Help deliver fair play for workers at London 2012
Companies selling London 2012 Olympics merchandise and uniforms will secure huge
profits. But for the workers making the goods behind the scenes, securing decent working
conditions is a lot harder.
The TUC, trade unions and Labour Behind the Label, a workers’ rights non-government
organisation, have just secured three-years of funding from the UK’s Department for
International Development (DFID) to highlight the situation and what we can do about it.
The project will draw on the strengths of many of the TUC’s trade unions. For example,
teachers will have materials to educate their pupils and manufacturing unions with historic
ties to garment and manufacturing work will be able to help their members draw the links.
The licensing and merchandise for the Olympic Games is an industry worth hundreds of
millions of pounds. The companies awarded Olympics licenses have great opportunities to
make considerable profit and enhance their brand image since the licenses give them
exclusive rights to produce and sell Olympic goods.
However, as past Olympics show, workers making the goods for the games are not getting
their fair share from the vast profits generated by the Olympics. From China to Indonesia
and Turkey to Bulgaria, sportswear and other goods bearing the Olympic logo have been
made by workers who, like most workers in global supply chains, do not have enjoy their
fundamental working rights.
Researchers belonging to the Play Fair campaign ‘Play Fair 2008’ investigated working
conditions in four Chinese factories producing bags, headgear and stationery bearing the
Olympic logo - they found that the goods were being produced by children as young as 12
years old who should still be in school, adults earning 14p per hour (half the legal minimum
wage), and employees being made to work up to 15 hours per day, seven days a week in
unsafe and unhealthy conditions.
Workers from the same Chinese factories summarized their misery as:
‘We are so exhausted, trying to get the “Olympics bags” done in time! Every one of us
works till very late. And the following day we still go to work at 7.30am! What sort of life is
this?’. (A worker from Eagle Leather Products Company Ltd., Guangdong-China)
‘Even if we have diligently completed 160 hours of overtime, our boss would only pay 70
hours of it at 1.5 times the normal wage rate. He sets a ceiling there. All of us very angry,
but what can we do? We have never been paid properly. For the remaining 90 hours of
overtime, we are paid at the usual rate of only 2.16 Yuan an hour.’ (Lekit stationary
Company Ltd., Guangdang-China)
‘Of course no one wears protective gloves here! Wearing gloves will slow you down and the
supervisor will think you are arrogant! If you want to wear gloves, you can forget about
working here.’ (Don’t your hands hurt?) ‘Of course, they do! Even if I don’t put them in
water, they still hurt. By putting them in water is the worst. My hands hurt so bad when I
wash my clothes with laundry detergent. The detergent gets in the sores and it hurts so bad it
makes me cry.’ (Yue Wing Cheong Light Products Co. Ltd., Shenzhen-China)
Yet the Olympics Charter guarantees fair play ‘to create a way of life based on the joy of
effort, the educational value of good example and respect for universal fundamental ethical
principle’. The Play Fair Alliance was formed in 2004 to campaign against this contradiction
between the Olympics philosophy and the horrendous working conditions of sweatshop
workers.
London has the potential to learn from the successes and failures of the previous games.
Being aware of this potential, the Play Fair 2012 campaign is on the starting blocks getting
ready to raise the bar on ethical trading for all goods bearing the Olympic logo - ensuring
workers' rights are respected throughout Olympic supply chains.
Play Fair 2012 campaign is a part of Play Fair 2008, a global campaign consisting of three
international federations: the Clean Clothes Campaign, International Trade Union
Confederation, and International Textile, Garment and Leather Workers Federation.
Coordinated by the TUC and Labour Behind the Label, it intends to ensure an Olympics that,
in the words of former London Mayor Ken Livingstone, “values the people who will work to
produce it.”
The London Organizing Committee of the Olympic and Paralympic Games (LOCOG) has an
ambitious aim of using the inspiration of Olympic and Paralympic Games to change lives. 1
The 2012 Play Fair campaign wants to make sure that the workers who work hard to deliver
the 2012 Olympics and Paralympics, in particular those making sportswear and merchandise
with the Olympic logo are not left out of that change. The campaign wants IOC, LOGOC,
and MNCs to act on the issue and create conducive atmosphere where decent work for all can
be realized.
As trade unionists and as consumers of Olympics 2012 products, you have the power to make
sure that people around the world producing the London Olympics goods feel at least some of
the benefits. As teachers, you can also help by raising your students’ awareness of the
realities and plight of sweatshop workers, many of whom are young and should still be in
school.
To find out more about the TUC’s Playfair 2012 campaign visit www.playfair2012.org or
contact Sam Gurney: sgurney@tuc.org.uk.
1
http://www.london2012.com/about/our-brand/index.php