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Dear NikeWatch Supporter,

Happy New Year and thank you for your ongoing support for workers’ rights. In this edition of NWN we take you to chilly Vancouver for the winter Olympics as the Play Fair campaign launches a colourful new website to expose sports brands practices. We pay tribute to Fauzi Abdullah, a tireless champion of Indonesian workers’ rights, and there is a new report by the US Department of Labor which lists products made by children or forced labour in 58 countries.

Maquila Solidarity Network (MSN) and the Play Fair Campaign have launched a funky new website in the run up to the Vancouver Winter Olympics. Titled ‘Clearing the Hurdles’, the new site presents responses from Nike, adidas, Pentland, Puma, Lotto, New Balance, Asics and Mizuno on their willingness to meet 36 specific targets to overcome the four hurdles facing workers in the sportswear industry.

The website has an easy to read and colourful response chart which gives the brands a green, yellow, red or grey light on their responses to our requests that they take action to improve workers’ wages and conditions.

TAKE ACTION: We encourage you to send a message to brands to insist the sportswear brands do better in Vancouver.

Every 10 days from now until the opening ceremony there will be a new campaign video to watch on our site.

Find out more on the Clearing the Hurdles website
Send a message to brands

Photo courtesy insideindonesia.org

Not long after the death of Yeheskiel Prabowo, We are saddened to report that the Indonesian labour rights movement has suffered another tragic loss with the passing of Fauzi Abdullah who died in November, aged 60.  He succumbed to lung and liver diseases at his home in West Java, leaving behind his wife and 9-year-old son.

A humble, humorous man with a sharp mind, Fauzi had a lifelong commitment to advancing the living and working conditions of ordinary Indonesians, even in times of harsh repression. He was formerly head of the labour division at the Jakarta Legal Aid Foundation and founder of the Sedane Laborer Information Agency in Bogor, West Java. Known to fellow activists as Oji, he was a father figure to many labour activists, identifying and nurturing talent to become the next generation of union leaders. Even in the advanced stages of his illness Fauzi was still planning labour market research to inform union strategies.

Indrasari Tjandraningsih wrote a powerful tribute to Fauzi in the Jakarta Post. In it she wrote:

"He left when he was needed most. He left when the oppressed were still struggling to have their say. In spite of it all, labor activist Fauzi Abdullah departed with more than just memories. Oji, as his fellow activists called him, left a legacy: keep fighting against injustice".

Oxfam Australia’s labour rights team has benefited greatly from Fauzi’s wisdom over the years and our labour rights advocacy coordinator, Tim Connor was fortunate to visit him a few days before he passed away. Fauzi died shortly before he was due to receive the prestigious Yap Thiam Hien Lifetime Achievement Award for human rights defenders.

Photo: International Labor Organization

The US Department of Labor has released three reports on child labour and forced labour in countries around the globe in an effort to fill the “huge gap in information available to consumers about the processes and labour practices that produce the goods in our markets.”

Under international law, child labour is defined as work performed by someone under the age of 15, or under 18 if the work is harmful.  The UN’s International Labour Organisation (ILO) estimates that 218 million children work worldwide, 126 million of them in hazardous forms of work.

In Indonesia, for instance, there are children under 15 making sandals.  Cotton farms from Egypt to Argentina use child labourers, while in India, children make silk fabric and thread and soccer balls.

Forced labour is involuntary or done under threat, coercion or deception.  The ILO estimates there are 12.3 million people – children and adults – trapped in forced labour around the world.

In the garment sector alone, there are forced labourers making shoes and textiles in China, clothes in Jordan and Malaysia, and working the cotton fields of Burkina Faso and Kazakhstan.

All governments are required to set a minimum working age and to eradicate child and forced labour.

Says US Secretary of Labour, Hilda Solis, “It is my strong hope that consumers, firms, governments, labour unions and other stakeholders will use this information to translate their economic power into a force for good that ultimately will eliminate abusive child labour and forced labour.”

U.S. Labor Department News Release
The Department of Labor’s list of goods produced by child or forced labor

Oxfam Australia  works with communities to find lasting solutions to poverty and injustice.
ABN: 18 055 208 636. Oxfam Australia, PO Box 1711, Strawberry Hills NSW 2012, Australia.
Phone 02 8204 3901, 9am - 5pm AEST | Email nikewatch@oxfam.org.au
Web: www.oxfam.org.au/labour