Play Fair is a global campaign coordinated by international trade union federations and NGOs. Its focus is workers’ rights in the sportswear, products and other supply chains. The Playfair 2012 campaign on the London 2012 Olympics was led by the TUC and Labour Behind the Label with 21 trade unions and two NGOs. It was part funded by UK Aid (Department For International Development, DFID).
Louise was commissioned to conduct the Impact Study to see what had been achieved by the project and campaign, to highlight successes and lessons to share with future Play Fair campaigns, including Rio 2016. The study also made recommendations to improve delivery of TUC and Labour Behind the Label joint campaigns with unions and NGO partners.
Louise conducted document reviews and19 stakeholder interviews with the campaign members, trade unions and NGOs, sportswear brands and independent experts as well as the Head of Sustainability and the Corporate Sustainability Manager at LOCOG (the London Organising Committee of the Olympic Games and Paralympic Games).
Louise’s research and interviews drew out important learning for a concise and readable report with four illustrative case studies and recommendations. This was published and shared with the international steering group, international officers in Trade Unions and DFID.
“We were very pleased with the end product. You were able to turn a lot of complex and sometimes conflicting information into a readable and useful report.” Sam Gurney, TUC
Louise’s analysis included learning and thoughts on:
– Project planning for a partnership-based campaign and the need for flexibility and responsiveness
– Strength in a broad based campaigning coalition
– Communications that make a distant supply chain relevant to a UK audience
– Conducting high quality reliable research in difficult situations within a short timescale
– Engagement with brands and LOCOG vs public media based campaigning to create a burning platform
– Moving from awareness to action: supporting the development of policies, complaints procedures and solutions to workers’ rights abuses
– The role of multi-stakeholder initiatives in producer countries bringing factories, brands and unions together for change.
“We had good feedback from several people you interviewed about the manner in which you conducted these conversations. You were open to discussion on points where we had issues/queries without compromising the independence of the evaluation.” Sam Gurney, TUC