Fernando Cabrera
Vancouver Olympic Committee’s ethical purchasing policy an important step forward, but falls short on transparency.
Despite its dependence upon the sporting goods industry - for uniforms and equipment, sponsorship and licensing revenue and advertising profile – the Olympic movement has until recently been largely silent about the sweatshop abuses endemic to the garment and sportswear industry.
In 2004, global trade union federations and international NGOs teamed up under the “Play Fair at the Olympics” banner to pressure the Games to adopt ethical licensing and purchasing programs for Olympic suppliers and licensees like Adidas and Nike – brands for whom the Olympic Games are a major marketing opportunity.
Although the Play Fair campaign succeeded in bringing the issue to the attention of the world during the Athens and Torino Games, it wasn’t until 2006 that the first labour rights standards were applied to Olympic suppliers and licensees.
VANOC: audit findings not public
A public campaign in Canada by the Ethical Trading Action Group (ETAG - a national coalition involving the Maquila Solidarity Network, national trade unions, the Canadian Labour Congress and Oxfam Canada) succeeded in convincing the Vancouver Olympic Organizing Committee (VANOC), to adopt an ethical purchasing and licensing program for Vancouver 2010 products.
The campaign argued that the entire Olympic movement, including the Canadian Olympic Committee and the Vancouver 2010 Winter Olympics, must use its influence to ensure that its sportswear licensees and sponsors respect internationally recognized labour standards and that workers in the sportswear industry should be employed under fair, dignified and safe conditions.
The resulting VANOC "Buy Smart Program" is a step in this direction.
The Buy Smart program requires licensees to adhere to a Licensee Code of Conduct which sets out minimum labour and environmental standards, and requires third-party auditing of licensees’ supply factories. In its initial version, suppliers were not required to affirm their adherence to the VANOC Code of Conduct, however suppliers competing for contracts gained points in the bid process for taking steps to address environmental or ethical standards or aboriginal participation.
In its first year of the Buy Smart program, VANOC reported that eighty ethical sourcing audits were conducted, seventy-four corrective action plans (to address failure to meet the Code of Conduct) were initiated, and six factories were banned from producing merchandise until major Code violations were addressed.
In June 2007, ETAG wrote to VANOC that VANOC’s program was failing its own objectives.
ETAG’s principal concerns were that: the hours of work and wage provisions in VANOC’s Code of Conduct for Licensees needed to be strengthened; suppliers (and not just licensees) should be required to adhere to the worker rights standards in VANOC’s Code; factory auditing should include off-site worker interviews, away from the factory bosses; VANOC should increase transparency by requiring licensees to publicly disclose factory locations and by reporting publicly on auditing methodologies, audit findings and corrective action taken; and mechanisms should be created for workers and interested third parties to file complaints if there is credible evidence that the policy is not being followed in a supplier factory, and independent investigations launched to address those complaints.
In response to ETAG’s criticisms, VANOC made some improvements to its program, altering the hours of work provision in its code to be more consistent with ILO Conventions, applying the Code of Conduct to suppliers, including off-site worker interviews in its factory auditing process, conducting unannounced audits (although this will happen within a two-week window for which the factory will be given advance notice), and providing more information on its audit methodology.
Unfortunately, Buy Smart still falls short in a number of areas. Lack of transparency is one of the key concerns. VANOC has refused to make public the findings of its audits of suppliers and any corrective action taken or to require licensees to publicly disclose factory locations. VANOC says they don’t have the power to require factory disclosure at this stage, having signed licensing contracts well before the Buy Smart program was initiated.
A groundbreaking program
Hudson’s Bay Company (HBC), for example, signed on as Canada’s Olympic uniform provider for the three upcoming Games in 2005. HBC has consistently refused to disclose factory locations, despite the positive example set by other Olympic licensees like Nike, who disclosed all their Olympic suppliers in advance of the Beijing Games. HBC released its much publicized Canadian 2010 Olympic-branded merchandise in October 2009, most of it made in China.
By failing to provide information to the public on factory locations or the results of factory audits, the public is reliant on the companies’ and VANOC’s word that labour standards are being met, with little opportunity for local labour rights groups to verify those claims.
Despite its flaws, however, VANOC’s ethical purchasing and licensing program is indeed a groundbreaking program for the Olympic Games. The Maquila Solidarity Network (MSN) is supporting efforts to make ethical purchasing a regular feature of the Olympic Games, pushing the Canadian Olympic Committee to continue the VANOC program after 2010, and working with the international Play Fair campaign to build on the VANOC program.
There’s hope that labour rights programs could become embedded in Olympic organizing. At the urging of the Trades Union Congress and NGOs in the UK, the London 2012 Summer Games have adopted an ethical licensing and purchasing program. In spring 2009, Maquila Solidarity Network, along with campaigners from the UK’s Labour Behind the Label, met with London 2012 organizers to discuss ways to improve on VANOC’s example – including building transparency into the London Games’ program.
The writer is communications coordinator in the Canada-based Maquila Solidarity Network.
