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STITCHED UP BY THE BIG BRANDS
EURO 2000 - THE GOAL IS HUMAN RIGHTS
an action of the European Clean Clothes Campaign
ADIDAS AND NIKE - THE OTHER "WINNERS"
OF EURO 2000
They have done it again. Top European sporting goods company adidas
are official suppliers to Euro 2000. As they were in the 1998 World
Cup. From the footballs themselves to the brand image of the tournament,
you won't be able, this June, to miss the three stripes. As for
world leader Nike, they too will be highly visible as sponsors of
the national teams from Belgium and the Netherlands, who are hosting
the event.
Football pitches are about to be turned into battlefields for control
of the market… And the main protagonists are doing well. When,
in 1998, adidas-sponsored France won the World Cup, adidas sales
went up by 48% to 5.4 billion Euros. An historic result, made possible
by the staggering investment of 712.5 million Euros in promotion
and sponsorship. In the same year, Nike's own advertising and promotion
budget rose to 1.13 billion Euros.
It would cost 16 million euros to double the salary - for a 40
hour week -
of 50,000 workers in the garment industry in Indonesia. That is
half of the sponsorship money negotiated with the Dutch national
team in 1999, and less than 2% of Nike's entire advertising and
promotion budget for 1999.
Although generous when it comes to sponsorship, Nike and adidas
are more careful when it comes to labour costs. Both use sub-contractors.
They source shoes, shirts, shorts and footballs from countries where
labour costs are low and workers' rights are few. Nike and adidas
are powerful customers, powerful enough to decide what the prices
and delivery times will be, and to influence the working conditions
and wages of tens of thousands of workers.
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Sub-contracting: the law of the jungle
Neither Nike nor adidas own factories. But they maintain
close links with their suppliers. To become and remain one
of their suppliers, a manufacturer must continually demonstrate
that they are competent and competitive and that they offer
the highest quality for the lowest prices and the shortest
delivery times. Competition is fierce, fed by the knowledge
that the big, international brands will not hesitate to
relocate their business if more favourable conditions are
offered elsewhere - in the way that Nike left South Korea
and Taiwan, sub-contractors since 1976, in favour of Thailand,
then Indonesia, Bangladesh, Vietnam and China.
Eastern Europe, with its experienced workforce and proximity
to the market, has also proved an attractive option for
relocation, in the case of adidas for instance.
But Nike and adidas are not the only ones along the supply
chain to sub-contract. The sub-contractors sub-contract
too. In Thailand, for example, the Par Garment factory,
which supplies both Nike and adidas, has constantly increased
its turnover in recent years while at the same time decreasing
its workforce. The major part of production, these days,
is contracted out to smaller companies, sometimes barely
legal production units and sweatshops where workers, prohibited
from organising, see their basic rights become ever more
meaningless.
Sub-contracting may mean low labour costs for Nike and
adidas. It certainly does not guarantee a fair price to
the consumer or a fair reward to the workers.
(Breakdown of the price of a shoe)
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A LIVING WAGE?
"Nike does its best to ensure that the 500,000 workers who
produce for us throughout the world are paid a fair wage",
claims Dusty Kid, Director of Labour Practices for Nike.
A Fair Wage?
Is he referring to the legal minimum wage which, in most countries,
is fixed well below what is necessary to live on as opposed to just
survive, so as not to put off potential investors?
A fair wage - isn't that a wage which enables a worker and family
to live?
This is far from being the case with the wages Nike and adidas pay.
And there are factories where even the legal minimum wage is not
paid.
A woman working for Nike or adidas suppliers in Lahore in Pakistan
earns 1,000 rupees per month. The legal minimum wage of Pakistan
is 1,950 rupees per month. The estimated living wage for a single
person in Lahore is 7,000 rupees per month.
BULGARIA IN EURO 2000?
Bulgaria did not make it through the qualifying rounds. But if Bulgarian
players are not to be seen on the field during Euro 2000, there
are hundreds of workers who are wearing themselves out "for
the sake of the game" in factories producing for Nike and adidas.
