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News :: Miscellaneous |
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'We are not Machines', a new report expose Nike, Adidas sweashops in Indonesia |
Current rating: 0 |
by Lee Siu Hin
(No verified email address) |
17 Mar 2002
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"Despite some small steps forward, poverty and fear still dominate the lives of Nike and Adidas workers in Indonesia."
This is what an Australian Non-Governmental organization (NGO) "Oxfam Community Aid Abroad" describes the living and working conditions of Nike and Adidas sweatshops in Indonesia. |
**For the full report, please check: http://www.caa.org.au/campaigns/nike/reports/machines/index.html
The findings include:
Although some improvements have been made in working conditions in sport shoe factories producing for Nike and Adidas Salomon in Indonesia, the measures taken fall well short of ensuring that workers are able to live with dignity:
WAGES:
With full time wages as low as $US2 a day, workers live in extreme poverty and those with children must either send them to distant villages to be looked after by relatives or else go into debt to meet their basic needs.
FREEDOM OF ASSOCIATION:
Workers have reason to fear that active union involvement could lead them to be dismissed, jailed or physically assaulted.
WORKING CONDITIONS:
Workers report that although there has been some reduction in the physical and psychological pressure under which they work, they continue to be shouted at and humiliated and to work in dangerous conditions. The report is based on original interview and focus group research conducted by the author in July 2001 and January 2002 with a total of thirty-five workers from four factories producing for Nike and/or Adidas in West Java.
Low Wages:
Workers live in extreme poverty. They earn full-time wages of approximately $US56 a month and report that recent increases in legal minimum wages have not kept pace with dramatic increases in the cost of food. They depend on the extra income gained by working extensive overtime and have been hit hard by the economic downturn in the United States which has pushed down demand and reduced overtime in most factories investigated.
Approximately half of those workers with children are forced by their poverty to send them to live with relatives in distant villages. Many can only afford to see their children three or four times a year and find the separation extremely painful. Those who live with their children commonly go into debt to cover their family's basic needs.
Interference with Workers' Rights to Freedom of Association:
The arrest, imprisonment and extended trial of Ngadinah Binti Abu Mawardi from the Panarub factory (Adidas) has raised workers' fear that union activity could endanger their liberty. At the Nikomas Gemilang factory (Nike and Adidas) threats of violence against outspoken workers and uncertainty surrounding the attempted murder of Mr. Rakhmat Suryadi has generated anxiety that union involvement could endanger workers' safety.
There has been a reduction in some forms of discrimination against members of independent unions in several factories, but even in these factories workers allege that factory owners have discriminated against active unionists when firing workers.
During 2001 Nike refused a number of practical proposals put forward by human rights groups which would have increased workers' freedom to engage in union activity.
Dangerous and Humiliating Working Conditions:
There has been some reduction in the physical and psychological pressure placed on workers, but this needs to be set against ongoing practices which fail to respect their health and dignity.
Positives steps include: - reforms which now enable workers to obtain sick leave. - reforms which have significantly reduced the frequency of sexual harassment.
Ongoing problems include: -workers are still shouted at when they work too slowly, and in some factories they are still humiliated by having their intelligence insulted or being compared to animals such as dogs or monkeys. - it is extremely difficult for workers to take legally mandated annual leave. - respiratory illnesses associated with inhaling vapours from toxic chemicals are still occurring, albeit less often. - at the Nikomas Gemilang factory workers are still losing fingers in accidents involving cutting machines. - at the same factory workers who want to claim legally mandated (unpaid) menstrual leave must still go through the humiliating process of proving they are menstruating by pulling down their pants in front of (female) factory doctors
For the full report, please check: http://www.caa.org.au/campaigns/nike/reports/machines/index.html
Although Nike has "welcome" the report, but it's no more then a PR and media cheap spin, and also not until years of protest, media exposure and negative image and they finally "admitted" they are responsible for their sweatshop conditions in Indonesia.
Please read the report, let's continue to keep the pressures to Nikes and all other multinational sweatshops operators across the World, tell them: JUST STOP IT the exploitations of the workers, GIVE them living wages and human dignity!
Lee Siu Hin --------------------------------------------------
ActionLA Action for World Liberation Everyday!
4167 S. Normandie Ave.
Los Angeles, CA 91030
Web: http://www.ActionLA.org
Tel: (323)389-4593
e-mail: ActionLA (at) ActionLA.org --------------------------------------------------
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See also:
http://www.caa.org.au/campaigns/nike/reports/machines/index.html
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