Huge projection overlooking Olympic park exposes Adidas exploitation‏

Adidas exploitation projection at Olympic Park

People leaving the Olympic Park last night after the men’s 100m final were greeted by this huge projection on a building, exposing the exploitation of workers who make clothes for Olympic sportswear partner Adidas. Yet one more example of the obscenity of corporate sponsorship of the London 2012 Olympic Games.

While thousands of people who were at the London 2012 Olympics would have seen this, we want to make sure that thousands more see and share this image.

Please share with all your friends. Please tell your friends that Adidas sources its Olympic consumer tat from sweatshops.

The projection was made possible by the generosity of War on Want supporters, this projection can help shame Adidas to take action and end poverty pay. The more people who see it, the bigger the impact. Please share it now.

Please e-mail the boss of Adidas and demand an end to worker exploitation.

Adidas has already sold £100 million of Olympic clothing whilst workers making its goods around the world are paid poverty wages and are having to skip meals to survive.

This is exploitation. It wouldn’t be ok for Adidas to do this in the UK and it shouldn’t be ok anywhere else. Adidas must ensure that workers are paid enough to live.

• The Adidas sponsored Exploitation Games
• Olympic projection spotlights Adidas factories ‘exploitation’

The Adidas sponsored Exploitation Games

The Adidas sponsored Exploitation Games

we are not in the welfare business. Our job is to make a profit. — Adidas CEO Herbert Hainer

Saturday War on Want put on the Exploitation Games, no corporate sponsorship necessary, outside Adidas flagship store in Oxford Street in London in protest at Adidas sourcing its Olympic consumer tat from sweatshops. Protests also took place outside Adidas stores in Manchester, Portsmouth and Exeter.

The Exploitation Games included activists confronting the hurdles faced by Adidas workers, such as poverty wages and up to 90-hour weeks, and, after the Olympics cheats scandal, badminton to symbolise alleged unfair play by Adidas.

War on Want sweatshops campaigner Murray Worthy, who stuck its anti-exploitation poster on the London store’s window, said:

These Exploitation Games expose the ugly truth behind Adidas’s failure to uphold the Olympics values of fair play and respect. Adidas must stop raking in profits at workers’ expense and instead ensure their pay reflects the vital part they play in its success.

Adidas are one of the sponsors of the London 2012 Olympic Games, but cannot afford to pay its sweatshop workers a living wage.

While Adidas reveals the company has already sold around £100 million of Olympic merchandise, War on Want points to Indonesian workers struggling to survive on pay as low as 5,000 rupiah (34p) an hour, and having to skip meals to get by.

War on Want stresses the stark contrast between workers’ poverty pay and the £529 million profits Adidas declared for 2011, as well as chief executive Herbert Hainer’s £4.6 million “compensation” last year.

It cites Adidas workers receiving far less than a living wage in the Philippines, Indonesia, Sri Lanka and China.

In addition, Cambodian workers earn £10-a-week basic pay, are forced to toil overtime hours, cannot afford decent food and live in squalid housing conditions.

In the run up to Exploitation Games thousands of people have written to Adidas, had tagged their clothes to expose the exploitation behind the brand, yet Adidas are still refusing to make basic commitments like paying a living wage.

No1 Top Story in The Exploitation Daily (Sunday 5 August 2012).

• New Olympic protest targets Adidas
• Adidas CEO “We are not in the welfare business. Our job is to make a profit.”
• The rise (and fall?) of Adidas
• Adidas rocked by price tag protest over workers’ rights
• Adidas worker exploitation for London 2012 Olympics
• Whose Games?
• Obscenity of corporate sponsored London 2012 Olympics

Obscene tax breaks for Olympic sponsors

London 2012 tax haven

McDonald’s do not just serve junk food, they dodge UK tax.

• How to safeguard your investment in saturated fat

Adidas do not just source their consumer junk from sweatshops, they dodge UK tax.

• Adidas worker exploitation for London 2012 Olympics

Coca-Cola do not just serve sweet sugary syrup laced with high fructose corn syrup, pollute drinking water in India, engage in human rights abuses in Latin America, they dodge UK tax.

• Fructose sweet white and deadly
• Belching Out the Devil

What do all three have in common apart from dodging UK tax?

All three are high profile sponsors of the unwanted London 2012 Olympic Games.

Imagine seeing the headline of this article on the front of your paper in the final countdown to the Olympic opening ceremony. As the eyes of the world focus on London, this is the perfect opportunity to expose the greed of the corporate sponsors who will be dodging tax during the games.

The UK’s winning Olympic bid included huge tax breaks for sponsors. As a result, massive multi-nationals like Coca-Cola, McDonald’s and Adidas stand to make a tax-free fortune. The UK could be losing tens of millions in this tax swindle.

• Ethical Consumer: The Great Olympic Tax Swindle
• False Economy blog: The Great Olympic tax swindle

As sponsors, these companies will be banking on loads of positive media exposure. Let’s use that to our advantage, turn the tables, and roll out a massive petition demanding they pay their fair share. If the petition is large enough, and attracts enough media attention, it could be the first step in scaring these image-conscious companies into refusing their gold-plated tax break.

Please add your name to the petition to the heads of these big companies demanding they turn down their Olympic tax dodge:

https://secure.38degrees.org.uk/olympic-tax-dodging

The only reason these global companies are involved in the Olympics is for the image boost it will provide. A tarnished brand is their PR team’s worst nightmare. So what will scare them most is our huge petition being covered in the media, and high-profile hand-ins at their flagship stores.

