From: JWkeady@aol.com
Date: Fri Dec 21 2001 - 16:07:47 EST
Olympic Torch Bearer to Run Barefoot in Solidarity with Nike Factory Workers
Asbury Park, NJ, December 21, 2001 - Educating for Justice
(www.nikewages.org) announced today that its co-Director, Leslie Kretzu, who
has been chosen to run in the Salt Lake 2002 Olympic Torch Relay, will run
barefoot as a show of solidarity with Nike's overseas factory workers.
Kretzu will begin her segment of the relay in downtown Philadelphia at 4:29pm
on December 22, 2001. She will carry the torch for 0.2 miles on Broad
Street, from Reed Street to Federal Street.
Kretzu is no stranger to bringing attention to what critics call Nike's
abusive labor practices. She works full-time as a campaigner for Educating
for Justice's Nike Corporate Accountability Campaign. She is also no
stranger to using the Olympic Games as a platform to awaken people to the
realities that Nike workers face in countries like Indonesia. At the 2000
Games in Sydney, she and EFJ co-Director Jim Keady, were at the center of
three week international media campaign following the one month they spent
living in solidarity on a $1.25 a day with Nike's factory workers in
Tangerang, Indonesia.
When Kretzu learned that she was chosen to be a member of the Olympic
Torch Relay Team, she immediately began to brainstorm how she could use the
opportunity to raise awareness about the plight of Nike's 550,000 global
manufacturing workers. "It would be hypocritical for me on such a special
day, to turn a blind eye to the people I am committed to every other day of
the year. The women and men working in Nike's factories, who produce
athletic equipment for Olympians are regarded and treated by this
multinational corporation as "cheap labor" and not as human beings. They
work up to15 hours a day, 6-7 days a week for the most profitable sportswear
company in the world and they cannot afford their basic human needs. Among
other things, the workers are threatened when they attempt to form
independent unions, and are forced to go through grave humiliations in the
workplace, including having to prove menstruation in order to take a day off
from work. Given the call of the Olympic charter, 'encouraging the
establishment of a peaceful society concerned with the preservation of human
dignity' we must speak out against the injustice that one of their major
sponsors inflicts on its workers. It is time that Olympians and the
International Olympic Committee pressure multinational sponsors to live up to
the Olympic ideal." To this end, Kretzu made the decision that she would run
barefoot.
Kretzu continued, "At the 2002 Olympics in Salt Lake City, more than
2000 athletes, representing more than 70 nations will compete in 78 different
events. In line with the International Olympic Committee's promotional
campaign 'Celebrate Humanity,' my participation is dedicated to the millions
of unrecognized persons in our global family who produce the uniforms and
athletic equipment that allow women and men to compete and celebrate all that
is great in sport and competition."
Kretzu will also make issue of the fact that her Olympic Torch Bearer
uniform was manufactured in Burma, a country with one of the worst records
for human rights violations. Educating for Justice and the Free Burma
Coalition will hold a press conference at the corner of Broad and Federal
streets immediately following Kretzu's carrying of the torch.
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