Fair Games? Not for workers making sportswear for the Olympics

Workers making Olympic sportswear for London 2012 for top brands and high street names including Adidas and Next are being paid poverty wages, forced to work excessive overtime and threatened with instant dismissal if they complain about working conditions, according to a new report from the Playfair 2012 campaign, Fair Games? Human rights of workers in Olympic 2012 supplier factories [PDF].

In the run up to London 2012, the Play Fair campaign has found exploitative working conditons in 10 factories making Olypmic goods and sportswear in China, the Philippines and Sri Lanka. Workers were making London 2012 pin badges, mascots, uniforms for London 2012 officials and a range of sportswear carrying the Olypmic logo/Team GB logo.

Conditions for workers included poverty pay, forced overtime, unsafe working conditions, discrimination, repeated use of short-term contracts, and use of anti-union tactics to prevent workers from trying to improve their pay and conditions.

This has to change. Acting together, we can demand that the Olympic Movement and sportswear industry do much more to ensure that the human rights of workers making their goods are respected.

You can take action now

You can take action today to tell the brands featured in this report that they must face up to the reality of rights in their supply chains and commit to raise the bar on workers' rights.

Email Adidas, Next, Nike, Speedo (Pentland), New Balance, The North Face, Columbia Sportswear, Brooks, Saucony, Under Armour and Lululeman Athletica to call on them to:

• Pay a living wage
• Provide job security for workers>
• Address the negative impacts of their business practices on respect for workers' rights in their supply chains
• Take a positive approach to trade unions, so that workers can be empowered to negotiate better pay and conditions

http://www.playfair2012.org.uk/what-you-can-do/fair-games/