Sources tell us a few of the sponsors may already be rattled. Let’s show them their Olympic tax-dodge isn’t worth the PR damage by piling into the petition and sharing it with friends.

38 Degrees members keep on voting to tackle tax-dodging. Together with UK Uncut tax dodging has been forced onto the political agenda. Now it’s time to focus in on the companies who stand to make the biggest profits. A massive public outcry demanding that these Olympic sponsors pay their fair share could be the first step in putting an end to corporate tax-dodging.

Let’s start with McDonald’s. If you sign the petition today, we’ll deliver it this Friday to a high profile McDonald’s restaurant on Oxford Street in London.

Please sign the petition now:

https://secure.38degrees.org.uk/olympic-tax-dodging

When signed please e-mail, tweet, blog to all your friends and colleagues.

Today we learnt of the plans the government has to help the elderly survive in old age. The aged would be better off burning the plans in the winter to keep warm than reading as it offers them nothing, no new money. There are even hints of dropping free bus passes and winter fuel allowances for the elderly.

• Social care plans ‘simply paper over cracks’

It is a scandal that one of the richest countries in the world cannot afford to look after its senior citizens.

The money is there, were it not for the government taking a softly softly approach to tax dodgers.

Tax dodging is yet one more of the scandals to hit this scandal-hit Olympics: Zil Lanes for Olympic only traffic in London, cyclists forced to dismount, cycle restrictions on London trains, canal tow paths closed, buses withdrawn from outside London to transport around London the Olympic media circus, shut down of twitter accounts of those opposing the Olympics, criminalisation of those violating the exclusivity of sponsors’ brands, surface-to-air-missiles mounted on residential blocks of flats, huge security clampdown ….

• Londoners won’t take kindly to Zil lanes at the Olympics
• Olympics regulations force cyclists to dismount
• Loss of Stagecoach Gold bus service to London Olympics
• Twitter shut down account of opponents of London 2012 Olympics
• London’s dystopian Olympics: criminal sanctions for violating the exclusivity of sponsors’ brands
• Armed forces on Olympics standby
• Looks like for the Olympics the state has declared war on its citizens

Adidas worker exploitation for London 2012 Olympics

Adidas exploitation

Adidas, one of the London 2012 sponsors, has been accused of sourcing its tat from sweatshops.

As Adidas take centre stage as the official sportswear partner of London 2012, the harsh reality of life for the workers who make their clothes is being exposed.

Workers making Adidas clothes around the world are paid poverty wages, have little or no job security and face harassment or dismissal if they try and organise trade unions to defend their rights.

This is exploitation. It’s not ok for Adidas to treat workers like this in the UK, and it shouldn’t be ok anywhere else.

Adidas – which has more than 775,000 workers making its products in 1,200 factories across 65 countries – is the official sponsor of Team GB, with footballers such as David Beckham tipped to join UK Olympic hopefuls Jessica Ennis and Christine Ohuruogu.

In March, Adidas unveiled its best-ever annual profits, reporting an 18% rise in net profits in 2011 to 671m euros ($881m; £559m).

In April media reports cited workers supplying Adidas in Indonesia receiving as little as 34 pence an hour, with some factories paying less than the minimum wage. Employees were verbally abused, slapped in the face and told to lie about their conditions during Adidas factory audits.

• Team GB’s Olympic gear designed by Stella McCartney ‘made by bullied and exploited workers in Indonesian sweatshops’

In May, research by the Playfair 2012 campaign found workers making Adidas goods being paid poverty wages and forced to work excessive overtime. The research found people in China working from 8am to 11pm. In Sri Lanka researchers found people being forced to work overtime in order to meet production targets. In the Philippines, more than half the workers interviewed said that in order to cover their basic needs they are forced to pawn their ATM cards to loan sharks for high-interest loans. At all of the factories researchers visited, workers reported that they were not paid a living wage that covers their basic needs.

Today, War on Want added its voice calling for an end to Adidas exploitation.

It is not only Adidas tat that is sourced from sweatshops. The official tat for the London 2012 Olympics is also sourced from sweatshops.

I am always amazed that anyone wastes their money on this overpriced tat. Fast fashion as opposed to slow fashion.

What a breath of fresh air, the Diamond Jubilee Celebrations that took place over the last four days, no corporate sponsorship.

At the 1968 Mexico City Olympics, John Carlos used his moment on the winner’s podium to make a stand for human rights. His gesture of resistance, as part of the civil rights movement, and in solidarity with those living under Apartheid in South Africa and blue collar workers in the States, is a defining moment in the struggle for equality, justice and peace.

That struggle still continues today. John Carlos has been touring the UK, speaking out.

The unwanted London 2012 Olympics will result in massive congestion in London, Olympic only traffic lanes, criminalisation of those who challenge the sponsoring brands, blocking of accounts on twitter …

• Adidas told ‘Exploitation. It’s not OK anywhere’
• Ex-Adidas Workers still owed $1.8 million
• London 2012: War on Want criticises Adidas ‘sweatshops’
• London 2012 Olympics sweatshop misery
• Londoners won’t take kindly to Zil lanes at the Olympics
• Twitter shut down account of opponents of London 2012 Olympics