WRC Update: Positive Resolution to PT Kizone Case

April 23, 2013

Dear Colleagues,

I am pleased to report that an agreement was reached yesterday between adidas and the union representing the PT Kizone workers. 

As you know, the union was committed to ensuring that workers would be made whole for the outstanding severance benefits which they are due under Indonesian law and university codes of conduct. The union reports that the agreement that has been achieved will accomplish this goal to the union’s satisfaction, restoring the rights of the workers to their legally mandated compensation, and that it constitutes a just resolution of the PT Kizone case. The agreement also settles legal claims concerning workers’ rights to severance under university codes that the union brought as intervener in the lawsuit originally brought against adidas by the University of Wisconsin.

The union has asked us to refrain from reporting further until it has had the opportunity to update the workers it represents and to issue a joint public statement with adidas. We will honor this request. We expect to be able to report to you, shortly, that the violations at PT Kizone have been remedied.

This is very welcome news. The agreement will make an enormous difference in the lives of the more than 2,500 former workers of PT Kizone and their families. It also helps to establish, with greater clarity than ever before, that the rights of workers to the compensation they are legally due will be protected under university labor codes – that licensees may not simply walk away when their contractors deprive workers of money they have earned.

As has so often been the case in recent years, universities’ efforts to enforce their labor codes were vital to this successful outcome, as, of course, was the work of student activists across the US and other labor rights advocates around the world who have urged adidas to restore the rights of the PT Kizone workers.

We will be able to report to you further in the days ahead.

Best,

Scott

Scott Nova 
Worker Rights Consortium 
5 Thomas Circle NW, 5th Floor
Washington DC 20005 
ph 202 387 4884 
fax 202 387 3292 
[email protected] 
www.workersrights.org