Nike workers on $2.50 a day
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Footballs with Manchester United crests and pictures of Eric
Cantona were being stitched together by child labourers earning
as little as 6p an hour
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``I'm Tiger Woods'' is the repetitive voiceover while the screen
shows young boys mimicking Tiger's golf swing. They are not Tiger
Woods. They could though be the children who manufacture the Nike
products that Tiger Woods wears and endorses as part of a multi
million dollar advertising contract.
Seventy percent of all Nike athletic shoes are produced in China
and Indonesia. Nike also has contracts with producers in the
Philippines, Thailand and Vietnam. The vast majority do not make
more than $2.50 a day, with many working 60 hours plus a week.
Last Saturday marked an international mobilisation in support of
Nike workers with activists leafletting stores across Europe and
the USA.
Nike though are not the only offenders in the sports good
industry when it comes to upholding workers rights. In May it was
reported that footballs with Manchester United crests and
pictures of Eric Cantona were being stitched together by child
labourers earning as little as 6p an hour.
Sports manufacturers spend huge sums promoting their goods to
young people. Nike has a $650 million dollar advertising budget
that tells us to ``Just do it''. It seems that it is time to tell
them that selling sporting dreams doesn't have to mean selling
out your workers.
McCreevy's mission impossible
``The Minister for Finance is often expected to do the
impossible''. These were the words of the self same minister
Charlie McCreevy in a speech given last weekend to the Leinster
Society of Chartered Accountants.
McCreevy was looking for sympathy. He said that he was expected
to ``provide substantial tax cuts'' in his December budget. He
emphaised that he would not be taking ``the easy option'' and that
``short-term fixes are not part of the picture''.
Interestingly enough McCreevy also said that ``We are all well
aware that there are many economic and social priorities which
have to be addressed''.
It is now common knowledge that McCreevy has at least £500
million to deliver to Irish workers in tax cuts. The question is
how will he implement the savings.
Reform of the inequitable tax system has long been a core element
of Sinn Féin economic policies. The position of the lower paid
workers is critical in this regard. McCreevy has now an
opportunity to start the process of redressing the balance and
delivering tax cuts that help the low paid and part-time workers.
A recent discussion paper on Tax and PRSI Reform published by the
Combat Poverty Agency argues that the tax reform should target
the benefits for the lower paid and introduce ``fundamental reform
to tackle the problems faced by low earners''.
The best way to do this according to the agency is to increase
personal tax free allowances by £1000 for single people and
£2,000 for couples. This would they estimate cost in the region
of £475 million.
The effects of such a move would be to improve work incentives,
reduced tax-based poverty traps, increase the incomes of low paid
workers while also simplifying and rationalising the tax system.
The Agency also make the point that level of social welfare
payments must must also be increased in line with average
earnings and that a substantial increase in child benefit is also
needed.
So it seems that it is not such a mission impossible for Charlie
McCreevy after all. If he really wants to live up to his promises
he has clear feasible options. The question is does he have the
bottle to deliver.
Dunnes deadline
It's coming to that time of Christmas shopping lists and the now
annual stalling by Dunnes stores management on living up to their
promises to workers. Unions at Dunnes will begin this week to
ballot their workers on industrial action because the company
backed out of accepting a Labour court ruling.
Yet again the dispute centres on overtime rates for staff who
work Sundays in the run up to 25 December. Treble time is the
traditional wage rate paid at that time of year to workers in
other retailing companies.
SIPTU's regional secretary John McDonnell believes that the
payment is ``not a major cost issues for Dunnes''. He said staff
were extremely angry and that ``at the first test of the new
procedures they have been obstructed and opposed by Dunnes
Store''.
Peace fund problems
Frustrated by bureaucracy, ineptitude and the slow response of
government departmentsm - does this sound familiar? If it does,
you could be part of a group attempting to draw down funding from
the EU Peace and Reconciliation Programme. Eamonn Deane, a
director of the Holywell Trust in Derry, writing in Poverty
Today, the Combat Poverty's Agency's magazine, says that though
over 4,000 projects have received funding the ``energy of many
groups has been frustrated by bureaucracy (and, at times,
ineptitude) of some of the funding mechanisms''. Deane also writes
that a considerable amount of money has gone to consultants.
The record of government departments on administering the funds
also comes up for criticism. Deane says, ``Government departments
have been the slowest of all to respond and at times have reacted
against the spirit of the programme''. 1998 should mark the
beginning of the second period of funding under this programme.
Maybe it should also mark a revaluation of how the fund actually
works.
Tunnel to oblivion
Wanted, two gullible governments with at least £3.5 billion to
blow on a tunnel from Ireland to Britain. This isn't a joke but
the plan of Symonds engineering company who want to build the
tunnel at a total cost of £14 billion.
The fact that other smaller problems such as providing adequate
housing for the nation's families or building proper schools,
health care facilities etc seem lost on Symonds who want £8
million now to conduct a detailed study. Hopefully their plans
will be consigned to the dustbin that holds the
Olympics-for-Dublin proposals.
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