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The Vancouver Organizing Committee (VANOC) has developed a program to require environmental, labour rights and aboriginal employment standards for its purchasing and licensing. MSN and its Canadian partners worked with VANOC to improve their initial program by making it more comprehensive, effective and transparent.
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.
On July 10, 2008, following the Ethical Trading Forum in Vancouver at which transparency and Olympic licensing was debated with companies, trade unions, NGOs and Olympic organizers, Nike publicly released the full list of factories that produced its products for the Beijing 2008 Olympics.
A new report released by Play Fair 2008 looks at some of the root issues underlying child labour in China, and focuses on the reasons why so many school-going children end up working in factories or on farms.
On July 31, the Beijing Organizing Committee of the 2008 Olympic Games (BOCOG) announced the results of its investigation into Play Fair's findings of child labour and gross violations of adult workers' rights in certain factories producing licensed goods for the 2008 Olympics. While BOCOG confirmed some of Play Fair's findings, it neglected others and failed to commit to acting positively to improve workers' conditions, choosing instead to cut and run from factories implicated in Play Fair's original report.
A new report released today by the Play Fair 2008 Campaign exposes gross violations of workers’ rights by several Chinese factories supplying goods under license for the Beijing Olympics, including employment of children, adults being paid half the legal minimum wage, and employees forced to work 12-hour shifts, seven days a week, in unsafe and unhealthy conditions.
The "Play Fair at the Olympics" campaign was one of the biggest ever mobilisations against abusive labour conditions. Read more about the international campaign
Read about how sportswear companies responded to the Play Fair Alliance's Programme of work for the Sportswear Industry.
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