Play Fair -Say No to Olympic Sweatshops!
January 10, 2010
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In the lead up to the Vancouver Winter Olympics, the Play Fair campaign is urging sportswear companies to adhere to internationally recognized requirements for decent work.
The Play Fair campaign is a coalition of labour rights groups that seek to push sportswear brands that manufacture products for the Olympic Games to abolish sweatshop conditions in their supply chains and to respect labour rights.
Despite more than 15 years of codes of conduct adopted by major sportswear brands, such as adidas, Nike, New Balance, Puma and Asics, workers making their products still face extreme pressure to meet production quotas, excessive, undocumented and unpaid overtime, verbal abuse, threats to health and safety related to the high quotas and exposure to toxic chemicals, and a failure to provide legally required health and other insurance programs.
Find out how these companies are measuring up.Play Fair believes that sportswear and athletic footwear companies, the International Olympic Committee (IOC), National Olympics Committees, as well as national governments must take steps to eliminate this continuing exploitation and abuse of workers in the global sporting goods industry.
Watch the latest video from the Play Fair campaign and take action by sending a letter to sportswear companies now.
Free trade with the European Union is a bad idea for Canada
The Harper government's relentless push to sign a new Canada-EU free trade deal would undermine the rights of federal, provincial and municipal governments to manage public spending over goods and services; it would privatize public services like drinking water, prevent us from adopting strong measures to combat climate change and wipe out up to 150,000 Canadian jobs, among a long list of additional concerns. CAW President Ken Lewenza says:
So far, all signs point to a free trade deal that is lopsided, unfair and would do more harm than good to Canadians. 
