Joanne Collins, Jakarta – Sportswear giants Nike Inc and Adidas-Salomon have taken steps to shed their sweatshop image in Indonesia but employees are still overworked and underpaid, a leading aid agency said.
Australia-based Oxfam Community Aid Abroad released a report on Thursday saying the rival companies had responded to international pressure from rights groups and aid agencies to improve working conditions, but had not done enough.
"Our feeling is that changes have occurred but they still fall well short of pulling workers out of poverty or providing them with safe conditions or protecting their rights to have unions which we see as the key issues," Timothy Connor, author of the report, "We Are Not Machines", said by telephone from Sydney.
"There have been improvements in terms of a reduction in sexual harassment, the availability of sick leave and a reduction in the level of humiliation against workers but they are still shouted at when they work too slowly," Connor said.
The report, conducted between July last year and January 2002, is based on the accounts of 35 workers from four factories producing for both companies in West Java.
Connor said the aim of the report was to assess whether there had been any progress in working conditions since the previous report in September 2000.
The report said full time wages as low as $2 a day meant workers with children had to send them to distant villages to be cared for by relatives or had to go into debt to meet basic needs. The average monthly minimum wage in Jakarta is around $50 per month. The report said workers feared active union involvement could lead to dismissal, being jailed or physically assaulted.
Image-conscious Nike and Adidas have come under mounting pressure in recent years over the treatment of staff in Asian factories subcontracted to produce the bulk of their sporting shoes. Connor said most of the Nike and Adidas factories operating in Indonesia were mainly owned by Taiwanese and Koreans. Company executives were not immediately available for comment.
Nike, the world's number one athletic shoe company, has 11 factories in Indonesia which produce between 45-55 million pairs of shoes a year. Only two percent go to the local market, while most end up in the United States.
"Smelly" bathrooms
Adidas worker Ngadinah, 30, said conditions at her factory were hot and crowded but felt the negotiating power of her union, the Footwear Workers' Association (PERBUPAS), was slowly growing. "The bathroom is very smelly and workers are forced to work late into the night when the company needs to meet deadlines," Ngadinah told reporters earlier this week.
Ngadinah, secretary of the union and who was featured in the report, is paid a base monthly salary of 590,000 rupiah ($59.38). "Just recently the company has given us the chance to have training for members, before, this was not possible," she said. Ngadinah was jailed for a month last year for organising a strike that was joined by most of her 8,000 factory colleagues whose demands included being paid overtime at the legal rate.
The report said Nike had also made improvements on union matters. It said those factories with independent unions now had offices and met with union leaders on a regular basis.