Campaigners said the treatment of the workers amounted to a breach of an
agreement with the London Organising Committee for the Olympic Games (Locog)
that merchandisers must pay workers a sustainable living wage. A Locog
spokesman said yesterday it was concerned by the allegations and would
investigate.
The Shen Zhou factory manufactures the adidas “fanwear” for the 2012
Olympics.
Soun So-phat, a 30-year-old mother of two, said she sent half of her money
home to her parents, who look after her young daughters in their provincial
village.
She had left to look for work in the capital because she could not earn enough
money from planting rice to feed her children.
Now she can feed them, but the money she has left over is not enough for her
to eat properly. “It is hard work. I send home $60 per month and I live
on $40. I eat three times a day but it’s not good food,” she said.
She lives with five other workers in a single room where they sleep three to a
bed on hard, wooden cots. They share an attached squatting lavatory and cook
a few feet away. Wet clothes hang on lines over head. “It is difficult
but we have to earn money,” she said.
Toch Srey-noun, 32, who works as a pattern cutter making adidas garments, said
she had no idea how much they cost to buy. In an adidas store it was $39.99
– the amount she earned in two weeks.
“I work here to get money for my family,” she said. “My father
and my husband died. I have a 10-year-old son. I send around $50 per month
to my mother.”
A spokesman for adidas confirmed that the Phnom Penh factory produced Olympic “fanwear”
but denied that the workers’ pay and conditions were in breach of the
organising committee’s standards.
“Adidas is confident we comply with all Locog standards. Workers at the
factory earn an average of $130 a month, which is well above the minimum
wage,” he said.
A Locog spokesman said: “We understand that the Shen Zhou factory is part
of the International Labour Organisation labour rights programme, which
means that it is inspected.
“We regularly remind all of our licensees of the importance we place on
the sustainable sourcing code they have each signed up to.”
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