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Dear NikeWatch Supporter,

This issue of NikeWatch—Fashion Re:Action—we provide an update to the exciting Clearing the Hurdles Campaign and share how you can help create a race to the top on labour rights.  We report on the tragedy experienced by garment workers in Haiti and also the murder that has Cambodian garment workers demanding for justice six years on.  In Tiger out of the Woods, we ask readers to remind Nike of the real scandal in sports news. 

Photo: Gcina Ndwalane/OxfamAUS

The Clearing the Hurdles campaign is gaining exciting momentum. Hundreds of activists – that’s you! – have been writing to sportswear brands in the last weeks and companies are beginning to feel the pressure. The campaign sets up a rating system that compares the largest sportswear brands on their commitments to labour rights through their policies and practices.  By setting up a competitive forum between top sportswear brands, the campaign is working to reverse the ‘race to the bottom’ scenario and instead achieve a ‘race to the top’ in labour rights.

Contribute to this important campaign.  Add your voice to an email asking Adidas, Asics, Lotto, Mizuno, New Balance, Nike, Pentland, and Puma to:

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

You can also check out the brand Response Chart to date.

Photo: Chris Hendros/NewYorkTimes

The Palm Apparel t-shirt factory was one of many garment factories in the Haitian capital of Port-au-Prince.  When on the 12th of January a massive earthquake devastated the Haitian capital, the Palm t-shirt factory collapsed at its centre, and over 500 shift workers tragically lost their lives.  The factory site is thought to have largest death toll of all buildings in the capital.

The Palm t-shirt factory was located in the district of Carrefour and employed over 1000 shift workers.  To date little is known about the plight of the factory’s surviving workers— or the plight of thousands of other women and men employed in Haiti’s garment sector.   The International Textile, Garment and Leather Worker Federation (ITGLWF), is establishing assistance programs directed at Haitian garment workers affected by the earthquake.  In doing so, ITGLWF is working to ensure that the long-term reconstruction plan makes provision for the rehabilitation of the garment industry based on sound labour rights practices.

Oxfam Australia has been working in Haiti for 30 years.  To can make a contribution Oxfam Australia’s important work visit our Haiti Earthquake Appeal.

Photo: Ben Adams/OxfamAUS

For many media outlets, the affairs of sports stars make the perfect scandalous news stories.  In recent months the spotlight has shone on Tiger Woods. But the real scandal continues inside the supplier factories of Nike and other sports brands. While sports stars like Tiger Woods enjoy lucrative sponsorship (Nike has paid Woods USD $25 million each year) the women and men in Asia who make Nike’s goods continue to struggle to meet their families basic needs and many are unable to join unions without discrimination, dismissal or violence.

We have almost reached our target number of 1100 for petition letters asking Nike to ensure:

• Full-time wages are at least adequate to meet the basic needs of workers and their children
• Workers enjoy freedom of association and collective bargaining.

Send a Letter to Nike CEO Mr Mark Parker to let him know that the company’s labour rights record matters.

Six years after the murder of Cambodian’s most respected union leader, Chea Vichea, garment workers across the country continue to demand justice.  Past investigations of Vichea’s murder have been undermined by false testimonies, forced confessions and police brutality.  December 31 2008 the two men originally accused and convicted for the crime were released following wide condemnation of the original trial by the United Nations and human rights groups.  Investigations have been renewed but show little genuine progress.  Two of Cambodia’s biggest workers’ unions have threatened to call upon workers to take a nationwide week long strike to demand a proper investigation of Vichea’s murder.  The unions also plan to keep Vichea’s voice alive by continuing his call for respect of workers’ rights in Cambodia’s garment industry.

The garment sector is Cambodia’s largest export industry with 330,000 employees.  However the industry is plagued by problems of working hours, low pay and a lack of respect for the freedom of association (an industry head recently likened union activity to a deadly virus).

Chea Vichea is remembered as a powerful advocate of factory workers rights as well as a vocal critic of Cambodia’s business and political elite.

Kingdom of Cambodia: The killing of trade unionist Chea Vichea

Featuring women empowered through unions, Adidas campaign update, Ethical Clothing Australia and more.

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