Paperback and at www.reebok.com. 76pp.
Reebok’s
Human rights report 2005 is an impressive piece of work. It contains
lots of highly informative facts and figures clearly presented in a
very readable way. In his CEO statement Paul Fireman sounds as if he
actually means what he says – no mean feat in a slot where sincerity is
often over-polished. There is interesting material on how the company’s
purchasing practices can conflict with its human rights standards,
revealing comment from sourcing managers, NGO views (‘we found evidence
to confirm several of the allegations…’) and riveting excerpts from
text messages sent by factory workers (‘The owner hides some minors
between 15-17 years old when … Reebok monitors visit’).
At times this comes close to reportage, as when Reebok’s Chinese
human rights manager describes her undercover work to find out what
factory owners are really up to: ‘Night surveillance is the only way to
get the proof … I pretend to be someone looking for work…’
It
seems unfair to complain. Yet at the heart of the report is a large
colour pull-out poster of a size found in teenage magazines. Except
this shows no heart-throb, but the company’s compliance violations in a
chart of more than 2000 colour-coded percentage scores. Isn’t the
internet there to hive off this kind of data? And why were 54 per cent
of emergency exits in European supplier factories inaccessible, unsafe
or unmarked? Why, in South America, is the equivalent figure less than
half this? Australia, a developed country, is grouped with six
south-east Asian countries. So what were the figures for Vietnam? And
so on. What, in short, is the utility of this information? The report
nowhere discloses one thing I really would like to know: how much all
this costs.
Faced with such a poster, one is left with the
feeling that someone, somewhere said: ‘Information? We’ll give ‘em
information. Lots of it.’ Did anyone stop to ask whether people would
be able to digest it? Sunshine is the best disinfectant, but sometimes
one hankers for the shade.
Alistair Townley
