Australian football fouled on child labour response

News

 

Global unions have tackled Australia’s national football code after it severed ties with Indian contractors who had been exposed for using child labour to stitch the footballs to be used during this week’s Grand Final events.

The Australian Football League’s official football supplier Sherrin has terminated contracts with an Indian supplier after an investigation by the Sydney Morning Herald uncovered the use child labour to stitch its balls.

The company has now recalled half a million of the balls distributed to junior players after a needle was found in one and the head of the AFL has joined the outcry calling the use of child labour ‘disgusting’.

But the International Trade Union Confederation says the AFL and Sherrin should have taken greater responsibility and demanded the contractors meet decent labour standards rather than simply washing its hands of the deal.

“What the AFL has done is deal with a short-term Public Relations problem rather than take responsibility for Sherrin’s production chain,” ITUC campaign director Tim Noonan says.

“Walking away from the contractor when a negative story breaks is easy for major sports and brands but all that does is leave the workers they say care about out of a job. It is good that Sherrin will give a donation to local charity in India, but they shouldn’t just cut and run from factory workers who have done nothing wrong.”

“What a responsible organisation should do is to understand the pressures driving the bad labour practices – which are often linked to big surges in demand for product s linked to a major event like this weekend’s AFL Grand Final,” Noonan says.

“This is when suppliers send work out to individual homes and children can be drawn into the production process.”

The good news is that India has committed to laws removing child labour and part of this is to create viable production chains where workers have full employment rights. The ITUC sees this as a golden opportunity for all companies to review their supply contracts and improve standards.

On Saturday the Sydney Swans play the Hawthorn Hawks in a match that will be watched by nearly 100,000 people live and millions more on television. The ITUC will seek a briefing on the issue with the AFL and Sherrin through its Australian affiliate the ACTU in the lead-up to the match.

 

Recurring Problem

Complaints about the production of sporting equipment and player uniforms at major sporting events are nothing new.

FIFA was rocked in 1996 when international unions uncovered child labour in soccer ball production on the eve of the European football cup.

In South Africa the World Cup went to the extreme of using balls that were free of stitching, leading to complaints about the variable deviations of the ‘Jabulani’ ball.

The decision to use stitch-less balls followed heightened scrutiny in the lead-up to event of the ball manufacturer Adidas’ management of contractors.

Through the 1990s the Nikewatch campaign placed significant pressure on the iconic global sports brand, leading to increased scrutiny of their Asian factories and the closure of some facilities.

“Some companies, like Nike, have made improvements but problems still remain. Unfortunately some major sports brands still simply transfer inform investment in production to an investment in marketing,” Noonan says.

“It is right that sports fans in developed countries demand their sports take the field with clean hands – but this is not enough.

“Rather than treating these issues as critical incidents demanding crisis management, all sports organisations should be requiring that labour rights are being respected whenever they sign a contract with a supplier.

“That means no child labour – but it also means the rights of workers to belong to free trade unions where they have the write to bargain collectively for decent wages and conditions – we know this is the only way that workers can build a better life.”