Millions for sponsorships and nothing for workers? Tell Adidas to pay up!

Adidas is having a banner year. The world’s second largest sporting goods manufacturer is expecting it highest sales figures ever, buoyed by multimillion dollar sponsorship deals with the London Olympics and the Euro 2012 tournament. 

Adidas is willing to pay a big premium to convince you that it values the Olympic ideals of international friendship and cooperation.

But Adidas is refusing to actually stand for those values. For less than the 2% of the cost of its Olympic sponsorship, Adidas could do right by thousands of workers who were illegally denied severance pay when their factory was unexpectedly shut down. Now we’re partnering with the Clean Clothes Campaign  to hold Adidas accountable.

Information and petition to sign here.

Adidas has put up an estimated US$122 to plaster its name all over the London Olympics, and it expects the sponsorship to yield billions in sales. 

But in a decision the Worker Rights Consortium has called “grossly irresponsible and immoral,” Adidas continues to refuse to offer just US$1.8 million in long-overdue severance pay to workers laid off from its shuttered Indonesian Supplier, PT Kizone.

For a year and a half, 2,800 ex-Kizone workers have been fighting for the severance pay they were promised when their boss suddenly closed the factory and fled the country.

After workers and their allies rallied across Indonesia, Europe, and North America, Adidas agreed to finally met with union representatives in June.

The company’s offer: food vouchers worth US$53 and valid only at one supermarket. For families facing difficulty covering rent and their children’s school fees this amounted to nothing more than an insult.