Tell Adidas to go all in for a living wage!  Sign the petition.  Use the double hashtag #allin for a #livingwage on twitter to spread the word.  Find out more about the campaign and more actions you can take!

An estimated 3.5 billion people, or half the world’s population, will tun in to watch this years’ FIFA World Cup, leaving sponsors scrambling to capture fans imaginations.  For sportswear giant Adidas the potential return in huge, after spending£62million in order “to make the World Cup in Brazil the best World Cup ever” – for the Adidas brand.  Adidas expects to make€1.7billion from the sale of football merchandise this year alone.  Adidas’s CEO Herbert Hainer hopes the Cup will catapult the Adidas Group into pole position as leader of the sportswear industry.  

Through flashy ads, acclaimed and influential spokepeople, and catchy slogans, Adidas is encourging the world to go “all in”.  But, behind the glitz and the glam of their World Cup marketing, THERE IS A STORY THAT ADIDAS DOESN’T WANT YOU TO KNOW.

25-year-old Sorn Reab spends six days a week waking up at 4:30 a.m. in order to travel to Phnom Penh to begin work at 7 a.m. in a garment factory, which supplies apparel to Adidas.  Despite working 11 hours a day, Sorn cannot afford to live in Phnom Penh.  Tired and weak from malnutrition, Sorn faces the real possiblity that today may be the day she faints and ends up in the hospital.  With the threat that her short-term employment contract may not be renewed in six months, the pressure to produce as many Adidas garment as possible is constant. 

Sorn Reab’s life in Cambodia in not an exception, but the norm for the estimated 500,000 garment workers – over 90 percent of who are women under the age of 35.  In fact, a majority of the world’s garment workers are young women struggling to survive on their poverty wages.  At its core, the garment industry continues to perpetuate a system of extreme inequality, providing inordinate wealth for the priviledged few, while condemning the vast majority of workers in the supply chain to unconscionable poverty.  It would take Sorn Reab in Cambodia over 7,000 years to earn Adidas CEO Herbert Hainer’s annual salary.

CHANGE IS POSSIBLE. As Adidas is harnessing the world’s passion for the World Cup to grow their brand profile and profits, join Labour Behind the Label as we too seize the opportunity to ensure Adidas pays Sorn Reab what she has earned and is owed: A LIVING WAGE.