Might have been more effective to project the logo and slogan of rival companies rather than Adidas.

If Under Armour or Nike or some one has a better record on such things – I suspect Adidas would have been rather angry at the move to target their exlusive olympic zone with an alternative product.

But nice to see protest has its place at the Olympics.

Addidas and other companies would still make moster profits with fair pay, and probably also increase sales worldwide too. Does that CEO Hainer understand that, if he doesn’t then why are the shareholders allowing him to extract £4.6m in ‘compensation’?

Adidas is raking in millions from its Olympics deal, but will not even pay a basic living wage to the workers who produce the goods.

1. What hourly rate are the workers paid?

2. What is the average hourly wage for the countries in question?

3. Can we please abolish the silly term “living wage”? The workers are alive therefore they must by definition be getting a wage sufficient to be alive.

3

(2) One thing is certain, Adidas, and for that matter, dozens of other multi-nats operating in third world countries, will keep the wages as low as possible in order to maintain the capitalist ethos – buy in the cheapest market and sell in the dearest. Exploiting foreign labour has enabled the system to survive, no surprise that every effort is made to keep those workers in poverty.

1 depends on the country
2 depends on the country
3 is it really worth quibbling about the widely accepted term used for a wage that reflects the securing of basic human dignity from employment?

As Phil Hunt @3 points out, this is a dismally fact free OP. We learn that Adidas paid £100 million to LOCOG as sponsors and that they made £529 million profits last year. On that basis, the OP asserts that Adidas has already recovered its investment.

I don’t know what return on investment Adidas expects from event sponsorship — and I acknowledge that they didn’t do it as a charitable exercise — but I’m surprised that they expect to profit at £5 for £1 for any form of advertising. Aghast, and left presuming that they know more than me.

Hainer’s statement is a bit rubbish: “…we are not in the welfare business. Our job is to make a profit.” He has to pay workers enough on which to live, so “welfare” by a broad definition is what Adidas provides; he is creating jobs that would otherwise not exist. If you think that the workers in Indonesia and Cambodia deserve better treatment, governments and company owners in those countries are best able to deliver it. If you think that the jobs are shitty, fine; and I’ll back you when workers are preventing from organising trade unions.

OP: “This is exploitation. It would not be OK for Adidas to do this in Britain.” It is perfectly legal for companies in the UK to pay minimum wage. As acknowledged by the tax benefit system, for many people minimum wage is insufficient on which to live in the UK. It would be OK for Adidas to do this in Britain.

“Adidas, and for that matter, dozens of other multi-nats operating in third world countries, will keep the wages as low as possible in order to maintain the capitalist ethos ”

While thousands on non-multi-nats – small, medium size or big domestic companies in third world countries – keep the wages even lower. And no one who is in habit of using the term “capitalist” couldn’t care less, because the exploiters are not multi-national companies owned by white Westerners. The fact that workers of multi-nationals tend to have better working conditions that other people in their countries just doesn’t register.

Sure, life in poor countries often isn’t fun. But the most outrageous exploitation I’ve seen wasn’t the production line of a multi-national corporation where rows of young women were packed next to each other sitting at their desks soldering PCBs in white jackets. It was the ancient, thin peasant man who was carrying rocks up a hill in a scorching heat, to build a temple, 40 kg per basket – his own weight probably – employed by the management of the local temple to carry building material up to this place which had no road. He sure would have enjoyed being exploited by a multinational.

Damn nice shoes though

http://www.wearoffyoursandals.com/productimages/display/SS-image-2011-08-20-4e4fd239514f0.jpg

@5: is it really worth quibbling about the widely accepted term used for a wage that reflects the securing of basic human dignity from employment?

Sloppy use of language is both a cause and a symptom of sloppy thinking. So yes.

I’m in favour of increasing the minmum wage to something like it is in Australia. Just don’t call it a “living wage”. If the idea is dignity, why not “dignity wage”?

@7,

your point is well taken. While these jobs aren’t wonderful compared to jobs ni rich countries, they are better than hitherto, and in time pay and conditions will improve as these countries get richer. Compare for example South Korea or Singapore today with those countries 50 years ago.

After the case where the BBC was found to be making up parts of the story in the Panorama feature on the Primark supply chain one should be cautious with emotive terms like exploitation. Who is defining what is exploitation? The workers involved or western perspectives deciding something is exploitation? The latter is not much different from when western perspectives in an earlier era decided they were all heathen that needed to be saved for Jesus. The greatest exploiters of child labour in the developing world are families. Yet we rarely hear calls for the end of subsistence farming that relies heavily on child labour.

