July 6, 2006 Adidas Fails to Defend Freedom of Association at Panarub
Adidas still needs to send a clear message to its Indonesian supplier PT Panarub Industry that union leaders unjustly dismissed in October 2005 must be reinstated. Workers at PT Panarub in Indonesia are still seeking reinstatement after being unjustly dismissed for exercising their right to strike. Photo credit: M. Revaldi/Oxfam Australia
On May 31st the National Human Rights Commission (known as "Komnas HAM”) released its final recommendations in the case of the 33 dismissed workers and found that the workers, fired for going on strike, were fired illegally. Back in February adidas contacted Komnas HAM and said they fully supported the Commission’s investigation into the legality of the dismissals. However, adidas has turned their back on the Commission’s findings. This failure to act on the Commission’s recommendation to reinstate the workers (members of the Perbupas union) is truly disappointing and calls into question adidas’ commitment to respect workers’ right to organize in the union of their choosing. In the past few years both adidas and management had made some positive efforts to resolve a variety of problems at the factory, however the issue of reinstating these unjustly dismissed unionists has brought this progress to a standstill. Despite repeated calls upon adidas to increase the pressure on their supplier to come into compliance with trade union rights (and with adidas’ own code!) the CCC has received no evidence that adidas has clearly called upon PT Panarub to reinstate these workers. Though silent on the reinstatement issue, adidas meanwhile is sending confusing mixed messages about withdrawing orders from this factory (exclusively producing for adidas), causing more workers to fear for their jobs.

If adidas wants to be taken seriously in the field of socially-responsible sportswear companies, they will take concrete action to see that the dismissed workers are reinstated.

ACTION REQUEST
The CCC calls upon adidas to contact their supplier now and demand immediate reinstatement of the 33 unionists. This continuing delay is unacceptable – World Cup sponsor adidas is playing a waiting game with workers’ lives. Please click here to send a clear message to adidas today to request they take action.

MORE INFORMATION
The US-based Worker Rights Consortium conducted a factory assessment of PT Panarub in March 2004 and has continued to follow up on conditions at the factory since then. This week they have released an overview of the PT Panarub case, please see http://www.workersrights.org/PanarubMemo-7-3-06.pdf for more details about the dismissal, other outstanding issues at PT Panarub, and adidas’ position.