Company profile: Asics Corporation
Headquarters: Kobe
Country: International
Founded in: 1949
Total points of sale in Europe: 14
Owned by: Public shareholder company
Name of CEO: Kiyomi Wada
Product description: The company sells footwear, sports apparel and equipment under the brand names Asics and Onitsuka Tiger. Footwear includes a collection for running, soccer, volleyball, basket ball, marathon, T&F, base ball, tennis and other athletic footwear. Also Asics sells walking, school, sports style, junior and kids footwear. Sports apparel includes training wear, athletic wear, school wear, baseball wear, swimming wear, sports style, oudoor, ski, snowboards and others.
Countries of production: China, Vietnam, Indonesia, Turkey, Greece, El Salvador, Mexico, Japan, Thailand and Taiwan
General remarks: n.a.
Asics Corporation
1-1 Minatojima Nakamachi 7-chome,
Chuo-ku 650-8555 Kobe, Japan
Comment from CCC and proposals for action
Asics Corporation has responded to the CCC questionnaire sent in 2007, and indicated its willingness to further discuss issues of labour rights in its supply chain with NGOs and global unions. Following the Play Fair campaigns on labour rights in the context of the Olympic games (2004 and 2008), Asics Corporation has taken steps towards code implementation, most particularly joining the Fair Labor Association in 2005. In an e-mail to the CCC in follow up of the 2007 survey, Asics Corporation indicated that it has adapted its CSR policy and implementation since 2007. Unfortunately Asics Corporation has not shared the details of those changes with the CCC to date.
Asics Corporation has a section on its website which provides information about the company's vision on corporate social responsibility. Yet the CC C would like to encourage Asics Corporation to extend its transparency towards the disclosure of its supplier list and the results of factory audits (including follow up remediation of detected labour rights violations). The CCC looks forward to see Asic Corporation implement its promise made to Oxfam Australia early 2008, to establish a hotline for workers' complaints about bad working conditions, and call upon Asics to ensure that the hotline is confidential and accessible to all workers in its supply chain.
The CCC calls upon Asics Corporation to guarantee a living wage for all workers producing its goods. As in general the case in the sportswear industry, workers are often severely restricted in their right to freedom of association. Asics Corporation should therefore not increase its sourcing in countries and free trade zones where the right to freedom of association does not have legal force. In this respect, the CCC welcomes Asics’ recent commitment to participate in follow-up plans to explore amongst other issues how to promote trade unionism and collective bargaining as well as improving wages across the sector. To guarantee that all workers are entitled to the full package of labour rights, Asics Corporation should ban, or severely restrict, the use of short-term contracts. Finally the CCC expects Asics Corporation to make sure its purchasing practices allow suppliers to respect labour standards, which includes stable business relationships, and reasonable prices and delivery times.
The following evaluation on transparency, code implementation and monitoring of labour standards is based on the response by the company on the CCC-questionnaire and on additional research done by CCC in 2007. In the section “Recent developments” you can find additional information gathered after 2007.
Transparency
Asics Corporation has responded to the CCC-questionnaire and has provided some additional documents. The company works with civil society on corporate accountability issues and is in regular dialogue with NGOs and/or trade unions, including the CCC. The company is highly transparent with regard to: turnover, profits, sales and corporate structure. The amount of salaries of the top management is not known. Information is given about producer countries. A sustainability report is publicly available but it does not meet international reporting standards (GRI). Asics Corporation does not provide results of factory audits but does provide information about verification activities. The company does not disclose general targets for future monitoring activities.
Formal commitment to labour standards
Asics Corporation has adopted a code of conduct that requires compliance with al relevant local labour laws, but does not indicate that where local and international standards are at variance the higher standard should prevail. The code does not include a reference to the Universal Declaration of Human Rights. The company is formally committed to respecting minimum labour standards in accordance with ILO Core Conventions. These include the right to organise and bargain collectively and prohibit child labour, discrimination, and forced labour.
