Sometimes, The Good Guys Win

Let's celebrate the victory of what was once a ragtag group of student activists against the large and profitable Russell Athletic (owned by Fruit of the Loom).

As reported by Steven Greenhouse in today's New York Times, pressure on Russell picked up dramatically last January when the company closed one of its Honduran factories, Jerzees de Honduras, shortly after the 1200 workers there had voted to unionize.

The company agreed Tuesday (1) to open a new factory, Jerzees Nuevo Dia (New Day), which will hire the laid-off workers, (2) to recognize the workers' union and proceed with good-faith collective bargaining, (3) to place laid-off workers who cannot be placed at the new factory at other Russell facilities in Honduras, and (4) to pursue a policy of non-interference in regards to unionization efforts at all Honduran Russell and Fruit of the Loom facilities (click here to read the Russell public announcement).

The student lobbying effort was led by United Students Against Sweatshops (USAS), which over the course of a year orchestrated a nationwide campaign, convincing the administrations of universities from Boston College to the University of Michigan to suspend their licensing agreements with Russell. According to the Times, some of those agreements yielded more than $1 million in sales.

In addition, "student activists picked the NBA finals in Orlando and Los Angeles ... to protest the league's licensing agreement with Russell. They distributed fliers inside Sports Authority sporting goods stores and sent Twitter messages to customers of Dick's Sporting Goods to urge them to boycott Russell products."

USAS has been resisting Russell for years, slowly building the coalition that persuaded universities to adopt codes of conduct for licensees' factories that could then be used to convince those same universities to suspend Russell's licenses when the coalition produced evidence of worker harassment and intimidation.

USAS also persuaded more than sixty US members of Congress to sign a letter to Russell, expressing "grave concern" about the reports of violations of worker rights, and noting that if the reports were true, "the factory has violated internationally recognized labor standards, Russell's own code of conduct, and Honduran law...."

Ever wonder what just one person can do? Here's your answer: Organize.