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Protests at Foot Locker over Adidas affiliation

Campaigners will protest outside UK Foot Locker stores today, over Adidas’ alleged failure to pay workers £1.1m in redundancy.

The activists have chosen Foot Locker as a large stockist of Adidas footwear, and will target stores in Newcastle, London, Birmingham, Manchester and Newcastle.

In April 2011, 2,800 workers lost their jobs when the PT Kizone factory in Indonesia closed. The campaigners say former workers are owed £1.1m from Adidas, after all other companies who sourced from the factory paid out.

Matt Franklin, from People & Planet Birmingham, said: “Despite claiming to value integrity and community, Foot Locker is pushing products for Adidas, a company currently under fire for labour rights abuses.

“Adidas is happy to spend £100 million sponsoring the Olympics. Yet the company refuses to contribute a fraction of this amount to its former Indonesian workers.

“In line with its community rhetoric, we are calling on Foot Locker to sever ties with Adidas, until the company resolves the issue of unpaid redundancy among workers who made their products.”

In a letter sent to Adidas last year, PT Kizone workers jointly stated: “We earned this severance and we can assure you that our families need it.

“Our children are hungry. But food vouchers will not keep our children in school or our families in our homes. We call on Adidas to ensure we receive all the money we are legally owed and that we earned making Adidas products…”

The UK protests are being co-ordinated by student activists People & Planet, workers’ rights campaigners Labour Behind the Label and the anti-poverty charity War on Want, as part of an international day of action, with protests also taking place in the US and mainland Europe.

Murray Worthy, from War on Want, said: “Foot Locker is a massive retailer for Adidas and must use its influence to force it to pay these workers.

“Adidas has made huge profits from these people’s years of work. Yet now they are abandoning them to poverty. We will keep up the pressure until the workers get what they are owed.”

This was posted in Bdaily's Members' News section by Tom Keighley .