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TechnoratiThe Olympics are always big business, and the next summer's Games in Beijing may well be the most profitable in history. Much of the money is made through licensing; sale of Beijing Games mascots alone is expected to bring in profits of more than $300 million. But the workers making clothing and other items bearing the Olympic logo are not exactly sharing in this windfall. "No Medal for the Olympics on Labour Rights," a new report by PlayFair 2008, a coalition of human rights groups hoping to pressure the International Olympic Committee to set -- and enforce -- ethical standards, found, at the Chinese factories making official Olympic goods, grotesque disregard for workers' health and safety and for local labor laws. One of the companies involved, Mainland Headwear, which has the exclusive right to make Olympic hats, paid its employees half the legal minimum wage. Other companies were hiring children as young as twelve. Several others require workers to work more than thirteen hours a day, seven days a week, for as long as two weeks without a day off, to meet extremely tight deadlines for retailers eager to hawk Olympic goods. One worker said, "To hell with the Olympics product, I am so tired."
Human rights issues will -- and should -- loom large in discussions of next summer's Games, not least because the host is China, a country that is justly criticized for abuses. That doesn't mean, however, that we should join folks like would-be-president Bill Richardson, who's been taking a cue from Jimmy Carter and calling for a boycott of the Beijing Olympics (over China's lackadaisical response to the Darfur crisis). The Games -- while certainly a huge marketing opportunity for corporations -- are also about internationalism, human solidarity and fun, and a boycott is a slap in the face to athletes who have spent years training. (Other presidential candidates have soundly rejected the idea.) And of course, it's always hypocritical for Americans to boycott other countries on human rights grounds; in this case, the international community can rightly bring up Abu Ghraib, Gitmo and just a few other little problems for which the US is eminently to blame. (Then again, as the New Republic has reported, Richardson may be a wee bit out of his depth on such matters, despite having once been US Ambassador to the UN.) But that doesn't mean we should do nothing. PlayFair 2008 is seizing the opportunity presented by the Games to press for improved conditions in the sporting goods sector. The coalition is not calling on the Olympics Committee to throw people out of work by canceling factory contracts, rather, to live up to its own stated commitment to social responsibility and ethical sourcing by working with the factories to improve conditions. Check out the website to find out what PlayFair 2008 is asking the Olympics, sportswear companies, governments, and investors to do, and to find out how your organization can support its efforts.
Liza Featherstone is a journalist based in New York City. Her work on student and youth activism has been published in The Nation, Lingua Franca, the San Francisco Bay Guardian, Left Business Observer, Dissent, The Sydney Morning Herald and Columbia Journalism Review.
© 2007 The Nation
6 Comments so far
Show AllAuberon: You said: I understand and applaud the idea of forcing open a repressive society, but surely a windfall like this is NOT the way to go.
I hope you misspoke. You applaud the idea of opening up a repressive society? Are we Americans destined to force open repressive societies? That's neocon talk! Let the Chinese fix their problems; they are not stupid and they don't need to be forced open, especially by our obnoxious country.
The Chinese are a great people and they have more human rights than we have. Try walking the streets of American cities at night - the basic human right of safety just isn't there. Now stroll through any Chinese city at night. The difference is mind-boggling. You will see young, pretty, teen-age girls walking alone through dark alleys with big smiles on their faces, not even slightly concerned about their safety. It's a wonderful thing to behold, and I have marveled at such sights many times. Sure, the government is nasty and they execute about 3000 drug dealers per year, but the Chinese don't appreciate being preached to by Americans on the topic of human rights and they are right. The Games might have many negative aspects, but we Americans have the least moral authority than any country on earth and the Chinese know that. Liza can spout off all she wants about China's poor record of human rights as defined by Americans but she speaks from a position of weakness.
Who the hell cares about a bunch of boys and girls running, jumping, diving, and otherwise demonstrating pointless athleticism? Those who do, including me at times, can and should get their fill from the various World Games and elsewhere. That a valuable tool for encouraging human rights be left in the shed for fear of disappointing the physically fixated youngsters who spend their lives preparing seems grotesque. I supported Carter's 1980 Soviet Olympics boycott as a good way to condemn international agression - even though the American backed Islamicists fighting off the threat of education for Afghani women were in many ways worse than the invaders. Boycott China? Absolutely. Us, too. I suggest that future games be restricted to Finland, Costa Rica, Tonga, and a charmed circle of others with minimal blood on their national hands.
I'm still stunned that China got the Games. There is NO level of repression (social, economic, religious, political, etc) that the Chinese government does not engage in. Plus it seems like every day another Chinese-origin product is being recalled. I understand and applaud the idea of forcing open a repressive society, but surely a windfall like this is NOT the way to go.
I was fortunate enough to live in Atlanta in 1996. So I got a taste of the Olympic atmosphere. Yes, there's a lot of commerciallism, and people using the Olympics to promote products or make money.
But, if you walk the streets of the cities hosting the Olympics, the people who come manage to transcend all of that. The Olympics is people gathering from around the world. And they gather in peace. All the talk about the "Olympic spirit" sounds like hype and BS when coming from the marketeers. But the people who gather for the Olympics make it real. They make it real in their actions. They make it real in their joy to travel to a new place and to meet new people. Walk the streets of a city that's hosting Olympic events, and you'll find people from all around the world gathering together in peace.
To me, a boycott of such days is unlikely to be good. We need more things like the Olympics that bring people together. Events like the Olympics help us ordinary humans see past the hatred and bs that our leaders spew out. So lets not destroy that with boycotts. Any day that any human gets together with other humans from other places and they all discover that they have common interests and enjoy the same things, that's a good day for humanity.
We should not forget the recent New York Times stories about how the Chinese were recently proposing sweeping labor reforms, in response to labor unrest (similar to what happened in the USA a century or so ago), but they retreated from that in the face of pressure from US corporations with factories on Chinese soil. Those corporations threatened to move their factories elsewhere if the Chinese implemented the labor protections, and the Chinese significantly watered down the reforms. US corporations are the ones keeping Chinese labor in such terrible conditions, and so the boycott should be against those corporations, not against China.
jMARLIN. You say you supported the 1980 Olympic boycott!!! That's because you had nothing invested in it. I thought it was deplorable. It destroyed peoples dreams and accomplished not a bit of good. One of Carters worst ideas among many. And how about Carter's latest calling Bush's administration the worst ever and then folding when they criticize him back. The man has peanut sized balls!!!