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