“Rights group asks for worker-safety probe at Tokyo Olympics”, 5 June 2019

 A former Olympian and head of a human-rights group is asking the IOC and Tokyo Olympic organizers to investigate worker safety at venues being built for next year’s games. Mary Harvey is the CEO of the Geneva-based Centre for Sport and Human Rights...

Tokyo has come under similar scrutiny since a report — “The Dark Side of the Tokyo 2020 Summer Olympics” — was published last month by the Building and Wood Workers’ International union, which also investigated Qatar conditions…

... Harvey said in an interview with The Associated Press… “Everyone should be taking a serious look at the risks identified in BWI’s report… everyone who is a stakeholder, including the IOC, the Japanese government and construction companies,” she added…

Local organizers, the city government and the Japan Sport Council said they have asked BWI “to provide more detailed information.” A joint statement said it is “difficult to confirm the facts only with information contained in the currently published report.” For its part, BWI has called for outside inspections and said that its efforts “have been largely ignored, and workers and their trade unions have been met with hostility.”… In a statement, the IOC said “we take these issues very seriously and are committed to working with the relevant stakeholders to address them and find the appropriate solutions.”

Many sports governing bodies have signed up to the UN Guiding Principles on Business and Human Rights, which spell out practices for businesses and government… The IOC said that two years ago it added the UN guidelines to host city contracts that come into effect with the 2024 Paris Olympics. That excludes Tokyo, and the 2022 Winter Olympics in Beijing, where independent labor unions are barred by China’s authoritarian government…

The IOC said it works closely with the International Labour Organization… The IOC said the ILO will discuss the problems with “relevant Japanese authorities.”…