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Oxfam: Global Sports Brands Not Ending Worker Abuse |
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Well known sporting goods manufacturers who make their products in Asia are not doing enough to end worker abuse in their Asian operations—including the denial of the right of workers to join unions, a new report by Oxfam International charges.
The London-based group’s report, Offside! Labour Rights and Sportswear Production in Asia, finds workers making clothes, shoes and other goods for global sports brands have been fired or threatened with violence when they tried to form unions to bargain for better pay and conditions. The report says:
While global sports brands generously sponsor the world’s top sporting teams and players, the women and men in Asia who make their goods struggle to meet their families’ basic needs and many are unable to form or join unions without discrimination, dismissal or violence.
“Workers’ right to form unions is crucial to achieving the big improvements needed on the factory floor but many brands are still not willing to play ball,” says Kelly Dent, the report’s co-author.
The Oxfam report looks at 12 major sportswear makers and their Asian suppliers: Adidas, ASICS, FILA, Kappa, Lotto, Mizuno, New Balance, Nike, Puma, Reebok, Speedo and Umbro.
The report says along with denying workers the right to join unions, the most common worker abuses in their supply chain are inadequate wages, unreasonably high production targets, high levels of compulsory overtime and verbal abuse from supervisors if workers don’t work fast enough.
The year-long investigation found that U.S.-based FILA did the least to address serious labor abuses in its supply chain:
In one case, a FILA sport shoe supplier in Indonesia with an appalling record of worker abuse closed suddenly and without warning. A year later, none of its 3,500 workers have received any back-pay or severance pay. FILA refuses to reveal its role in the closure or take responsibility for the workers.
Some manufacturers, including Reebok, Nike, Puma, Adidas, ASICS and Umbro, have improved their workers’ rights records, the report says, “However, the performance of the industry as a whole remains poor.”
Click here to read the complete report.
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