Asics Corporation's code of conduct does apply to all workplaces where its products are made. Beyond the ILO Core Conventions, the company is only committed to paying the legal minimum wage or industry standard, i.e. not a living wage. There are some limits to overtime. The company's code calls for a safe and hygienic environment for the workers who produce its garments and/or sportswear. The company does not explicitly require that all workers receive a regular employment contract.
Beyond the labour standards mentioned above, the company code is not precise enough on some specific issues. It does not state its commitment in relation to*:
-the provision of transitional measures that will be in the interest of the child and of her/his family where child labour is found.
-special provisions for workers under 18 years of age (e.g. education, no night work);
-specific steps to encourage decent working conditions in countries where freedom of association and collective bargaining are restricted by law;
-prohibiting the retention by employers of security deposits or identity papers;
-guaranteeing a living wage during regular working hours without overtime.
Code implementation and purchasing practices
The company is a member of a credible multi-stakeholder initiative (MSI). Asics Corporation implements the code according to the MSI's principles of implementations and is committed to taking credible steps to improve labour conditions. Asics Corporation pays for the monitoring of suppliers. The code of conduct is translated into most of the languages of the countries the company is sourcing from; every buying contract states the obligation for the supplier to comply with the code. According to the information given Asics Corporation has no intention to implement the payment of living wages to workers. According to the information available, some of the productions sites are in countries or zones where freedom of association is not guaranteed by law. Asics Corporation takes, to some extent, the impact of its own purchasing practices into account. It has established some procedures which show how to improve planning and prevent excessive overtime. There are no provisions to give buyers positive incentives to reward better working conditions.
Monitoring and Verification
The company is a member of the multi-stakeholder initiative Fair Labor Association (FLA). The monitoring and/or verification process includes consultation of local stakeholders.
Violations of labour rights and public conflicts
There are no CCC public urgent appeals calling on Asics to take responsibility for workers' rights violations in its supply chain.
Recent developments
In correspondence with Oxfam Australia on the company's labour rights implementation, Asics Corporation mentioned it is focused on long-term business relationships with factories. Asics Corporation did not outline what a long-term business relationship with its supplier factories entailed or whether there was a written commitment to stay with factories to build a stable business relationship. While Asics Corporation decided not to place production in Burma where the right to freedom of association does not have legal force, Oxfam Australia calls upon the company to also extend this principle to other countries where this right is not legally protected. In a 2007 presentation, Asics Corporation admitted that its factory audit uncovered non-compliance issues, including workers being paid less than the minimum wage, forced overtime and a lack of health and safety. Asics Corporation indicated it would set up an Asics hotline in reaction to worker grievances. It is also mentioned that in its long-term planning to 2010, Asics Corporation has undertaken to provide education for contractors (agents and factories) on constructing a complaint channel (For more information see: http://www.oxfam.org.au/campaigns/labour-rights/reports/offside/offside_update.html).
The Play fair 2008 report Clearing the hurdles found that at one Chinese factory manufacturing for ASICS, workers that failed to meet the production quota had to write a 'psychoanalysis' report to management explaining why they could not meet the quota and to guarantee that they would do better the next day. At another factory, pressure to meet quotas was reinforced through the holding of production meetings where workers that were considered not sufficiently productive were openly criticised by management in front of their co-workers.
At a three day conference in July 2008, organised by the Play Fair 2008 Campaign (led by the International Trade Union Confederation, the International Textile, Garment and Leather Workers Federation and the Clean Clothes Campaign), Asics committed to participate in follow-up plans to explore amongst other issues how to promote trade unionism and collective bargaining as well as improving wages across the sector.
Asics Corporation announced in June 2008 that its subsidiaries in China, ASICS Shanghai Trading Co., Ltd. and Jiang Su ASICS Co., Ltd. donated sports apparel to the victims of the earthquake in Sichuan, China.