Public Service Alliance of Canada BC

The Play Fair campaign is a coalition of labour rights groups that seek to push sportswear brands that produce merchandise for the Olympic Games to abolish sweatshop conditions in their supply chains and to respect labour rights.

Despite more than 15 years of codes of conduct adopted by major sportswear brands, such as Adidas, Nike, New Balance, Puma and Asics, workers making their products still face extreme pressure to meet production quotas, excessive, undocumented and unpaid overtime, verbal abuse, threats to health and safety related to the high quotas and exposure to toxic chemicals, and a failure to provide legally required health and other insurance programs.

Play Fair believes that sportswear and athletic footwear companies, the International Olympic Committee (IOC), National Olympics Committees, as well as national governments must take steps to eliminate this continuing exploitation and abuse of workers in the global sporting goods industry.

Play Fair identified four key hurdles facing workers in the sportswear industry and recommended four ways to overcome them:

1. Develop a positive climate for freedom of association and collective bargaining;
2. Eliminate the use of precarious employment in sportswear supply chains;
3. Lessen both the frequency and negative impacts of factory closures; and
4. Take steps to improve worker incomes, with the goal of reaching a living wage for all workers.

Visit  www.clearingthehurdles.org to see how Adidas, Nike, and other companies have responded to questions regarding their willingness to overcome the four hurdles facing workers in the sportswear industry.