A Gold Medal in Hypocrisy
By Simon J Black
Published: 09/02/2007
The Olympic movement aspires to some pretty lofty goals (at least according to their website), which includes “building a peaceful and better world through mutual understanding, solidarity, friendship and fair play.” Such goals are embodied in the philosophy of the Olympic movement; a philosophy the International Olympics Committee (IOC) fittingly calls ‘Olympism’. According to the Olympic Charter, Olympism “is a philosophy of life, exalting and combining in a balanced whole the qualities of body, will and mind. Blending sport with culture and education, Olympism seeks to create a way of life based on the joy of effort, the educational value of good example and respect for universal fundamental ethical principles.” Compare this to the guiding philosophy of another ‘ism’, capitalism. In its totalizing manner capitalism too is a philosophy of life, blending the private ownership of the means of production with (commodified) culture and (brain numbing) education. As opposed to creating a way of life based on the joy of effort, it creates one based on the tyranny of work, the educational value of corporate best-practice and respect for the ethical principles of…well, capitalists. As the Olympics have become increasingly commercialized and commodified – more capitalism, less Olympism – the IOC must have thought it an ideal time to hold the Games in a country that spits in the face of everything the Olympic philosophy professes. And so the 2008 summer Olympics will be held in China, a place where the Olympism creed of a “life based on the joy of effort” takes on a particularly Orwellian tone.
The IOC makes no bones about the commercialization of the Olympic movement; as the Committee states on its website “the Olympic Games are the most effective international corporate marketing platform in the world, reaching billions of people in over 200 countries and territories throughout the world.” By the Committee’s own estimates, the Beijing Olympics stands to be the most profitable in the Games’ history, set to exceed the US$224 million surplus made by the Los Angeles Games of 1984. With such marketing and money-making potential, big name athletics brands like Adidas and Nike have been in fierce competition for official Olympic Games Licenses, the agreements that grant corporations the right to use the Olympic name and logo on their products. The money from these licenses is one source of funding for the Games. The Beijing 2008 website entices potential licensees with the promise of making “considerable profit through producing or selling the licensed products” and enhancing “brand image” while increasing “market share and sales”.
According to a new report from a global alliance of trade unions, NGOs and labor groups, called PlayFair 2008, the commercial success of licensees comes at the expense of their workers. PlayFair recently released the findings of their research into four companies awarded licenses to produce official Olympic goods. Their report, No Medal for the Olympics on Labor Rights, documents a myriad of workers rights violations. Licensees operating in mainland China were found to systematically disregard Chinese labor laws (which are notoriously weak to being with) in areas of health and safety, the hiring of children, wages, and working hours. PlayFair notes that such transgressions are not solely the domain of Olympic licensees, but the norm in thousands of workplaces across the country (I’ve long thought the PRC should be renamed the Employer’s Republic of China). PlayFair is not letting such abuses go unnoticed and is organizing civil society to pressure the IOC to ensure the manufacturers of Olympic-branded products respect internationally-recognized labor standards. With the Olympics soon headed to our shores, we need to take up this fight now and make Vancouver 2010 the first sweatshop-free Games.
Published in Canadian Dimension Sept/Oct 2008