Striving to be the best?
Bryony Moore looks at the ethical performance of sportswear companies.
The Beijing Olympics 2008 runs from 8th to 24th August. The event will be rammed to the rafters with the world's finest sporting heroes fighting it out for the ultimate goal. But Beijing 08's slogan 'One World One Dream' may not sound true for the Chinese workers producing the athletes clothes. Other countries where sportswear is produced include Indonesia, Thailand and Vietnam, all of which are also on ECRA's current list of oppressive regimes.
Sportswear has been the target of human rights campaigners for some years now. In 2006, Oxfam wrote a report entitled 'Offside! Labour Rights and Sportswear Production in Asia', which examined how sports brands were tackling the problem of sweatshops in their industry, with a particular focus on workers' freedom to form and join trade unions.
The Play Fair Alliance (which consists of Oxfam, the Clean Clothes Campaign,
the International Trade Union Confederation and the International Textile, Garment
and Leather Workers Federation) asked sportswear companies to adopt a Programme
of Work in 2004, which set out concrete steps towards improvements in their
supply chain. Four years later, the alliance has produced a follow up report
'Clearing the Hurdles: Steps to Improving Wages and Working Conditions in the
Global Sportswear Industry'. Published this April, it has sought to identify
solutions to these persistent workplace problems. It picks out three central
hurdles which it says that, if not overcome, will inhibit the industry's ability
to make real progress on other workers rights issues in the future:
- Lack of respect for freedom of association and the right to bargain collectively;
- Insecurity of employment caused by industry restructuring, and
- Abuse of
short-term labour contracting and other forms of precarious employment.
According to the Play Fair 08 campaign, sportswear brands tend to focus on
issues that can be addressed without significantly altering profits or the cost
of their products. So-called "cash standards", such as a living wage provision,
are proving harder to establish, despite the fact that garment worker wages
could be raised significantly without too much impact on profits. While industry
leaders have been willing to take action in some cases to ensure that workers
receive the legal minimum wage or prevailing industry wage, they have generally
been unwilling to take steps to ensure that workers' wages are sufficient to
meet basic needs.
Our scores table shows which companies have very good or poor supply chain
policies, but some smaller, although still significant, details are not visible.
For example, Timberland, Nike, Reebok and Puma are all now publishing a list
of all factories which produce their clothes.(31) This is a big step for companies,
and is a lead that other companies should be urged to follow.
It is also worth noting that, although they are clearly not saints, a 2006
report by The Ethical Trading Action Group on transparency in the clothing sector
actually puts many sportswear companies ahead of fashion clothing companies,
proving that it's not the worst performing area of the clothing sector.(32)
A step in the right direction?
Fair Labor Association
Adidas AG, ASICS corporation, Nike Inc., Patagonia, Puma AG and Umbro are all members of the Fair Labor Association. FLA is a multi-stakeholder initiative based in the USA which was set up to improve worker conditions in supplier factories. It requires a percentage of the company's factories to be independently monitored and the company nominates which factories take part.(4) The FLA code of conduct contains stipulations about the minimum age of employment (15, or 14 in certain countries), freedom of association and discrimination.
Working hours are limited to 48 hours a week with 12 hours overtime, except in "extraordinary circumstances". No definition of extraordinary circumstances is given however, so it is possible that workers are working longer hours. In addition, the code only guarantees payment of the minimum wage as required by law, not necessarily a living wage.
Ethical Trading Initiative
Pentland Group (who own Berghaus and Ellesse) is a member of the ETI.(5) Like the FLA, the ETI is a multi-stake holder initiative. The ETI has a Base Code, which it asks all member companies to adopt, and which is based on the International Labour Organisations' standards. The provisions are the same as those of the FLA, apart from a commitment to pay a living wage. ETI member companies are not required to meet Base Code standards before they join the Initiative, but just to work towards them afterwards.
While both of these initiatives leave a lot to be desired as far as provisions for workers are concerned, they do mark a positive move towards encouraging companies to be more open about conditions in their factories and working towards set targets for improvement.
Cotton
The extremely heavy use of pesticides in cotton production has long been a concern
of environmental campaigners. These pesticides cause huge damage, not only to
the environment, depleting soil and polluting water, but also to the mental
and physical health of the cotton pickers and farmers. At least 20,000 people
in the majority world die every year from poisoning by agricultural pesticides.(33)
Farmers often struggle to afford high prices for pesticides and many have resorted
to suicide as a result of spiralling debts. The adoption of organic growing
methods for cotton is seen by campaigners as the only way to move forward, since
it reduces pesticide damage to the environment, and helps companies move into
greener, socially-responsible production. Small scale farmers in the majority
world benefit from stable income, reduced spending on pesticides and better
health.(34)
Nike has drawn praise from campaigners for pursuing a policy of blending organic
cotton into its mainstream cotton range. It claims that in 2007/8 98% of all
t-shirts sold contained a minimum of 5% organic cotton.
