Update: January 24, 2012…
All your support paid off. Remember in November when I sent out an email about six Haitian garment workers making college apparel for Gildan and Hanes who had been blatantly fired after going public as leaders in a newly recognized union? Well, just earlier this month, the WRC issued a report announcing that all the fired union leaders from Gildan’s contractor, Genesis S.A., have been rehired. In Haiti, which has some of the poorest working standards and least regard for worker rights found anywhere in the world, this is quite remarkable. This is the first time workers victim to anti-union retaliation in Haiti have ever been reinstated. 
USASers even went all the way to Montreal to Gildan’s headquarters, where we met with Peter Iliopoulus, Senior Vice President at Gildan. We told the company that we expected to see all 4 of the fired leaders in Genesis S.A. immediately rehired, and that we would report back to our national network at the upcoming conference if we did not see rapid progress.
Better Work, however—a program of the International Labour Organization and the International Finance Corporation—announced it was going to do its own report and encouraged the brands to hold off any action. As the fired workers languished for weeks without their jobs or justice, Better Work took their own sweet time, finally coming out with a report after Thanksgiving, in which they concluded the same thing as the WRC. Finally, the companies for which the factories had been producing, namely Gildan and Hanesbrands, were forced into action.The issue is not fully resolved, however, as one worker leader remains to be rehired in a separate non-college plant called One World, and those who have been rehired have not yet been guaranteed backpay for the time they were without work.
Nevertheless, this is very good news, and a true testament to the power and strength that USAS has built up over the last fifteen years, forcing brands to take students and workers seriously!
In Solidarity,
Ian Trupin
Worker Rights Consortium Board Representative
United Students Against Sweatshops
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A Message from Ian Trupin, November 11, 2011…
Tell Gildan and Hanes: Re-hire SOTA union leaders immediately!
Can you believe it? Workers in Haiti sewing our college-logo apparel for Gildan and Hanes are being fired for speaking out against sweatshop conditions. It’s now or never for us to support workers who are fighting for their rights in the poorest country in the Western Hemipshere - will you tell Gildan and Hanes that they must immediately rehire fired garment worker leaders? Within days of announcing their union, six of seven Haitian union leaders in Port-au-Prince were fired or forced to retire from their factory jobs.This is illegal, yes, but the brands whose products they sew- Gildan and Hanes – think that they are above the law and get away with such inhumane behavior.
When Johnny Joseph went to work, to sew our college gear for Gildan at the Genesis S.A., on Friday, September 23rd, he had only been out as a leader of the newly recognized sector-wide Haitian garment workers’ union, SOTA, for a week. One day at work, he began to feel ill, and asked his boss for permission to go home. His boss refused, so Mr. Joseph kept working, though he felt steadily worse throughout the day. His boss told him that he had to work overtime, and that if he left, he would have to give up his employee badge and quit. When Mr. Joseph couldn’t endure the pain any longer, he signed his resignation paper and went home.
Mr. Joseph was only the first victim to such blatant union-busting. In the following days, three other union leaders at his factory were also fired, along with their fellow union leaders at the Multiwear Factory producing for Hanes, sending a chilling message to the workers making our college gear: If you stand up against sweatshop conditions, you’ll lose your job.
In Solidarity,
Ian Trupin
Student Labor Alliance
Brown University
