Index

NEWSLETTER 22, Oct 2006 2006 World Cup: CCC Demands Justice for Sportswear Workers

CCC campaigners used the World Cup in Germany this year as another opportunity to raise awareness of conditions in the sporting goods/sportswear industry among football supporters and to put pressure on those who run the sport and make the sporting goods.

CCC action at the World Cup in Berlin

Sponsorship deals with major sporting brands bring in lucrative revenue for national football associations and their international body FIFA. Meanwhile, global sporting events such as the World Cup generate huge sales for the major sporting goods brands. The official sponsor, the German company adidas, did especially well out of the World Cup 2006:

Since the World Cup ended, adidas has secured an extension of its sponsorship deal with FIFA worth 280 million euros.

With the games being played on their home turf, German activists took the lead, supported by those in neighbouring Austria. Their campaign slogan "Fair P(l)ay" was a play on FIFA's own "Fair Play" code of conduct, whose "ten golden rules" include No.10 "Use football to make a better world":

"Football has an incredible power, which can be used to make this world a better place in which everyone can live. Use this powerful platform to promote peace, equality, health and education for everyone..." **

German and Austrian CCCs took up the FIFA challenge with a focus on the true working conditions behind the advertising slogans. Claims of poverty wages, poor working conditions, and lack of respect for trade union rights in factories making football goods were backed up by research in different continents by two German organisations: the Christian Initiative Romero (CIR) in El Salvador and Honduras, and the SÜDWIND Institut für Ökonomie und Ökumene in Indonesia (see sidebar).

Two cases of labour rights violations taken up by the CCC reinforced the point: the Hermosa factory in El Salvador and PT Panarub in Indonesia. Adidas sourced shorts and shirts at Hermosa and its famous football boots, promoted by the likes of David Beckham, at Panarub (for more info see page 20).

In the month before kick-off, Estela Ramirez, a representative of the Hermosa workers, toured Germany, speaking to local groups and the media. Altogether, she addressed over 600 people at 13 meetings. She was joined on one panel by Manfred Schallmeyer, president of the ITGLWF Global Union Federation for garment workers, who backed the workers' demands.

The annual shareholders' meeting at adidas headquarters in southern Germany on May 11 was targeted by CCC supporters, dressed in red and bearing the slogan "Ich bin Rot vor Wut!" (I am Red with Anger). Twelve campaigners managed to attend the meeting, with four speaking out about poverty wages and labour law violations, especially at the Hermosa factory.

On May 19, Ramirez joined in a nationwide day of protest, beginning with a press conference in Köln/Cologne and including street actions there and in other cities like Hanover and Dortmund.

Three days later, Estela met with adidas' Global Director of Social Affairs, Frank Henke. However, the meeting produced no concrete outcome. Henke refused to pay into a fund for the dismissed and blacklisted Hermosa workers.

Actions continued up to the end of the World Cup, with street theater around Berlin and groups making their presence felt in the stands and supporters' areas at matches in Berlin and Dortmund. Overall, tens of thousands of signed postcards were collected during the World Cup Campaign. Some were handed over to adidas CEO Herbert Hainer during the shareholders' meeting in May. The rest will follow later in 2006.

Activists were encouraged to take part through a special website for the World Cup campaign (www.inkota.de/wm2006). A short video (available from INKOTA) targeting the sporting goods industry was shown to the public throughout the Berlin subway system as well as in cinemas across Germany.

Press and media interest was high in the days before the first kick-off. The campaign gained some national radio and tele-vision coverage, as well as many articles in local and regional newspapers.

* Source: www.adidas-group.com/en/News/archive/2006/2006_06_28.asp
** Source: www.fifa.com/en/fairplay/fairplay/0,1256,12,00.html

Football-related Resources

Offside! Labor Rights and Sportswear Production in Asia (Oxfam International, May 2006)

The results of a year-long survey by Oxfam of conditions at Asian suppliers to 12 major sportswear brands including adidas, Puma, Reebok, Nike, Asics, Umbro and Pentland, with an analysis of the "ethical" record of each.

Full report available at : www.oxfam.org/en/files/offside_labor_report/download
Summary: www.oxfam.org/en/policy/briefingnotes/offside_labor_report/

Sweet FA?: Football associations, workers' rights, and the World Cup (TUC and Labour Behind the Label, UK, 2006)

Highlights the role that football associations can and should play through their contracts with sportswear licensees that supply national and replica kits. Available at
www.labourbehindthelabel.org/content/view/118/56/.

The Life of Football Factory Workers in Thailand
(Thai Labour Campaign, June 2006)

Thai women who put together adidas Teamgeist footballs at Molten, a Japanese/Thai joint venture company, earn the equivalent of 3.6 euros per day. Just three basic meals cost 77% of their wages.

Available at: www.cleanclothes.org/publications/06-06_tlc.htm.
For adidas' response to this report, and a joint TLC/CCC reply, see www.cleanclothes.org/companies/adidas06-07-25.htm

Lohnsituation bei Sportswear-Zulieferern in Honduras und El Salvador
(CIR, May 2006)

Germany-only report on the wage situation at sportswear suppliers in Honduras and El Salvador.

Available at: www.ci-romero.de/fileadmin/download/ccc/CIR_el_salvador_honduras.pdf.

Wages in adidas supplier factories and the cost of living in Indonesia in the period February 2005 - February 2006 (Ingeborg Wick, SÜDWIND Institut für Ökonomie und Ökumene, 31 March 2006)

Available at:
www.suedwind-institut.de/0eng_sw-start-fs.htm