Sunday Tribune: How does Adidas justify paying such meagre wages to workers?

William Anderson, Adidas (WA): "You need to appreciate that the workers are living frugally. They live a spartan life, with very basic necessities, and this can hide the fact that they are investing money in their home villages. The employees are paid at a higher than average level, in relative terms."

ST: Did management pay workers not to participate in the strike?

Chris Lee, management at Panarub (CL): "It was not like that. We did not want to put the 80,000 rupiah ( 6.80) as part of our normal wage supplement every year, so we used it as a pro"t incentive. This supplement was not to be paid to any workers who participated in any kind of demonstration for the rest of the year."

ST: Were workers threatened by supervisors not to strike?

CL: "There were rumours that supervisors and management did threaten workers. We interviewed 20 people and 18 said that nothing of the kind had happened. Two people said they got the impression that supervisors were trying to persuade them not to do a demo. But it was more in the context of advice, rather than a threat."

ST: Why did management lock the factory doors during the demonstration?

CL: "Management did not lock the factory doors, they were just kept closed.

Women inside of the factories were scared of the demonstrators because they were mostly men, and they came from the chemical factory [part of the Panarub plant] so they are big from heavy lifting."

ST: Was a woman pushed on her breasts during the demonstration by a supervisor?

CL: "Personally, I think that for a lady to put herself right at the front of that pushing line of men, there was no way physical contact could have been avoided. It was not intentional, and no eye-witnesses have said that it was."

ST: Why will management not reinstate the workers, in light of the WRC recommendation?

CL: "A decision has been handed down by [the Indonesian labour court] so we are in a legally binding position. If we went against that, we would be sending out the message that it is not necessary to obey the law. That would leave us totally unable to control the workers, and unable to dismiss them in the future. We want the "red workers to appeal their case to the Supreme Court, because if they won there, then at least we would have a legal basis to take them back. But right now we are between a rock and a hard place."

ST: Why has Adidas not stepped in and forced management to reemploy the workers?

WA: "We are not the employer, so how can we tell the employer what to do? It is an impasse. The only recourse for Adidas is to send management a warning letter, saying we will terminate business relations if they do not employ the workers. Once we send that letter, we have begun the warning process . . .

Adidas has a 'three strikes, you're out' policy, and if we start it, we cannot stop it.

Either management will have to give in, or we will terminate business relations and 11,500 workers will lose their jobs.

These are very high stakes, and we are reluctant to start that process."

ST: Will the factory close rather than reinstate the workers?

Hendrik Sasmito, director of Panarub:

"As a businessman, I will survive. I also doubt that closure is what Adidas wants.

We have never had to close before. We will manage."

The Sunday Tribune's Q & A with Tim Connor, Oxfam Australia:

ST: Whose responsibility is it to ensure workers' human rights?

TC (labour rights advocacy co-ordinator, Oxfam Australia): "Adidas has the most power in the relationship, so therefore it should be taking the most responsibility in making sure that workers have their rights. But we believe that Adidas' buying system is putting a lot of pressure on all their factories to produce quickly and cheaply and to a very high quality standard. The company says that its order expectations have no effect on workers' rights, but that's just not true.

Adidas needs to get serious about how it's going to actively support workers' rights. One way of doing this would be to prioritise retaining orders in factories where the workers have unions."

ST: Is Adidas paying the workers enough?

TC: "The minimum wage is not enough.

Workers are relying on overtime to live.

There has been a big increase in the cost of living in Indonesia since the last minimum wage increase. The rising oil prices in particular have led to a lot of in"ation. If the workers do a lot of overtime, and if they get paid for it . . .

because some do not . . . only then do they have enough to meet their own basic needs. And by basic, I mean having enough to buy dishwashing liquid."

ST: Is it true that management at Panarub is in a "legally binding" position that does not allow it to reinstate the workers?

TC: "No. In fact, the section under which the workers have been dismissed actually requires the workers to have been convicted of a crime by a criminal court. This has not been done, so the workers have not even been legally dismissed. I think Panarub management just want it to seem like they have no choice. Even if they had followed the legal process for dismissing the workers, they would only have the right to do so . . . the management are not legally required to dismiss the workers."

ST: Has the strike been used as an excuse to destroy the Perbupas union?

TC: "We believe so. We believe that Panarub management don't want an active union in the factory, and that they've used the strike as an excuse to get rid of all the union leaders."

ST: Can the consumer do anything?

TC: "Yes, consumers have much more power than they realise. I would like to encourage consumers in Ireland to realise that. Adidas' reputation with consumers is much more important to the company than its labour costs. So if consumers get organised and get informed as to whether the product they are buying has been made under oppressive conditions, then they suddenly have a lot of power. It doesn't require a huge percentage of consumers to start in"uencing the decisions these big sports brands make."

ST: What can Oxfam do?

TC: "We want to give companies a business incentive to support human rights, and one way we can do that is by drawing media attention to the companies that are ordering from factories where there is a union and workers' rights. We're also hoping to get information about the campaign into high school textbooks. We've managed to do that in Australia, and we really want to spread that around the world. If we inform young people about this from an early age, then at least a percentage of them will continue to care about these issues."

Oxfam Ireland is a member of Oxfam International, a confederation of 13 Oxfams worldwide.