Alternative sportswear?
Nike produces a small range of organic sportswear for women. For people wanting
to avoid mainstream multinational companies, we've included a couple of
specialist outdoor/mountain clothing companies in this report: Paramo and Patagonia.
If you can go fell running in their clothing, then there's no reason why
it shouldn't work around a track or in a gym.
Páramo, primarily an outdoor and mountain gear supplier, claims to sell
‘environmentally friendly' products, which have been developed without
using fluorocarbons, membranes, laminates or coatings.(26) Páramo's
founder Nik Brown established an ethical production facility in Colombia, which
works as part of a social program with the ‘Miquelina Foundation'
and provides skills to women seeking an improvement in their lives.
Patagonia sells trail/fell running clothing. Its online catalogue shows that
a significant proportion of the clothing on sale is labelled as having been
made from organic cotton (63 items), and 40 items of clothing are labelled as
having been made entirely from, or from a proportion of, recycled polyester.(27)
The company takes back old garments for recycling, including some from other
retailers.
The other option is to look for yogawear which has a number of specialist supplier
companies using organic cotton. Furthermore any ordinary organic T-shirt –
from M&S to Howies – will be fine for much sporting activity.
Gossypium is a long-time favourite at Ethical Consumer and produces organic
and fairtrade cotton items of yogawear for women and t-shirts for men.
Howies produce merino wool base layers for running and cycling.
Price Comparison (ranked by average price for both items)
|
|
|
Average Prices |
| Brands
| Joggers
| Base Tops
| Both items
|
| Gossypium (Best Buy)
| £18.95
| £9.95
| £14.45
|
| Umbro
| £14.00
| £17.23
| £15.61
|
| Reebok
| £16.00
| £15.50
| £15.75
|
| Slazenger
| £18.00
| £15.00
| £16.50
|
| Kappa
| £16.00
| £20.00
| £18.00
|
| New Balance
| £23.50
| £15.85
| £19.67
|
| Asics
| £22.40
| £17.00
| £19.70
|
| Puma
| £23.60
| £16.00
| £19.80
|
| Nike
| £22.75
| £18.34
| £20.54
|
| Adidas
| £21.50
| £21.00
| £21.25
|
| Helly Hansen
| £24.85
| £22.45
| £23.65
|
| Berghaus
| £19.00
| £41.25
| £30.12
|
| Patagonia (Best Buy)
| £42.00
| £25.50
| £33.75
|
| Paramo (Best Buy)
| £42.34
| £26.67
| £34.50
|
| Howies
| £75.00
| £30.00
| £52.50
|
| Ellesse
| n/a
| £12.99
| n/a
|
| Fila
| £10.00
| n/a
| n/a
|
Links
References
3 Clearing the Hurdles :Steps to Improving Wages and Working Conditions in the Global Sportswear Industry, Play Fair 2008, page 5 4 www.fairlabor.org viewed 23/05/2008 5 www.ethicaltrade.org list of member companies, viewed 23/052008 6 Clean Clothes Campaign newsletter:23 (May 2007) (504094) 7 www.cleanclothes.org/companies/kappa.htm 10 International Defence Directory:International Defence Directory (1 January 2007) (502724) 11 Oxfam International:Offside! Labour Rights and sportswear production in Asia (24 May 2006) (292276) 13 Meyn Food Processing Solutions B.V. Corporate Communications:www.meyn.nl (29 April 2008) (522368) 17 No medal for the Olympics on Labour Rights (10 June 2007) (504512) 18 Innovative Minds Boycott Israel website www.inminds.co.uk:www.inminds.co.uk/boycott-israel.php#companies (May 2008) (523347) 19 Boston Herald Online:New Balance uses Chinese Sweatshop (7 January 2006) (281683) 22 Chicago Tribune:Nike pays $7.6 million to settle Chicago discrimination suit (30 July 2007) (507760) 26 Paramo Ltd Corporate Communications:Email from Paramo manager (21 January 2008) (520159) 27 www.patagonia.com (13 May 2008) 30 China Labor Watch:Puma Supplier's unchanged dreadful conditions (Taiway Sports Inc. investigation follow-up) (March 20 (523220) 31 Revealing Clothing: Transparency Report Card 2006, Ethical Trading Action Group, 2006 32 Revealing Clothing: Transparency Report Card 2006, Ethical Trading Action Group, 2006 33 www.pan-uk.org/News/Press%20Release/cotlaunc.htm 04/06/2008 34 www.pan-uk.org/News/Press%20Release/cotlaunc.htm 04/06/2008