Cambodian workers on £10 a week making Olympics ‘fanwear’
Adidas, the sportswear company, is facing an investigation over claims that Cambodian workers are being paid £10 a week in basic wages to make official merchandise for the London Olympics.
It is one of the 2012 Games’ largest sponsors, believed to have invested £100 million, and manufactured the official Team GB outfit designed by Stella McCartney.
But at the company’s Shen Zhou factory on the outskirts of Phnom Penh, the Cambodian capital, The Daily Telegraph discovered that poor machinists were working up to 10 hours a day, six days a week, to produce the official Olympics merchandise that thousands of fans will buy in stores throughout Britain.
Living in squalid conditions, workers said they earned a basic salary of $61 (£40) a month for working eight hours a day, six days a week, plus a $5 allowance for health care. They said they could take their wages up to $120 (£78) by increasing their hours to 10 per day.
Adidas insisted on Friday that workers at the factory made an average of $130 a month, and would get a pay rise later this year, along with other garment industry workers. …
Campaigners said the treatment of the workers amounted to a breach of an agreement with the London Organising Committee for the Olympic Games (Locog) that merchandisers must pay workers a sustainable living wage. A Locog spokesman said yesterday it was concerned by the allegations and would investigate. …