Whether we like it or not people in the developing world like the developed world will tend to choose the best option open to them. That may not look much of an appealing option from our perspective. However, sometimes it is the best available option compared to the alternatives. It is incredibly arrogant to assume we can somehow just will change in societies at different stages of development, or even assume it is any of our business. None of that is meant to excuse poor standards by western companies setting up a plant in the developing world to export the products to the western world, and circumventing standards that would apply in their home markets. They should keep to the standards that they have agreed to. However, western NGOs liberally throwing around terms like exploitation is just cultural imperialism from a lefty perspective.

7

All workers are exploited within a capitalist system, foreign workers from third world and developing countries suffer the worst because, unlike modern capitalist countries, there is a long history of trade union involvement which has won better pay and conditions. And it’s alway a good idea to have a consumer base which can actually afford to purchase the goods produced.

10

Wiki has a good site which defines economic exploitation.

Apologies, this is the second post I’ve sent.

Phil

I can get on board with that. A “dignity wage” sounds about right to me.

So a little bit of research has thrown up some material to put this into context.

It seems that Adidas provide a number of benefits over and above their salary such as transport, living and attendance benefits. There appears to be a minimum wage of $61 a month which the benefits add about $30 a month. It also seems that Adidas caps the overtime work to stop excessive hours, but still means workers can take home about $120-$130 per month.

That doesn’t sound like much but 25% of Cambodia is living on less than a $1.25 a month, and the amount with the overtime is about twice minimum wage.

This of course does not excuse other cases of exploitation but a serious dose of perspective is always required.

I have also turned up some other reports that say that 2m people are now employed in Cambodia’s clothing market, and the general feeling among Cambodian’s is that it is slowly helping to pull the country out of poverty. Unfortunately for those who believe that a Cambodian worker should be paid $2000 a month to make shoes in a country where your weekly shop costs $5 are governing from afar.

If the country has a problem with pay, then the pressure should be applied to law makers to adequately address the issues of its citizens.

@ 12

Although I’m pretty sure that “living wage” is shorthand for “wage allowing the recipient to maintain a reasonable standard of living” anyway. Dignity to me seems less important than quality of life, although I can see why Phil prefers the term.

Sorry

“That doesn’t sound like much but 25% of Cambodia is living on less than a $1.25 a month”

That is supposed to be day not month

@ Freeman

“Unfortunately for those who believe that a Cambodian worker should be paid $2000 a month to make shoes in a country where your weekly shop costs $5 are governing from afar. ”

Agreed, but can you name any? I doubt many people think that Cambodians should be paid at least double our mimimum wage.

Chaise

as was my point early – I don’t care what it is called so long as people get paid it.

@ 17 m4e

Agreed.

Freeman – full marks for getting some facts on the LC table.

I’m waiting to see what details Ruth will now bring too.

As I’ve pointed out elsewhere about the Cambodian rag trade:

“Low as those rag trade wages are, harsh as the working hours, they’re better than 18 hours a day up to your tuchkis in a paddy field.”
….
A 9% growth rate means income is doubling every 8 or 9 years.

So, we have an appallingly poor part of the world. We have appallingly poor people in it. We have an industry, cheap schmutter, that is reducing that poverty as fast as it is actually possible to do so. Nowhere has really ever grown faster than 9 or 10% a year. Everything seems to be going as well as it possibly could be. The poor are, as we would all wish them to be, getting richer.

And yet we have politicians and do gooders insisting that we are doing something wrong by doing our part in this process: buying things made by poor people in poor countries.

Eh? This is the very thing that we know works. This is how poverty is alleviated. This is how the world is made a better place. And yet this is the very thing we are told we must not be doing?”

http://www.forbes.com/sites/timworstall/2012/07/14/the-scandal-of-chinese-and-cambodian-olympic-uniforms/2/

Broadly speaking the rag trade is Cambodia’s manufacturing sector. It is their industrial revolution: that very thing that makes the poor rich.

As Tim and others correctly point out the macro-economic context, it would seem that the people who are really being exploited here is the UK taxpayer.

Unbelievably, War on Want is funded by the Department of International Development to pay such as Ruth to shine slogans on buildings moaning about………international development.

I suppose if it makes a few pampered kids feel better about themselves it’s worth the Orwellian double think.

Isn’t it?