About 50 Garment and sportswear workers from NOIDA, Gurgaon, Faridabad, Tirupur, Mumbai and Delhi along with leaders of trade unions were forcibly taken under custody by the Police. The convoy of 150 workers was halted at Bhartiya Vidya Bhawan, Kasturba Gandhi Marg at 3.15 p.m. en-route Humayun’s Tomb to assemble for a peaceful demonstration. 50 of them were arrested.

These workers were making use of the Olympics Torch Rally, which was going to be greeted by the Delhi Government at the said venue, for which a cultural programme also had been organised. The demonstration was to highlight the plight of workers in the garment and sportswear industry.

Among those arrested were Shri R A Mital, Secretary HMS, Mr. D L Sachdev, Secretary, AITUC and Ms Sindhu Menon, correspondent of Labour File.

Play Fair at the Olympics: India Campaign is jointly organised by central trade unions: AITUC, CITU, HMS, INTUC, UTUC, AICCTU, NTUI, and organisations working on labour issues: CEC and SAVE. It is a campaign against the exploitation of workers in the garments and sportswear industry. It envisions defending the rights of workers: right to organise, living wages, social security, legal working hours and safe working conditions in these sectors. The campaign is a part of the global Play Fair at the Olympics campaign, launched by Clean Clothes Campaign (CCC), Oxfam International (OI) and Global Unions, in the context of the Athens Olympics, 2004.