Schools that have cut ties with Russell Athletics

Michigan is the Latest University to End a Licensing Deal with an Apparel Maker

by Steven Greenhouse of the NY Times

http://www.nytimes.com/2009/02/24/business/24sweat/html?_r=1

Cornell Cuts Licensing Ties with Russell Athletic

Associated Press of Business Week

http://www.businessweek.com/ap/financialnews/D96F18JGO

2 More Universities Cut Ties with Apparel Company (Penn State and Cornell)

by Libby Sanders of Chronicle of Higher Education

http://www.workersrights.org/press/ChronicleOfHigherEd02-23-09.pdf

Senate Committee Resolution

On February 19, 2009, a representative of the Progressive Student Network met with the Villanova University Senate Mission and Social Justice Committee to discuss the Designated Supplier Program

The Members of the Mission and Social Justice Committee can be found at:
http://www.villanova.edu/organizations/unisenate/committees/MSJC.htm

Here is a copy of the resolution that PSN presented to the committee





The Committee was supportive of the initiative, and hopefully will present the resolution to the Villanova Senate at their next meeting


The University Senate will be meeting next on March 13, 2009

The VU Sweat-Free Coalition

The Progressive Student Network is working alongside other student groups on campus to successfully implement the Designated Suppler Program.

Just Food, a student organization sponsored by the Center for Peace and Justice formally joined the VU Sweat-Free Coalition today. They are the first Villanova student group to publicly and formally announce their affiliation with the VU Sweat-Free Coalition!

Why The FLA is not Enough

Why The Fair Labor Association is Not Enough:Russell Corporation and ALGI Group

The Companies
• ALGI Group is a New York-based “global compliance solutions” firm that has been selected by the Fair Labor Association (FLA) to act as an “independent investigator” of whether Russell Corporation’s decision to close the Jerzees de Honduras plant was motivated by retaliation against the decision of the factory’s workers to organize a union.
• ALGI Group has, however, an existing business relationship with Russell Corporation as a paid consultant on exactly the same issues it is supposed to be ‘independently investigating.’
• ALGI’s own company brochure, posted on its website, states that Russell is part of ALGI’s “portfolio of clientele” (sic).
• The same ALGI company brochure lists Russell as one of the “[c]lients serviced” by ALGI Group in assessing “codes of conduct, management systems training, and remediation.”
• ALGI’s website also identifies Russell as one of ALGI’s “strategic partners.” Investigative PracticesJerzees de Honduras workers have expressed serious concerns regarding the objectivity and thoroughness of the FLA’s investigative practices.

For example:
• ALGI’s investigators arrived at the union’s office for a scheduled meeting with workers accompanied by a Russell company manager, betraying these workers’ confidentiality and potentially subjecting them to retribution.
• ALGI ‘s investigators failed to record or take any notes during their meetings with workers, indicating a lack of interest in, or openness to, their testimony.
• ALGI’s investigators told workers that their testimony was without value unless corroborated by written documents.
• An ALGI investigator also made biased comments regarding proposals made by the workers’ union in collective bargaining, stating that the workers’ proposals were “crazy.” These statements are especially significant because Russell announced its decision to close the plant after the company and the workers reached an impasse in their negotiating positions.
• The Cahn Report, which said that Jerzees de Honduras produced fleece and because of a downturn in the demand for fleece products, Russell was justified in closing the factory, is seriously flawed considering the factory has always produced many types of garments and the worker leaders themselves told students they made sweatshirts as recently as December, 2008

Jerzees de Honduras and Russell Athletics

Russell Athletics: A Case Study of Why Villanova University needs to sign on to the Designated Supplier Program:
Jerzees de Honduras, Russell Corporation and Berkshire Hathaway, Inc.

The Company
• Russell Corporation is a division of Fruit of the Loom, Inc., which is headquartered in Bowling Green, KY. Both companies are subsidiaries of Berkshire Hathaway, Inc., the Omaha, NE-based investment firm founded and headed by Warren E. Buffett.
• Berkshire Hathaway CEO Warren Buffett is the world’s richest person with a reported net worth of $62 billion. Berkshire Hathaway, whose other subsidiaries include See’s Candies and Dairy Queen, reported a profit of $13.2 billion in 2007.
• Jerzees de Honduras is a factory located in Choloma, Honduras, and owned and operated by the Russell Corporation of Atlanta, GA. The plant manufactures university logo apparel.

