Thursday, 22nd March 2012

Race to the Bottom: Olympic sportswear companies’ exploitation of Bangladeshi workers

Source: War on Want (UK)

Adidas, Nike and Puma have all invested heavily in their associations with the London 2012 Olympic Games, either through official partnerships with London 2012 or sponsoring national teams and high profile athletes. As well as gaining access to worldwide audiences to promote their products they also aim to associate themselves with the Olympic values of fair play and respect. Our research finds that for the workers making goods for Adidas, Nike and Puma in Bangladesh, there is little sign of fair play or respect. Five of the six factories covered by our research did not even pay their workers the Bangladeshi minimum wage, let alone a living wage that allow them to meet their basic needs. On average workers were paid just 16p an hour, with two thirds of the workers work over 60 hours a week, in clear breach of Bangladeshi law.

+ Direct link to Report (PDF; 6.8 MB)

Category:

• Asia (DocuTicker)
• Business and economics (DocuTicker)
• Globalization (DocuTicker)
• Industries (DocuTicker)
• Labor (DocuTicker)
• Poverty (DocuTicker)
• Social and cultural issues (DocuTicker)
• Sports, recreation and leisure (DocuTicker)

Source:

• War on Want (UK)

Views: 1751

By Adrian Janes

Having begun his career in academic libraries, Adrian Janes is currently an Information Services Librarian with the London Borough of Havering.

In this role, he has particular responsibility for information from both the UK Government and the European Union. He wrote a detailed report on sources for the latter which was published by Free Pint Ltd. in 2007. He is also involved in training and publicising online reference resources and is a regular contributor to DocuTicker.

Adrian can be reached at adrian.janes@freepint.com

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