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Siti Nurhasanah, 24, has been producing adidas football boots at the Panarub factory in Indonesia since 1997. She is married with a two and a half-year old child. Siti hopes her pay will increase so she doesn’t need to do overtime and can spend time with her child. Photo M. Revaldi.As part of our research for the new Oxfam International report, Oxfam Australia sent letters and a detailed questionnaire to all twelve sports brands assessed in the report. Read the letter we sent to Lotto (pdf 102kb). Once a company responded to the questionnaire, Oxfam Australia engaged in ongoing discussions with it to clarify any points that were unclear. We also asked an additional question:
Do you require your suppliers to employ all workers on a permanent or open-ended basis? If not, do you require suppliers to limit the kinds of work for which workers are employed on a short-term or contract basis? Please provide details of how your policy on this matter is communicated to employers.
This question is important since the employment of sportswear workers on short-term contracts makes their income unreliable and makes it difficult for them to provide for their families. It also makes it difficult for them to form or join trade unions to negotiate for better wages and conditions since their employer may respond by not renewing their contracts. More than 80 per cent of sportswear workers are women and in many cases they are their family’s primary income earner.