Labor Practices
• Russell employs 1800 workers at Jerzees de Honduras. In 2007, workers at Jerzees de Honduras and another Russell plant, Jerzees Choloma, began to form a union to improve their working conditions. Workers’ right to join a union is an internationally-recognized human right.
• Most recently workers have received death threats in connection with the factory’s closure, and USAS and the WRC have filed an emergency petition with the Inter-American Commission on Human Rights (IACHR) calling for urgent precautionary measures to be taken to guarantee the safety of union leaders.
• Between March and September 2007, Russell Corporation illegally fired 145 workers at Jerzees de Honduras and Jerzees Choloma for attempting to form a union. Firing workers in retaliation for joining a union is prohibited under Honduran law and university codes of conduct.
• Russell’s illegal mass firing of workers at these plants involved more than 8 separate incidents in March, June, July and September 2007 where it terminated workers in retaliation for having joined a union. Russell claimed the firings were “reduction[s] in personnel” based on economic factors.
• In October 2007, the Worker Rights Consortium (WRC) found that the firings violated Honduran law and university codes of conduct. After several universities threatened to cut off Russell’s license to make their logo apparel, the company agreed to ba2ck pay and reinstatement for all 145 fired workers and recognition of their union.
• From July to October 2008, workers at Jerzees de Honduras attempted to negotiate a union contract with Russell. On October 3, 2008, the negotiations ended in an impasse -- in part because Russell’s wage offer to the workers was a increase of 4 cents per day.
• On October 8, 2008, only a few days later, Russell announced it would close Jerzees de Honduras and terminate its 1800 workers. The closure of the plant is to be completed by March 2009.
• While Russell told universities that its decision was made for economic reasons, its managers in Honduras have been explicit that the decision was made to eliminate the union and its members. A WRC investigation found over 100 separate incidents where Russell management stated that Jerzees de Honduras would be closed because workers joined a union. In a 37-page report released in November 2008, the WRC concluded that this was, in fact, the true reason for Russell’s decision.

Licensing Companies in Contract with Villanova

Who Licenses with Villanova University?
Many Licensing Companies making Villanova University apparel work in sweatshops. A few of the more familiar names are Jansport, Russell Athletics, Nike and Champion.

-To see what vendors Villanova uses check out: http://www.workersrights.org/search/index.asp?search=Licensee&school=Villanova+University

- By clicking on the company you can see what they supply, and where their factories are located
- If you'd like to see the factory reports that are composed by the Workers Rights Consitorium, you can go this website: http://www.workersrights.org/Freports/index.asp#freports , and check out the latest reports by country, brand, or factory.

What Is Villanova's role?

Villanova is affiliated with the United Students Against Sweatshops and the Workers Rights Consoitorium.

The United Students Against Sweatshops is a network of students from different colleges and universities seeking to implement the Designated Supplier Program. Their mission is:

United Students against Sweatshops (USAS) is a network of students in North America who have been organizing for workers' rights since 1998.
As former, current, and future workers, we recognize that we must live the principles that we are taught in the classroom now. As students, we have the power to force our universities to respect the basic human rights and dignity of workers who make our education possible.
We believe our universities must respect all workers in their supply chains-- from those who serve us food in the dining halls, to housekeepers and janitors who clean our dormitories, to farmworkers who pick the food we eat in those dining halls, to the garment workers who make apparel with our universities' name. We support the right of all workers to organize unions and other democratic worker organizations, to earn living wages that meet the basic needs of their families, and to be treated with respect. We believe workers are the best monitors of their own condition in North America and around the globe and deserve a voice on the job.
We define "sweatshop" broadly and use it as a representation of the horrific abuses of the global economy. However, human rights abuses and the repression of working people's struggles is not limited to garment factories in the Global South or in immigrant communities in North America. Sweatshop conditions exist in the fields, in the prisons, on our campuses, in the power relations of a flawed global system. Thus, we consider all struggles for a better world and an alternative to the current structure of the global economy to be directly or by analogy a struggle against sweatshops.

