, including the Canadian Olympic Committee and the Vancouver 2010 Winter Olympics, must use its influence to ensure that workers in the sportswear industry are employed under fair, dignified and safe conditions. As the custodian of the Olympic logo in Canada, the Vancouver Olympic Organizing Committee can and must build into sportswear licenses and sponsorship contracts commitments to respect internationally recognized labour standards.
As the clock ticks down to the Beijing Olympics, international sportswear companies are amassing huge profits and arranging multi-million dollar sponsorship deals with the Games, Olympic athletes and national teams.
Meanwhile, workers producing their goods are still living in poverty. In a new report, “Clearing the Hurdles: Steps to improving working conditions in the global sportswear industry”, Play Fair 2008 calls upon brands, manufacturers, and multi-stakeholder initiatives to overcome four major hurdles to make real, measurable progress on wages and working conditions in the global sportswear industry.
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