…For the thousands of Chinese workers…making Adidas’s expensive trainers…one thing does seem impossible: to get fair play. An investigation by The Sunday Times into the workers’ pay and conditions has found apparent violations of China’s labour laws and Adidas’s own code of workplace standards. Workers at the factories in Fuzhou [which are owned and operated by a Taiwan-based firm] accuse the management of cheating on pay, discriminating against young men and stifling a pioneering attempt to set up a trade union...In a statement, Adidas denied discrimination. It said neither it nor the factory management had anything to do with the politically sensitive “restrictions” on the union election. The company acknowledged that most workers got only the legal minimum basic wage and said it was aware that “unrecorded overtime has taken place from time to time”. [also refers to Nike]