Sunday 4 March 2012

YOU WOULDN'T WANT TO BE ON THE SAME PLANET AS SOME OF THE PEOPLE WHO ARE WRAPPING THEMSELVES IN THE OLYMPIC FLAG

Photo courtesy of War on Want
While companies like Nike, Puma and Adidas make millions from the London Olympics, their workers are paid on average 16p per hour, with some getting as little as 9p.


What's more, workers in all three companies have been beaten, verbally abused and some even sexually harassed by their managers.


Some workers had to put in 80 hours a week to earn enough to feed their children. One Nike supplier employee told the charity War on Want that she had to get up at 4 am to cook breakfast and get her child ready for school. It is compulsory to be at the factory gate at 7 am, although work doesn't start till 7.30. She then works 9 hours before she can take her bus home, a journey which takes her an hour.


Adidas is the official outfitter of the London 2012 Olympics, supplying the GB team's uniforms, which were designed by Stella McCartney, and the uniforms for the 70,000 volunteers (Big Society) who will help run the Games. It also sponsors many sports "stars", including David Beckham and Jessica Ennis. It is hoping to sell around £100,000,000 worth of Olympic themed sportswear.


Nike has apparently sponsored 25 national teams including the high profile ones like Germany, China and the USA.


These companies are making vast amounts from the Olympics while abusing the workers who actually produce the merchandise.


I wonder what the original Olympians would make of the foul and disgusting business practices that the Games have now attracted.
*****


Despite what some of the commentators here would like to think, everyone that I spoke to in Paris about the Games is delighted that the disruption, dirty, noise and unpleasantness that is the Olympics has gone to London and not to Paris. 

20 comments:

  1. tris

    'What's more, workers in all three companies have been beaten, verbally abused'


    yeah"I heard that
    Bill Walker was there supervisor

    ReplyDelete
  2. Niko, the Union's finished mate, get over it.

    Steve

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  3. It's despicable, Niko. Any violence is. And it's not something to score political points over. As soon as the allegations and proof were brought to the party leadership he was suspended from both the part and the parliamentary group, pending an inquiry.

    It should have emerged at the vetting procedure prior to him being accepted as a candidate.

    I'd say that our leadership acted just as quickly as Ed Miliband over Eric Joyce.

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  4. Aye Steve, the sooner the better. I can't wait to get some proper policies put in place.

    And we could if we didn't have to pay for embassies and Rolls Royces for ambassadors and wars in the Middle and Near East, nuclear weapons, G8 membership, etc, etc, etc.

    Ahhhh freedom. I can smell it.

    ReplyDelete
  5. Those offences were committed between 1960's to 1990's tris so would of been more difficult to vet. For the bullying party activist to make political capital shows how low in the barrel they have sunk. But that's typical red Tories for you.

    There are murmurings the these Olympics have an awful lot of similarities with 1936 not a nice thought!

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  6. Yes, I suppose they would be difficult to check, but maybe we should have CRB checks done on our candidates, for whoever's fault it is, it is embarrassing.

    But I agree with you; it's low to make capital out of the suffering of his victims. Still if there's nothing much else to have a go at the government for...

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  7. "YOU WOULDN'T WANT TO BE ON THE SAME PLANET AS SOME OF THE PEOPLE WHO ARE WRAPPING THEMSELVES IN THE OLYMPIC FLAG "

    What about some of the people who are wrapping themselves in the Scottish flag...??

    ReplyDelete
  8. Poor, lonely and cold: life in Britain for the over-60s

    I suppose having influence in the world is more important like having Trident rather than looking after the poorest is a price worth paying!

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  9. Well braveheart, I'd be happy enough for some of them to be off the same planet as me...

    ...but then, if that's a political point you're making, and given your record, you'll forgive me if I assume that it is, I'll just say two words...

    Mister Joyce.

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  10. Yeah CH... the union dividend.

    That's what Camergoon and Lamentable are trying to sell us.

    Stay in the union and you can look forward to a future of hunger, cold and misery.

    And then, no matter how ghastly we have made your life, we will absolutely forbid you euthanasia.

    It's almost like the b****** enjoyed torturing people.

    Oh.... I forgot...wooops...

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  11. And yes CH... as Mr Cameron so clearly stated in his great oration in Edinburgh (when he used a lectern with the Queen of England's coat of arms, instead of that of the Queen of Scots)(good, isn't he?), we have influence... people admire, or fear, or are envious of our forces. (They wouldn't be if they knew that some of them too are to poor to eat 3 meals a day.)

    We have real influence in the world by being on the security council, the fool told us.

    Hoo bloody ray.

    I dunno about you guys, but when I'm sitting there thinking about how horrific my old age will be if I'm stuck in this god forsaken dump of a union, I get massive comfort knowing that David Cameron wields real power on the security council, doing everything President Obama tells him to do.

    And, if all else fails, if we're lucky when we get old, maybe one of their nuclear bombs will go off and we'll all get a heat.

    ReplyDelete
  12. If we Scots are FORCED to pay for the ENGLYPMICS


    I DEMAND we get an equal share of advertisements and sponsorship!


    The Olympic Tennis... brought to you by SCOTTISH OIL ...

    Why not? :)

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  13. You're right Tris. It was a cheap shot.

    The export of western manufacturing to slave labour countries is a real disgrace and a failure of our political system.

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  14. Seems totally reasonable, Dean. We should probably have it written on many other things too.

    "This nuclear weapon was brought to you by Scottish Oil".

    :)

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  15. Agreed, Braveheart.

    And the sad thing is that it necessarily doesn't make these things cheap in the West.

    Yes, Primark t-shirts and jeans are cheaper than they would have been 20 years ago (and if we buy these things we are complicit). But Adidas, Nike and such still charge outrageous prices for their labels.

    So someone somewhere, probably in the City of London, or New York there are people living large on the misery of people all over the world.

    It's sickening.

    And yes, we all make cheap shots from time to time and I'm no one to criticise that, being guilty of such things myself.

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  16. The 2012 olympics are my 'Official Thing to Not Get Excited About' this year. I really feel for people living in the area.

    I read ages ago on Rantinrab's blog a turn of phrase that is particularly apt: I cannae be hooped.

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  17. I have no problem with goods being manufactured abroad if, for any reason that they cannot be manufactured here. There is also the other point that these companies are giving employment, and the means to live, in countries that, if they didn't allow their citizens to be used and abused, wouldn't be able to give them employment and therefore they would starve. Having said that I totally agree that these huge German companies should, at the very least, give their workers a decent share of the huge profits that they make.
    To allow these sorts of slave wages to be associated with the greatest sporting occasion on this planet is an utter disgrace! The games are about celebrating the achievement of the human race in its ability to master pain and stress in the pursuit of being the best in physical feats, it is not about ripping off the poor of this world to increase the profits of huge companies. I have no problem with them making a buck or two but this is ridiculous.

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  18. Couldn't disagree with any of that Ged.

    :¬)

    But then one of the sponsors of the paralympics is Atos... Go figure!

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  19. Pa. It will be a nightmare in London all summer. They are going to try the traffic changes out for a few weeks before the games begin.

    There will be all sorts of problems; I'd be very surprised if it would all go by without protests.

    I wouldn't want to be there.

    I see there is now an emergency meeting or the tourist board. They think that London will suffer from low tourism this year because of all the disruption, and the hikes in prices.

    This is going to be another excuse for George to trot out as the economy sinks further into the bog.

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  20. I really enjoyed your informative blog. More power to you!

    ReplyDelete