Inter Press Service

June 9, 2000

Sporting goods manufacturer Adidas, a major sponsor of the European Football Championship, Euro 2000, employs textiles workers under conditions that violate the International Labor Organization (ILO) core conventions to which the Union of European Football Associations (UEFA) is bound, anti-sweatshop pressure groups say.

According to representatives of the Clean Clothes Campaigns (CCC) in Belgium and the Netherlands, the host countries of Euro 2000, last year UEFA agreed to include the International Federation of Football Associations' (FIFA) code of conduct on fair labor conditions in all contracts with sponsors for Euro 2000 -- including Adidas.

The FIFA code is based on the core conventions of the ILO. It prohibits child labor (youth under 15 years old), forced labor and excessive working hours, while prescribing decent working conditions, wages sufficient to cover the worker's basic needs and freedom of association and collective bargaining.

"But Adidas, the official supplier of Euro 2000, is not complying with these conditions," says Frieda De Koninck of the Belgian CCC. Together with their sister organizations in Austria, France, Germany, Britain, Sweden and Switzerland, the Dutch and Belgian CCC have collected evidence of continuing violations of labor rights at subcontractors of Adidas and another major player in the sporting goods market, Nike, which is sponsoring both the Belgian and Dutch teams for Euro 2000, which begins on June 10.

The CCC found violations of labor rights by Adidas and Nike in Indonesia, Vietnam, Pakistan, Thailand and El Salvador.

Last year, the Belgian and Dutch branches of the CCC launched a media campaign to highlight the poor conditions and terms to which textile workers are subject, placing open letters to the companies and football associations in local newspapers.

Several politicians and prominent football players from both host countries spoke out in favor of better wages and conditions in the sporting goods industry and in December 1999, exactly six months before the official kick-off for Euro 2000, the CCC announced a victory for worker's rights. Under public pressure UEFA had agreed to subject the production of merchandise on sale during the tournament to the World Federation of Sporting Goods Industries (WFSGI) code of conduct.

But with the tournament about to start under the intense media coverage that always accompanies the event, the CCC faces an uphill battle to get out its message about Adidas and Nike.

The CCC says that worker's wages in the Savina factory in Bulgaria -- a southeastern European country that did not qualify for the European championships, but which produces goods for both Adidas and Nike -- appeared to have been calculated according to almost unattainable production targets set by the management.

Savina workers in December 1999 were receiving about 50 euros a month in real terms, half the national average, without receiving overtime pay and worked under a management hostile to union membership.

"That's why we are going on (with the campaign) during EURO 2000," says Esther De Haan of the Dutch CCC.

But, says David Husselbee, Director for Social and Environmental Affairs at Adidas, the CCC has got the wrong end of the stick. "There are two factories in Savina; the Clean Clothes Campaign (CCC) visited one of them and reports about that one, but Adidas has its products made in the other one.

"We are concerned as much as the CCC -- if not more -- about fair labor conditions. We deal with sports and we want to promote fairness not only on the field.

"There is no such thing as an ideal factory. But we are checking our subcontractors, and we do react when things appear to be wrong. We have our own team of independent observers for that, and we receive the reports of the CCC. Sometimes, their reports are right, sometimes not."

Nevertheless, in the four Dutch cities hosting Euro 2000 matches, the Dutch federation of trade unions FNV is distributing some 300,000 posters reminding football fans of the plight of sweatshop workers.

Signatures on various petitions actions targeted at the Dutch football association KNVB, the Euro 2000 committee and Adidas "are returning by bags," says De Haan.

The Dutch CCC has also opened an account to which Dutch people are asked to transfer the symbolic amount of one euro as an incentive for the big companies to start to ensure that the workers of their subcontractors receive better wages.

"But we didn't get the opportunity to present our campaign in the stadiums during the tournament," complains De Haan. "Officials are afraid of making the sponsors angry."

As long as the Dutch team keeps playing well, it will prove difficult to get media exposure, De Haan believes.

The rights of Indonesian, Vietnamese or Bulgarian workers sewing football shirts or stitching shoes is dwindling. If the Belgian or the Dutch team fail to qualify for the quarterfinals - - the secret wish of some activists here -- there might be more attention to their needs again.

"We'd better lose soon. But that is not what I should be saying. Of course, the Netherlands will reach the finals," she says.

CCC's De Koninck does not see the Belgian team pushing through to the finals on July 2, but is not overly concerned about that, stressing that "the goal is human rights."

In Belgium as well, the CCC appears to be losing ground, after getting good media exposure in May by organizing youth tournaments in the Walloon, the French-speaking part of the country, and an "injustice doesn't score" tournament in Flanders, the Dutch-speaking half, with an exhibition match between politicians.

Minister of Health Magda Aelvoet and local Belgian celebrities such as Jean-Marie Pfaff, who played for the top German team Bayern Mnchen in the 1980s, threw their weight behind the "clean clothes" campaign.

On June 3, the Belgian activists handed over 50,000 pictures of Belgians asking for better wages in the sportswear industry to the representatives of Adidas at their headquarters in the German town of Herzogenaurach.

Adidas reacted by promising to change its own code of conduct to include the need for a "liveable wage" -- a step up from the local minimum wage the company has required subcontractors to pay.