US soccer player Megan Rapinoe is being urged by Labour Behind the Label, a UK organisation dedicated to labour rights in the global textile sector, to put pressure on her sponsor, Nike, to compensate garment workers in Cambodia and Thailand. This week, the organisation launched a new campaign.
A pre-written letter addressed to Rapinoe and other American football stars Tobin Heath, Christen Press, and Meghan Klingenberg is requested by the campaign from supporters. Two employee categories are mentioned in the message.
The first was a group of 1,284 former workers at the Violet Apparel plant in Cambodia who were fired ‘without notice’ after the facility shut down ‘unexpectedly’ in July 2020, according to Labour Behind the Label. The workers, according to the campaigners, were ‘robbed of legally-owed compensation’ totaling US $ 1.4 million, and many are ‘still struggling with debts’ from that period.
More than 3,000 employees at Nike supplier Hong Seng Knitting in Thailand, according to Labour Behind the Label, were allegedly denied ‘legally owed’ vacation money during the pandemic. The campaign group claims the manufacturer threatened the workers who are owed US $ 800,000 and refused to pay them.
The campaign makes reference to Rapinoe and her colleagues’ fight for the U.S. Women’s National Team to get equal pay. Four months after the team sued the U.S. Soccer Federation for salary discrimination, Nike released an advertisement hailing the team’s World Cup success and backing the players’ demands, according to Labour Behind the Label.
