Indeed, excessively large amounts of money are spent by major sportswear brands on sponsorship and advertising around the Olympics. Adidas paid £100 million to be the official London 2012 sportswear sponsor; Speedo has a multi-million pound sponsorship deal with the British Swimming Team; and Nike pay multiple athletes to wear their kit, including Christiano Ronaldo who earns £5 million a year for wearing Nike products.

In contrast, workers making products for the major brands in Cambodia, Indonesia, the Philippines and Sri Lanka are not even paid the legal minimum wage by some suppliers. And none of these brands are currently paying workers enough to cover their basic needs and live a decent quality of life i.e. a living wage.

One Worker making goods for major sportswear brands in Indonesia said “Each month I am paid a wage including overtime of IDR 1,541,000 (£107) whereas my routine expenditure each month is IDR 1, 747,500 (£122). Nearly every month I go into debt…even though I limit what I spend by decreasing the quality and quantity of things which we need as a family” (ITGLWF, 2010)

Over 6000 signed postcards and petitions were delivered to adidas, Nike and Speedo shops in the vicinity calling on brands to: pay workers a living wage, take a positive approach to trade union rights, and ensure workers have job security. Thank you to everyone who signed cards and petitions. We hope to hear a response from brands soon.