ABSTRACT
Preparations for the 2014 Winter Olympic Games, like those of Olympic Games past (and if the 2016 Rio Games are any indication, future), went down to the wire. Stories of unfinished infrastructure ran rampant as media members streamed into the Russian city of Sochi and the nearby Olympic venues of Adler (the ‘Coastal Cluster’) and Krasnaya Polyana (the ‘Mountain Cluster’) (Segal 2014). This state of affairs in and around Sochi spawned the short-lived Twitter account @SochiProblems, which on the eve of the Olympic Games had over 30 per cent more followers than the official Sochi Winter Olympics Twitter account (Arrouas 2014). Of all the possible reasons for the delays in construction, it is doubtful that a lack of manpower was one of them. Estimates of the number of construction workers employed to prepare Sochi for the Olympic Games reveal a virtual city at work. In 2011, a total of 56,000 workers had been employed to work on Sochi’s venues (Sochi 2014 Organizing Committee 2013, p. 25), with the number rising to 70,000 in 2012 (Human Rights Watch 2013, p. 20). Almost 700 contractors were responsible for these workers (Sochi 2014 Organizing Committee 2013, p. 11). Certainly, not all of these workers were recruited from the 340,000 inhabitants of Sochi. While some workers came from other parts of Russia, a significant percentage of these workers were migrant workers (i.e. a worker employed in a state where they are not a national) (International Convention on the Protection of the Rights of All Migrant Workers and Members of their Families (1990), A/Res/45/156, Art. 2.1). In 2012, Russia’s Federal Migration Service estimated that 16,000 workers (or about 23 per cent of workers) had come from beyond Russia’s borders to work on Olympicrelated construction projects (Human Rights Watch 2013, p. 20). Others have claimed the number of migrant workers to be closer to 50,000, many without work permits (Vasilyeva 2013). Workers at Sochi Olympic sites reportedly suffered from abusive employment practices. The non-governmental organisation (NGO) Human Rights Watch uncovered practices such as non-payment of wages, long hours of work, and withholding of identification documents (Human
Rights Watch 2013, p. 20). These practices violated both Russian labour laws and international labour standards. Sochi has not been alone in witnessing large-scale labour rights violations while preparing to host a sports mega-event. Fears have been raised that conditions similar to those at Sochi will prevail at the sites of the 2018 Fédération Internationale de Football Association’s (FIFA) World Cup, which Russia is hosting (International Trade Union Confederation 2013; On the Preparation and Conduct of the Russian Federation 2018 FIFA World Cup, 2017 FIFA Confederations Cup and Amendments to Certain Legislative Acts of the Russian Federation, 7 June 2013, FZ-108). Brazil, host of the 2014 FIFA World Cup, and home to Rio de Janeiro’s 2016 Summer Olympic Games, has had problems with worker safety, with multiple deaths at stadiums being constructed for the World Cup (Associated Press 2014). Concerns have also been raised about the treatment of migrant workers in Japan, in advance of the 2020 Tokyo Summer Olympic Games (Kakuchi 2014). And, Qatar, host of the 2022 FIFA World Cup, has come under severe scrutiny for its employment practices from human rights NGOs (Amnesty International 2013; Human Rights Watch 2012) and international trade union organisations (International Trade Union Confederation 2014). A complaint lodged with the International Labour Organization (ILO) alleged general conditions of forced labour in Qatar (ILO 2014). Labour rights violations are not the only problems that beset hosts of the Olympic Games. In many host cities, citizens are evicted from their homes to make room for stadiums, hotels, media centres, and transportation infrastructure used to support the Games. Hosting the Games also places great strain on the natural environment due to infrastructure construction, increased tourism, transportation requirements, and so forth. Some editions of the Games have been held in countries that regularly violate human rights in a general manner, restricting freedoms of speech and movement, actively discriminating against certain populations, or engaging in regimes of terror. And some editions of the Games have arguably left cities worse off. All of this has led to increased pressure by citizens, NGOs, and Olympic critics on host cities and states, prospective hosts, corporate sponsors, and the international sporting organisations that hold the rights to these sporting events to prevent and remedy these problems.
