Nike workers on $2.50 a day

     
Footballs with Manchester United crests and pictures of Eric Cantona were being stitched together by child labourers earning as little as 6p an hour
``I'm Tiger Woods'' is the repetitive voiceover while the screen shows young boys mimicking Tiger's golf swing. They are not Tiger Woods. They could though be the children who manufacture the Nike products that Tiger Woods wears and endorses as part of a multi million dollar advertising contract.

Seventy percent of all Nike athletic shoes are produced in China and Indonesia. Nike also has contracts with producers in the Philippines, Thailand and Vietnam. The vast majority do not make more than $2.50 a day, with many working 60 hours plus a week.

Last Saturday marked an international mobilisation in support of Nike workers with activists leafletting stores across Europe and the USA.

Nike though are not the only offenders in the sports good industry when it comes to upholding workers rights. In May it was reported that footballs with Manchester United crests and pictures of Eric Cantona were being stitched together by child labourers earning as little as 6p an hour.

Sports manufacturers spend huge sums promoting their goods to young people. Nike has a $650 million dollar advertising budget that tells us to ``Just do it''. It seems that it is time to tell them that selling sporting dreams doesn't have to mean selling out your workers.

McCreevy's mission impossible

``The Minister for Finance is often expected to do the impossible''. These were the words of the self same minister Charlie McCreevy in a speech given last weekend to the Leinster Society of Chartered Accountants.

McCreevy was looking for sympathy. He said that he was expected to ``provide substantial tax cuts'' in his December budget. He emphaised that he would not be taking ``the easy option'' and that ``short-term fixes are not part of the picture''.

Interestingly enough McCreevy also said that ``We are all well aware that there are many economic and social priorities which have to be addressed''.

It is now common knowledge that McCreevy has at least £500 million to deliver to Irish workers in tax cuts. The question is how will he implement the savings.

Reform of the inequitable tax system has long been a core element of Sinn Féin economic policies. The position of the lower paid workers is critical in this regard. McCreevy has now an opportunity to start the process of redressing the balance and delivering tax cuts that help the low paid and part-time workers.

A recent discussion paper on Tax and PRSI Reform published by the Combat Poverty Agency argues that the tax reform should target the benefits for the lower paid and introduce ``fundamental reform to tackle the problems faced by low earners''.

The best way to do this according to the agency is to increase personal tax free allowances by £1000 for single people and £2,000 for couples. This would they estimate cost in the region of £475 million.

The effects of such a move would be to improve work incentives, reduced tax-based poverty traps, increase the incomes of low paid workers while also simplifying and rationalising the tax system.

The Agency also make the point that level of social welfare payments must must also be increased in line with average earnings and that a substantial increase in child benefit is also needed.

So it seems that it is not such a mission impossible for Charlie McCreevy after all. If he really wants to live up to his promises he has clear feasible options. The question is does he have the bottle to deliver.


Dunnes deadline


It's coming to that time of Christmas shopping lists and the now annual stalling by Dunnes stores management on living up to their promises to workers. Unions at Dunnes will begin this week to ballot their workers on industrial action because the company backed out of accepting a Labour court ruling.

Yet again the dispute centres on overtime rates for staff who work Sundays in the run up to 25 December. Treble time is the traditional wage rate paid at that time of year to workers in other retailing companies.

SIPTU's regional secretary John McDonnell believes that the payment is ``not a major cost issues for Dunnes''. He said staff were extremely angry and that ``at the first test of the new procedures they have been obstructed and opposed by Dunnes Store''.

Peace fund problems


Frustrated by bureaucracy, ineptitude and the slow response of government departmentsm - does this sound familiar? If it does, you could be part of a group attempting to draw down funding from the EU Peace and Reconciliation Programme. Eamonn Deane, a director of the Holywell Trust in Derry, writing in Poverty Today, the Combat Poverty's Agency's magazine, says that though over 4,000 projects have received funding the ``energy of many groups has been frustrated by bureaucracy (and, at times, ineptitude) of some of the funding mechanisms''. Deane also writes that a considerable amount of money has gone to consultants.

The record of government departments on administering the funds also comes up for criticism. Deane says, ``Government departments have been the slowest of all to respond and at times have reacted against the spirit of the programme''. 1998 should mark the beginning of the second period of funding under this programme. Maybe it should also mark a revaluation of how the fund actually works.

Tunnel to oblivion


Wanted, two gullible governments with at least £3.5 billion to blow on a tunnel from Ireland to Britain. This isn't a joke but the plan of Symonds engineering company who want to build the tunnel at a total cost of £14 billion.

The fact that other smaller problems such as providing adequate housing for the nation's families or building proper schools, health care facilities etc seem lost on Symonds who want £8 million now to conduct a detailed study. Hopefully their plans will be consigned to the dustbin that holds the Olympics-for-Dublin proposals.