After months of relentless campaigning, the organisations taking part in the "Play Fair at the Olympics" campaign took stock of their achievements. On December 16-17, 2004 an evaluation meeting was held by the campaign's steering group, which is made up of representatives from Asia Monitor Resource Center (AMRC), the CCC, Global Unions, Oxfam, and the Thai Labour Campaign. Other organisations were invited and several attended, including the Centre for Education and Development and Cividep, both based in India.

The assessment of the Play Fair campaign so far is that it heralded unprecedented levels of collaboration between NGOs and trade union organisations in many countries, North and South. It also produced a "roadmap" that will serve as the basis for discussions for a sportswear sectoral agreement. Linking with a global sports event proved to be a very effective way of bringing together targeted brand companies.

Particularly positive was the dialogue developed with individual sportswear companies. In some cases this led to direct relations between the companies and local trade unions. Five out of the seven targeted companies reviewed their codes/labour practice policies and were to varying degrees moved to take action. In the evaluation it was stressed that gains at the policy level are not, of course, the same as concrete improvements for workers at plant level.

The fairolympics.org website provided a strong focal point for the campaign. The events section was very valuable, as was the site's role as a way of exchanging information between participating organisations. Highlighting certain company targets on the website placed a lot of pressure on them to take action.

The level of public attention achieved was rated as very high. The pre-games "Athens Sew-In" stunt in particular gained a lot of press and media coverage around the world, as did our (unsuccessful) attempts to present a petition of over half a million signatures from 35 countries to the International Olympic Committee.

Although not fully global, participation in the campaign in Europe and Asia was widespread. One of the major gains in sportswear producing countries was innovative alliance-building. The worker exchange initiatives carried out amongst garment workers in India and the regional exchange organized after the "Workers' Olympics" in Bangkok were seen as particularly successful.

On the other hand, the campaigning period was quite short and, in such a short period, it is hard to immediately identify any meaningful change in workers' lives. The evaluation acknowledged that such changes take place over a longer period of time.

While the campaign provided plenty of scope for participation in consumer countries, campaigns in producing countries often felt they had fewer ways to get involved. Moreover, not enough thought had been given to how the outcomes of the campaign (in particular the advances made in dialogue with sportswear sourcing firms) could be used by workers them-selves to bring about change in their working and living conditions.

A major conclusion of the first part of the campaign, there-fore, is that organisations in the producing countries must be placed at the centre of any future work, as must measures that truly facilitate workers' freedom of association.

With this in mind, the international trade union federation for garment workers (ITGLWF) has already embarked on a program with its affiliated unions in Asia to develop their knowl-edge of the supply chains of the major multinational sports-wear companies sourcing from their countries. At a regional workshop planned in Vietnam for July 2005, organised by the ITGLWF with the Friedrich Ebert Foundation of Germany, they will be looking at the range of instruments that can be used to assist in organising along such chains. NGOs that have been involved in the sportswear workers' rights activities will also take part in the preparations for the workshop, thereby increasing union-NGO cooperation.

Other planned follow-up sportswear activities include a larger meeting for NGOs and unions, probably in India, later in 2005 that will address wider global campaigning issues.

A big disappointment of the "Play Fair at the Olympics" campaign was the reaction of the International Olympic Committee (IOC), which moved very little, if at all. However, some national Olympic committees and games organising committees were open to the campaign and have adopted new policies, which bodes well for the future.

The Turin 2006 Winter Olympic Committee (TOROC) has adopted a "Charter of Intents". Although a move not directly connected to the campaign, it may nevertheless contribute to the defining of ethical standards for global sporting events. TOROC has expressed an interest in discussing ways to improve social and ethical values in sport with the campaign.

At a national level, the various campaign organisations are following up with their own national Olympic committees. For example:

The sportswear brands were urged through the Play Fair at the Olympics campaign to cooperate on a "programme of work" aimed at bringing labour abuses in the industry to an end. In particular seven companies were highlighted by the campaign: Puma, Umbro, Lotto, Fila, Asics, Mizuno and Kappa.

Since September 2004, the campaign's lobbying activities at the international level have been scaled down, and the team has concentrated on developing a report that provides a complete record of the interaction between the different companies and the Play Fair Alliance, as the campaign is now called. Each company has reviewed its own chapter, and the full document is now available on the Play Fair and CCC websites.

As for on-going activities with the targeted companies:

Meanwhile, campaigning efforts in several European countries are focussing on sportswear retailers as well as producers. They include Decathlon, Intersport and Go Sport.

The World Federation of Sporting Goods Industries (WFSGI) recently established Committee on Corporate Social Responsibility (WFSGI-CSR) had its first meeting in Shanghai on March 16, 2005. It was attended by representatives of major sportswear brands, suppliers, national sportswear manufacturing associations, the International Labour Organ-isation (ILO), and the Fair Labor Association (FLA). Finally, the WFSGI discussed the Play Fair Programme of Work for the Sportswear Industry presented to them in May 2004. The Play Fair campaign was disappointed not to be invited to the WFSGI meeting, even though initial indications from the CSR committee were that this was under consideration. Nor did the WFSGI answer the question of how they would take up the issues raised by the Play Fair campaign. They made it clear that, in their view, a sectoral framework agreement is not feasible at the moment.

It goes without saying that the Play Fair Alliance will continue taking the achievements of the 2004 Olympics Campaign onwards, towards the Winter Olympics in Turin in 2006 and the Summer Olympics in Beijing in 2008.

For more on the achievements of the "Play Fair at the Olympics" campaign, please see: http://www.fairolympics.org/