From: Leslie Kretzu (kretzu@yahoo.com)
Date: Mon Feb 04 2002 - 00:24:14 EST
FNPBI STATEMENT ON REEBOK HUMAN RIGHTS AWARD FOR DITA
SARI
The driving forces of globalisation are the movement
and expansion of capital and technology, through
multinational companies. Globalisation, some people
argue, has contributed a lot to the creation of a new
world, with a global welfare and justice for all. But
in practice, globalisation is producing neither
universal welfare nor global peace. On the contrary,
in reality, globalisation has divided the world into
two sides, which are antagonistic towards each other.
There
are wealthy creditors and bankrupt debtors, there are
super rich countries and underdeveloped countries,
super wealthy speculators and impoverished
malnourished children. Globalisation intensifies, not
a higher paid and a better life for workers in the
third world, but the growing gap between the rich and
the poor.
And this also happens in Indonesia, among
Indonesian workers who work in multinational shoes
companies, including Reebok. In November last year, I
was informed that I was selected as one of the
awardees of the annual Reebok Human Rights Award
program and ceremony. The Reebok Human Rights
Foundation then has officially announced the names of
the awardees. I have taken this award into a very
deep consideration. We finally decide not to accept
this. On the one hand, this is a kind of recognition
of the struggle and the hard work that we have done
for years. But on the other hand, we are very
conscious of the condition of the Reebok workers from
the third world countries, such as in Indonesia,
Mexico, China, Thailand, Brazil and Vietnam. As a
trade union, we strongly put a lot of pressure to
achieve what every worker deserves: higher wages,
better working conditions and a brighter future for
their children.
In Indonesia, there are five Reebok companies. 80%
of the workers are women. All companies are
sub-contracted, often by the South Korean companies
such as Dung Jo and Tong Yang. Since the workers can
only get around $1.5 a day, they then have to live in
a slum area, surrounded by poor and unhealthy
conditions, especially for their children. At the same
time, Reebok collected millions of dollars of profit
every year, directly contributed by these workers.
The low pay and exploitation of the workers of
Indonesia, Mexico and Vietnam are the main reasons why
we will not accept this award. Some of
our members in the union work in companies producing
Reebok shoes. The decision I have made is not merely
based on data, report, statistics or assumptions. In
1995, I was arrested and tortured by the police, after
leading a strike of 5000 workers of Indoshoes Inti
Industry. They demanded an increase of their wages
(they were paid only US$1 for working 8 hours a day),
and maternity leave as well. This company operated in
West Java, and produced shoes of Reebok and Adidas. I
have seen for myself how the company treat the
workers, and used the police to repress the strikers.
We believe that accepting the award is not a proper or
a right thing to do. This is part of the consequences
of our work to help workers improve their life. We
cannot tolerate the way multinational companies treat
the workers of the third world countries. And we
surely hope that our stand can make a contribution to
help changing the labor condition in Reebok-produced
companies.
Dita Sari
NATIONAL FRONT FOR INDONESIAN WORKERS STRUGGLE
JAKARTA, JANUARY 29th, 2002
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This archive was generated by hypermail 2.1.4 : Mon Oct 28 2002 - 02:52:32 EST