At the Savina factory, for instance, workers' wages are calculated
according to whether they reach the production targets set for them
by management. "If I reach the target they have set me, I can
earn 75 to 100 Euros a month", says Olga. "But these targets
are set way too high and no worker can reach them on a regular basis.
Last month, I worked 150 hours overtime to try and make the target,
and not one of those hours was paid to me!"
Even working herself into the ground, Olga's salary is not enough
to make ends meet. She needs 175 Euros a month to cover food, housing,
clothes and healthcare costs for the family and schooling expenses
for two children. That's not asking for the moon!
In September 1999, a representative of adidas visited Savina to
check working conditions. All he reported were a lack of fire extinguishers
and poor lighting.
CHILD LABOUR IN THE FOOTBALL INDUSTRY?
The footballs provided by adidas for Euro 2000, the Director of
the Tournament assures us, are not made in Pakistan. Yet today,
"made in Pakistan" does not necessarily mean "made
with child labour". Since 1996, when the scandal of children
stitching footballs broke, international action has ensured that
70% of the balls exported by Pakistan are made without using child
labour.
But the problem is far from solved. Firstly, a proportion of the
children who stitched the balls has, not surprisingly, slipped through
the net. Those children have not benefited from the financial and
educational support provided to others. Instead, they are now sharpening
surgical instruments, carrying materials on building sites or picking
tea.
Secondly, the campaign failed to draw attention effectively to
the reasons why children need to work. " If a large number
of people are without work, if people's wages do not allow them
to cover their family's basic needs, if there is no social security,
no freedom to organise, is it then not unavoidable that the children
of workers will themselves look for ways to cover their own basic
needs? by whatever means they can? We urgently need to understand
that bringing child labour to an end is conditional on respecting
the basic rights of workers". Simy Gulzar, Working Women Organisation,
Pakistan.
THE RIGHT TO ORGANISE DENIED
The Thai factory Par Garment produces for adidas, Nike, Fila and
other brands. The company started out in 1987 with a capital of
14 million baht. By 1998, this capital had grown 20 fold. Well done
Par Garment! The story, however, reads differently from the workers'
perspective. From 800 in 1987, theirs numbers are now down to 200.
Most are trade union members, a high proportion compared to other
Thai factories. But this is due to years of hard-won struggles by
a union set up at the factory in 1990.
Management has never ceased to repress trade union activity, using
dismissals, death threats even, to intimidate the workforce, and
going out of its way to develop strategies for by-passing workers'
rights. Par Garment has therefore resorted to sub-contracting -
to divide and isolate workers, to allow them to justify laying off
workers and cut the number directly employed by the company. Meanwhile,
the repression of trade union leaders goes on unabated: they are
now prohibited from entering the factory, and are blacklisted, and
so prevented from earning a living.
WITH YOUR HELP…
… we aim to score a first. Euro 2000 must be the Euro of human
rights in the workplace. During the World Cup in Britain in 1996,
images of children sewing footballs in Pakistan scandalised millions
of fans and members of the public. FIFA responded by formulating
a code of conduct for its suppliers. It is a good code of conduct,
based on the core conventions of the UN's International Labour Organisation
(ILO).
But a good code of conduct is not enough.
The sponsors of Euro 2000 are, on paper, committed to complying
with the FIFA code. And Alain Courtois, Director of Euro 2000, thinks
he has done enough. And that we should be satisfied.
But we are not satisfied. For us and for the many thousands of
workers exploited in the making of sportswear, the matter is not
over. We cannot rest until signing up to the code also means complying
with it and having labour standards independently verified.
A principle has been established. It's up to us to build on this
first step. The Clean Clothes Campaign has evidence of unacceptable
working conditions among the suppliers of the major sponsors. Euro
2000 must use its influence and demand higher standards.
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The FIFA Code of Conduct
Fair play is not confined to the football pitch. It is this
belief which motivated FIFA to formulate, in collaboration
with trade unions, a code of conduct including the following:
Clear criteria
· No forced labour (ILO Conventions 29 and 105)
· No discrimination in employment on the basis of
race, colour, gender, political opinions, nationality or
social origins (ILO Conventions 100 and 111)
· No child labour under 15 (ILO Convention 138)
· Freedom of association and collective bargaining
(ILO Conventions 87 and 98)
· A wage which is at least equal to the legal minimum
wage and sufficient to cover workers' basic needs
· No excessive working hours and one day off per
week
· Decent working conditions
· The security of an employment contract.
