SCHAKOWSKY RENEWS CALL ON US OLYMPIC COMMITTEE TO RESPECT THE RIGHTS OF INTERNATIONAL WORKERS

AUGUST 5, 2004

SCHAKOWSKY RENEWS CALL ON US OLYMPIC COMMITTEE TO RESPECT THE RIGHTS OF INTERNATIONAL WORKERS

WASHINGTON, D.C. - Days before the start of the 2004 Summer Olympics in Athens, U.S. Representative Jan Schakowsky (D-IL), the ranking Democrat on the Commerce, Trade and Consumer Protection Subcommittee, renewed her call on the United States Olympics Committee (USOC) to respect the rights of international workers.

Last month, Schakowsky introduced H.R. 4988, the "Play Fair at the Olympics Act," a bill that would require companies that obtain licenses from the USOC to manufacture Olympics-related products to observe international labor standards. U.S. Representative George Miller (D-CA), senior Democrat on the Education and the Workforce Committee, is an original cosponsor of H.R. 3688.

"Going for the gold is not always about an athlete trying to win a medal at the Olympics. It's also about multibillion dollar companies using whatever means necessary to fatten their bottom line, while their workers suffer and have their basic human rights routinely violated," said Schakowsky.

"The Play Fair at the Olympics Bill will level the playing field because workers have finished last in the international labor market for far too long," she added.

Schakowsky is working closely with Oxfam, and the AFL-CIO, the organizations that "are coordinating the US activities for the Play Fair at the Olympics campaign, part of an international effort to push the Olympics movement to address the problem of workers' rights violations that occur in factories that produce goods that bear the Olympics logo."