Oxfam International claims that as top sportswear brands prepare to showcase their wares at this year’s FIFA World Cup in Germany, behind the scenes, many sportswear workers in Asia who attempt to unionise, face intimidation or dismissal.
Oxfam’s report, Offside! Labour Rights and Sportswear Production in Asia, found that workers making clothes, shoes and other goods for global sports brands have been sacked or threatened with violence when they have organised unions to lobby for better pay and conditions.Oxfam International claims that as top sportswear brands prepare to showcase their wares at this year's FIFA World Cup in Germany, behind the scenes, #
The majority of Asian sportswear workers are women from poor communities; many supporting children and families. Oxfam says that none of the big sports brands are doing enough to solve the problem.
"In 2004, the Play Fair Alliance — including Oxfam, the Clean Clothes Campaign and Global Unions — challenged the industry to improve labour conditions, but sadly little has changed. 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, Oxfam International spokesperson and the report's co-author.
Oxfam conducted an year-long survey of 12 sporting labels and found that FILA, a major US-based sponsor in world tennis, was bottom of the league and had failed to address serious labour 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.
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