Recognition of the need for independent verification, facilitated
by
· transparency in the supply chain
· information to workers and protection of witnesses.
Sanctions
which can go as far as the withdrawal of FIFA licences.
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THE CLEAN CLOTHES CAMPAIGN
Already, tens of thousands of individuals and hundreds of organisations
support the Clean Clothes Campaign in nine European countries.
More and more consumers assert that the ethics of the companies
they buy from are as important as quality and price, and are expressing
concern about the rights of workers.
The Clean Clothes Campaign calls on garment companies to respect
a code of conduct based on the core conventions of the UN's International
Labour Organisation, and to commit themselves to a living wage as
well as to the independent verification of labour standards. Dialogue
with garment companies is taking place throughout Europe and experiments
in monitoring and verification are being conducted in Sweden, Switzerland,
France and Britain.
The Clean Clothes Campaign is convinced that both local and national
governments have a major role to play in encouraging corporate responsibility
and ethical consumerism.
The Clean Clothes Campaign does not call for boycotts and does
not seek to protect the livelihoods of workers in the South at the
expense of workers in the North. The challenge is to improve global
working conditions - not to see further cuts in employment or legitimise
relocation - and to publicise the demands of workers in both North
and South.
All over the world, men, women and sometimes children are having
to fight for their rights. The Clean Clothes Campaign publicises
their struggles, facilitates solidarity action and the exchange
of information, and organises media campaigns and financial support.
The Clean Clothes Campaign networks for the globalisation of solidarity.
EURO 2000 - THE GOAL IS HUMAN RIGHTS!
Football fans and consumers in general will be asked to focus their
attention on what takes place behind the football. Witnesses from
producer countries - workers, trade unionists and researchers -
will tour Europe to tell us about working conditions in the garment
factories of Thailand, El Salvador and Bulgaria. There will be a
range of activities across Europe.
· In Brussels and French-speaking Belgium, the Clean Clothes
Campaign's
appeal to Euro 2000 has the support of thousands of people, including
football stars and whole football teams. The winners of the Campaign's
own "Footballeurs, fous de valeurs" tournament, which
involves schools and youth clubs, will be rewarded for the imagination
with which they raise awareness as well as for their sporting skills.
The final, in Mons on 13 May, is part of the Made in Dignity festival.
Look out, during the official tournament, for the various ways in
which the Campaign will make its presence felt in Brussels, Charleroi
and Liege.
For more information, contact ….
· In Flemish-speaking Belgium, the Clean Clothes Campaign
will be
organising a symbolic football tournament, culminating in a match
in which the celebrity players - sports personalities included -
have endorsed the appeal to the UEFA. The Campaign is stressing
the need for a living wage in the sportswear industry and aims to
get 50,000 people to convey that demand to adidas. It has the support
of goal keeper Filip Dewilde, one of Belgium's major football stars.
There will be street actions in all major cities.
For more information, contact….
· In the Netherlands, the Clean Clothes Campaign will hold
events in all four
cities hosting Euro 2000 matches. Young people will be invited to
send postcards personalised with a photograph of themselves to the
sponsors of the Dutch team and of Euro 2000, to the Dutch Football
Association and to Euro 2000 itself. Also on the programme: a football
tournament with a difference will raise solidarity funds for workers'
organisations and a poster campaign will adorn thousands of windows
in the cities hosting Euro 2000 matches.
For more information, contact ……
· In Germany, the Clean Clothes Campaign has organised two
days of
action focusing on adidas as main sponsors of Euro 2000. 27 May
is awareness raising day, with information stalls, street theatre,
etc.
3 June is rally day as people from all over Germany and the rest
of Europe converge on the headquarters of adidas in Herzogenaurach.
For more information, contact ….
· Look out, also, for activities in Austria (…), France
(…), Spain (…), Sweden
(…) and the UK (Tel: 01603 610993. E-mail: nead@gn.apc.org).
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