U. keeps Russell Athletic contract despite anti-union allegations

Russell Athletic, one of a number of firms which the University has contracted to produce Princeton-branded merchandise, is facing criticism from workers’ rights organizations for its decision to close one of its factories in Honduras. More than 10 universities — including Harvard and Cornell — have ended their relationships with the company in response to the decision.

Princeton, however, has decided against severing ties with Russell, whose clothing — including T-shirts, sweatpants and sweatshirts — accounts for 50 to 60 percent of the U-Store’s apparel sales, store president Jim Sykes said.

A report issued last November by the Workers Rights Consortium (WRC) — a labor-rights monitoring organization to which the University belongs — alleged that Russell’s decision to close the Jerzees de Honduras factory was motivated by conflicts with the factory’s union.

Another report issued in January by the Fair Labor Association (FLA), a non-profit organization to which the University belongs, also accused Russell of taking anti-union actions, though it did not consider the closing of the Honduras factory to be a reaction to efforts to unionize.

The Alabama-based corporation maintained that the factory’s closure was not based on issues related to labor contract negotiations following the factory’s unionization in 2007.

Russell Athletic Executive Vice President Gary Barfield strongly denied the allegation made in the WRC report, explaining that the plant’s closure was one of a series of cutbacks the company has undertaken given decreased demand for its products in the current economic recession.

“We did not close the plant because it was [unionized],” he said. “We closed the plant because of the economic environment.” Barfield added that the closed factory was only one of eight Russell facilities closed within the last year, and none of the others was unionized.

Durkee, who sits on the organization’s board of directors, said that the University imposes a number of conditions on its merchandising licenses, among them product quality standards and assurances that licensees do not prohibit their employees from unionizing.

To enforce these standards, the University relies on the FLA for monitoring, Durkee explained, adding that he was not convinced that anti-union sentiment motivated the closure of Russell’s Honduras plant. “The decision to close this factory was driven by economic conditions,” he said.

The WRC report released to universities affiliated with the company suggested otherwise.

“[T]here is substantial credible evidence that animus against workers’ exercise of their associational rights was a significant factor in Russell’s decision to close Jerzees de Honduras,” the report said. “This is a violation of university codes of conduct — one that is particularly severe, since it has the effect of depriving workers of their livelihood in retaliation for exercising the very rights the codes are designed to protect.”

Ian Carlin ’12, a member of Princeton for Workers’ Rights (PWR), said he thought the report’s findings were valid.

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“At least part of the reason why the factory was closed was because of the unionization going on there,” he said.

An FLA statement issued last month summarizing three investigations conducted on the organization’s behalf supported, at least initially, Barfield’s assertion.

“Given the rapidly declining orders for certain products, the overall global economic context and the wave of factory closures throughout the apparel export sector in Honduras, including three Russell factories in the last year, the FLA finds the economic factors persuasive and accepts that Russell’s decision to close [the factory] was principally a business matter,” the statement said.

The third-party reports on which the FLA statement is based, however, contain conflicting results for the reasons for the plant’s closure.

“The company took a prudent step to significantly reduce manufacturing capacity for fleece products,” according to one report by the Cahn Group. “The downturn in demand together with above normal inventory levels made this step a business imperative.”

But a different third-party report, by labor attorney Adrian Goldin, criticized the closure as motivated by anti-union bias.

“The closure of the factory has been determined, at least to a significant extent, by the existence and activity of the union,” Goldin said.

Goldin’s report also found that some union-supporting workers were fired and “blacklisted” — prevented from finding work elsewhere because of their union work.

PWR member Ben McKean GS said the FLA statement’s disregard for incriminating evidence was motivated by the FLA’s desire to retain Russell’s affiliation within the association. The FLA sets codes of conduct by which affiliate firms agree to conduct themselves, enabling them to deal with university clients.

“They accepted those conclusions contrary to the evidence they gathered,” he said. “They wanted to keep Russell in the organization.”

The FLA did acknowledge in its statement, however, that while the Honduras plant’s closure was appropriate, Russell plant managers had taken anti-union actions, including making “physical threats to union leaders and supporters.”

According to the FLA report, to correct these charges of unfair treatment, the FLA made 19 recommendations to Russell to bring the company into compliance with the association’s code of conduct. These include publicly acknowledging that management hindered employees’ “freedom of association” at Jerzees de Honduras and providing financial compensation and job retraining for workers displaced by the plant’s closure.

The FLA has also recommended that Russell publicly denounce “blacklisting.”

Durkee said he was concerned by the allegations of Russell’s anti-union activities.

“All of the [FLA] reports are consistent that there are a number of respects in which [Russell] failed to meet the expectations of the code,” he said. “There is ample evidence that they did not live up to the standards that we would expect of them.”

Durkee also said that the University should give Russell time to comply with these recommendations before taking any action against them.

“They certainly have agreed to all of the recommendations that have been put forward,” he explained. “We now need to monitor that. I don’t think this is the right time to give up on this company. I think this is a time to continue to hold them accountable.”

The FLA’s goal is to facilitate companies’ progress toward better respecting workers’ rights, Durkee said, and to “give up” on Russell now would be inconsistent with that goal.

Carlin said he remains skeptical of Russell’s commitment to the recommendations.

“Russell has been a serial violator,” he said. “Initially, when the FLA rolled out those [recommendations], they paid it lip service, but they really haven’t done anything.”

PWR has urged the University to end its contract with Russell to send a message to other companies that anti-union activity, as indicated in both the WRC and FLA reports, will not be tolerated.

“If other University licensees see that Russell can get away with this stuff, then we’ll just be encouraging more bad behavior from other companies that we work with,” McKean said.

He added that he believes the University should “nip these problems in the bud and show people that you can’t just get away with this stuff.”