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Unfortunately, Olympic skiers aren’t the only ones in a race to the bottom…

In the run-up to the February Vancouver Winter Olympic Games, an international coalition of worker rights organizations is releasing its rating of commitments made by major sportswear brands to eliminate sweatshop abuses in their global supply chains. The ratings are based on the responses of the sportswear companies, including Nike, Adidas, Puma and others, to a series of demands put forward by the coalition on the eve of the 2008 Beijing Olympics.

The coalition, which includes Canada’s Maquila Solidarity Network, the International Trades Union Confederation, the International Textile, Garment and Leather Workers Federation, the European Clean Clothes Campaign is also posting a series of web ads accusing the brands that profit off the Olympics of engaging in a “race to the bottom” on wages and working conditions.


The campaign is asking organizations and individuals to send letters to the sportswear brands, telling them, “It’s time to up your game and start clearing the hurdles for workers’ rights”.

“Since the Beijing Olympics, sportswear brands have barely moved to overcome four major hurdles blocking improvements on wages and working conditions, with the result that workers rights in this industry are on a downhill slide,” said Lynda Yanz, Executive Director of the Maquila Solidarity Network (MSN), a Toronto-based women’s and labour rights organization that developed the ads.

The company ratings and ads can be found on a new website of the Play Fair Coalition at: www.clearingthehurdles.org.