The London Organizing Committee of the Olympic and Paralympic Games (LOCOG) has agreed to get tougher with factories in China.

Pressure by unions, advocacy groups and workers themselves has resulted in new protections for workers making badges and mascots for the London 2012 Olympic Games.

Undercover researchers working for the Trades Union Congress (TUC) in the U.K. and the Labour Behind the Label’s Playfair 2012 campaign uncovered exploitation in two factories in China producing goods for the games. The research identified child labor, excessive hours, poverty pay, dangerous working conditions and an absence of independent trade unions as continuing problems in the factories.

The agreement, recently signed between the TUC on behalf of the Playfair 2012 campaign and LOCOG, commits the organizing committee to take concrete steps to protect workers’ rights. The agreement includes:

• Publishing the names and locations of the factories in China and the U.K. covering 72 percent of the licensed products produced for London 2012.
• Making information about employment rights—based on national laws and on LOCOG’s ethical code—available in Chinese and English, and establishing a Chinese language hotline so workers can complain if their rights are violated.
• Providing training to some of the workers in Olympic supply chains to make them more aware of their rights.
• Committing to work with Playfair 2012, the organizers of Rio 2016 and the International Olympic Committee to ensure that future games benefit from the lessons learned.

TUC General Secretary Brendan Barber says, “LOCOG had gone further than any previous Games’ organizers in adopting an ethical code and complaints mechanism, but as our research shows, this hasn’t been nearly enough to prevent abuses from taking place. However it’s not too late to make a difference for workers producing goods for London. We welcome LOCOG’s acknowledgement that further action is necessary and its commitment to act immediately to ensure that factory owners can no longer exploit workers in the name of the Olympics.”

He also added, “We’re hopeful that a marker has now been set for all future Games and that the International Olympic Committee will play a leading role in taking this work forward so that the exploitation of workers in Olympic supply chains can become a thing of the past. This ground-breaking agreement should also help lead to better working conditions throughout the sporting industry.”

Playfair 2012 is coordinated by the TUC and Labour Behind the Label and supported by unions and campaigning organizations. Playfair 2012 is part of the international Play Fair campaign, set up prior to Athens 2004, and includes the International Trade Union Confederation, Building and Wood Workers' International, the Clean Clothes Campaign and the International Textile, Garment and Leather Workers’ Federation.