for more information please check out:
http://www.studentsagainstsweatshops.org/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=226&Itemid=88888913

The Workers Rights Consortium is a non-profit organization and an objective third-party that monitors factory conditions abroad.Russell Athletics:

Their mission is:
The Worker Rights Consortium (WRC) is an independent labor rights monitoring organization, conducting investigations of working conditions in factories around the globe. Our purpose is to combat sweatshops and protect the rights of workers who sew apparel and make other products sold in the United States.
The WRC conducts independent, in-depth investigations; issues public reports on factories producing for major U.S. brands; and aids workers at these factories in their efforts to end labor abuses and defend their workplace rights. The WRC is proud to have the support of over 175 college and university affiliates and our primary focus is the labor practices of factories that make apparel and other goods bearing university logos. The WRC's mission is to:

respond to worker complaints by investigating allegations of labor rights abuses and documenting worker rights violations where they are occurring;
keep our affiliate colleges and universities informed about conditions in the factories producing the goods that bear their names and logos;
work with colleges and universities, apparel brands and factories, and workers and their representatives to end worker rights violations wherever they are identified;
raise public awareness about workplace conditions in apparel and other industries and promote initiatives to improve respect for labor rights;
educate workers about their rights under college and university codes of conduct, and other private labor codes; and
through all of these efforts, help workers gain greater respect for their rights and real improvements in their conditions of work.

For more information on this organization please go to: http://workersrights.org/about/

Thus Villanova has already agreed to give the Workers Rights Consortium full disclosure of the licensing brands we have contracts with as well as full disclosure regarding what factories these licensing company use.

In addition, Villanova has a public position on labor conditions and Villanova's committment to labor rights.

You can find this here: http://villanova.cstv.com/licensing/nova-licensing-labor-conditions.html

At the site, Villanova refers to a Manufacturing Code of Conduct. I'm not quite sure where that document is, but I know that in order to be affiliated with the Workers Rights Consortium, the code of conduct must address the following issues: wages, hours of work, overtime compensation, freedom of association, workplace safety and health, compliance with local laws, women's rights, child labor and forced labor, harassment and abuse in the workplace, and non-discrimination.

The Designated Suppliers Program is a simple effort to enable Villanova to hold licensing companies accountable to this Code of Conduct.

The Progressive Student Network

Mission Statement of the Progressive Student Network (PSN):

The Progressive Student Network (PSN) is an organization of the Center for Peace and Justice Education, working on the issues of trade, labor, and economic justice. PSN is a community of students, each with his or her own area of specialty or knowledge, but all with the common overall goal of social and economic justice. PSN wrks to ensure the presence of labor rights, both on campus and abroad, through advocacy and direct action with initiatives that are relevant, sustainable, and indispensable to the promotion of social and economic justice.

Our Current Project is the successful implementation of the Designated Supplier Program at Villanova. The objective of this program is to enable factory workers abroad that are contracted out by companies a few basic rights they currently are unable to obtain alone. The major pillars of the Designated Supplier Program are:

• A Voice on the Job, more specifically: the right to collectively bargain
• A Living Wage: while the wage of a sweatshop factory worker varies greatly by country, a living wage for most workers (based on a basket of essential goods) would be at least a two-fold increase in wage.
• Job Security: Right now the major licensing companies that dominate the apparel industry reward factories with the lowest production costs. This translates to the lowest wage, the longest hours, and the least amount of worker protection rights. The DSP demands that licenising companies stay for a minimum of three years, as long as production mmets labor and production standards.

The DSP seeks to achieve this for University and College apparel by a gradual increase in production of collegiate apparel from 25% in the first year, 50% in the second year, and 75% in the third year.
To view a copy of the Designated Supplier Program please go to: http://workersrights.org/dsp/Designated%20Suppliers%20Program%20-%20Revised.pdf

The Progressive Student Network meets every Tuesday at 5pm in the Center for Peace and Justice Education. Newcomers welcome!

In addition to individuals interested, if you are already a member of a student group on campus we strongly encourage you to join our newly founded VU Sweat-Free Coalition. To become a member please send a (short) formal letter announcing your groups support of the coalition and its goals to achieve a sweat-free Villanova campus.

For more information please contact: Christina.Bernardo@villanova.edu