Labour Behind The Label

This BBC Three series from May 2008 saw six young fashion addicts swap shopping on the high street with working in India's cotton fields and clothes factories. They find out whether they could handle a sewing machine and meet the target of two garments a minute. Discover whether their experience changed their throwaway attitude to clothes shopping.

*Currently we have no copies of the Blood Sweat and Tshirts series due to borrowers failing to return the DVDs.  Apologies for any inconvenience caused.

A follow-up series was made in 2010 called Blood Sweat and Luxuries that once again brought together six young British consumers to experience working alongside the people who make the products sold on the high street. You can read more about the series on the BBC website.

If you would like to try to get hold of hard copies of either series please try contacting the film company Ricochet via email: mail _at_ ricochet.co.uk

Suwandi made Adidas for 6 years until he was sacked for his union activity. This is the story of one workers struggle for his rights.

Suparjo made Adidas shoes for 8 years before losing his job for his participation in a strike asking for better wages.  Here he tells his story about why he decided to take a stand.

Adidas claim to support workers’ rights but at the same time the company wants high quality, fast, flexible and cheap production. This forces factories to choose between business and workers' rights. Workers at Panarub, Spotec and PT Don Joe, all adidas or former adidas suppliers have been paying the price.

Panurub: Sacked after fighting for better pay

The Panarub factory, located near Indonesia's capital Jakarta, employs more than 10,000 workers, mostly female. It makes the adidas Predator Pulse boots as well as the +F50.6 Tunit boots which were heavily promoted by some famous footballers during the 2006 FIFA World Cup.

In October 2005 33 Panarub workers were fired after they participated in a legal strike trying to get better pay for the thousands of workers in the factory. Workers were being paid as little as 35 pence/40 euro cents an hour and dramatic rises in the cost of living in Indonesia had been occuring. An international campaign was launched to call or their reinstatement.

On the 23rd April 2007 the 33 workers, almost the entire Perbupas union leadership at the Panarub factory in Indonesia, accepted severance pay. They could no longer afford to continue the battle against their employers. Despite the dismissed workers receiving a good severance pay-out, there were ongoing violations of workers’ union rights at the Panarub factory.

By June 2009 The Perbupas union (now called SBGTS) had re-established itself in the factory, and now has approximately 2,000 members. Through this union and another union at the factory, workers are pushing for better pay and conditions.

This progress from adidas is very welcome, however we are continuing to call on adidas to fulfil its promise to support the 33 workers who were illegally sacked from the factory into new work. A number of them have applied up to nine times for work at another adidas supplier but have been refused interviews for a variety of reasons, while other less experienced and skilled staff have been taken on.

PT Spotec and PT Don Joe: Thousands making adidas goods lose their jobs

In November 2006 the Pt Spotec and Pt Dong Joe factories closed leaving 10,500 workers without jobs. These factories produced for Reebok, and then for adidas after adidas bought Reebok. The Clean Clothes campaign expressed concern that the buying practices of adidas were likely to be one of the main reasons the factories had to close.

adidas alleged all three supplier factories had “huge and unsustainable debts due to gross financial mismanagement.” Trade unions involved in the three factories believed that this debt is because of an upgrade in infrastructure that was carried out at the request of adidas.

adidas was unwilling to provide evidence of their allegations of mismanagement by their former supplier factories or that their buying practices did not contribute to the closure of PT Spotec and Dong Joe.

The Clean Clothes Campaign, Oxfam Australia, the unions from the factories and concerned citizens from around the world called on adidas to help the workers find new jobs. We were particularly worried that union leaders from these factories might be blacklisted and denied work in other factories.

In February 2009, following an ongoing campaign, we persuaded adidas to make sure ex-Spotec workers were prioritised during recruitment and employment at their new sport shoe supplier factory (CLI), which took over the site of the old Spotec factory. As a result, 1450 ex-Spotec workers have now got jobs at CLI, including a number of the trade union leaders.

Again, we welcome this progress, but we remain concerned about the fate of the 9,000 workers from Spotec and Dong Joe who didn’t get jobs at CLI. This includes a number of former trade union leaders. We are particularly concerned at the lack of transparency in the recruitment process employed by CLI.

Ask adidas to keep its promise to workers

Want to know more?

See the stories of the workers behind the brand and read about their lives and thoughts on the campaign blog.

32 year old Hamdani made Adidas sports shoes until he was unfairly dismissed for participating in a strike for better wages. He has now been without work for 5 years and is struggling to provide for his 2 year old son.  This is his story.

In June 2009 thousands of Triumph workers from Thailand and the Philippines lost their jobs after several factories were closed or partially closed.

They need your support to defend their livilihoods

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August 2009: Labour Behind the Label is delighted to announce the closure of a year-long campaign against the DESA leather factory in Turkey following a protocol agreement signed by DESA and the Deri Is union.

Join our worldwide email blockade of Prada TODAY demanding they take action to ensure respect of Turkish workers.....

Following thousands of emails sent by Labour Behind the Label and LabourStart supporters to the main buyers at the factory, DESA management finally agreed to meet with the Deri Is union. However despite a succession of meetings no progress has been made. Not a single buyer had agreed to meet with the Deri Is union or to attend a meeting called by the International Textile Garment and Leather Workers Union, set for the 20th December.

Long hours, low wages and appalling conditions were the norm for DESA workers, until in April 2008 they decided to do something to try and change them. With the support of Deri Is (Leather Workers Union) DESA workers started to organise their own trade union in order to demand that things improve.

Since then the management at DESA has been running a campaign of harassment and intimidation against anyone they suspect of being a member of the union. From April to July 2009,  44 workers from the factory were dismissed and a further 55 were forced to resign from the union.