At 2:00am last night in Bangladesh, Kalpona Akter was arrested by 20 police and taken away.  Just months ago, Kalpona sat with USAS members at our Midwest Regional Conference speaking about her important work as a garment worker and a labor organizer with the Bangladesh Center for Worker Solidarity (BCWS).

Wal-Mart is allowing severe repression of worker rights advocates in Bangladesh like Kalpona and others of the BCWS.  Wal-Mart, Bangladesh’s largest customer, is sitting by in the face of aggressive union busting, violent government repression, and the filing of criminal charges against labor rights advocates by Wal-Mart’s major Bangladeshi supplier, the Nassa Group.  Those targeted as “terrorists” for inciting worker unrest include USAS’s allies at the BCWS like Kalpona.  Take action and forward this link to your friends!

Media coverage on USAS victory:
» New York Times article
» Time Magazine article
» Democracy Now (9 minutes into headlines)
» Wall Street Journal article
» In These Times article
» Send more news clips to email hidden; JavaScript is required

Minutes ago, the CGT union in Honduras announced that it reached an agreement with Nike on behalf of the 1,800 former workers who sewed Nike college apparel at the factories Hugger de Honduras and Vision Tex.  One year and six months after the factories closed and failed to pay $2.5 million in severance to the workers, and after a USAS campaign severed Nike contracts with universities for the first time ever, workers and USAS forced Nike to agree to everything they had been demanding.

» See USAS press release on the Just Pay It campaign victory

According to the joint announcement from the CGT and Nike, Nike will pay $1.5 million in a cash settlement plus a year of health insurance, and will give priority hiring and training to the 1,800 affected workers.  This is a total victory for USAS student activists across the continent and for the courageous garment workers who kept the heat on Nike on the ground in Honduras.

This is a watershed moment for USAS and the anti-sweatshop movement.  Ever since the 1990s, when Nike led the race to the bottom that produced shocking sweatshop headlines, the sportswear giant has refused to acknowledge responsibility for worker abuses at its subcontracted supplier factories where workers actually cut and sew Nike products.

Ex-workers demand Nike pay them what they're owed at a rally in Honduras, June 12, 2010.

Today that era is over.  Nike’s full payment of the severance owed to workers at these contracted supplier factories sets an unmistakable precedent:  Apparel corporations will be held accountable for workers’ rights in their supply chain.  No more excuses.

Just months ago Nike dishonestly asserted, “no collegiate licensed product was made in either Vision Tex or Hugger,” and stubbornly swore, “Nike will not be paying severance to workers that were employed by Hugger and Vision Tex.”  Surprisingly, Nike has left those statements on its website here (but just in case they get embarrassed and remove that page, we’ll archive it here).

Nike only became more honest and finally came to this agreement after major economic pressure levied by students campaigning to end their universities’ lucrative contracts with Nike.  Students at the University of Wisconsin made their school the first ever to terminate a contract with Nike over worker rights violations, and Cornell University students fought on into the summer months to finally get a decision to end their school’s contract with Nike as well.

Today’s victory is the first major USAS victory over Nike.  In 2001, USAS fought in solidarity with the workers of Kukdong, a Nike supplier in Mexico, and the campaign won recognition for the first independent union in the maquila industry in Mexico.

The Worker Rights Consortium — the only independent organization monitoring factories producing college apparel — played a major role investigating Nike’s violations, producing several comprehensive reports for their affiliate universities.  Students used the reports to illustrate how Nike had violated universities’ codes of conducts and to compel universities to take action and cut contracts with Nike.

Noticeably absent from the field in this sweatshop skirmish was the Fair Labor Association, a notoriously weak-kneed factory monitoring organization created by Nike and other brands with the Clinton administration. While the FLA’s persistent attempts to exonerate apparel companies for wrongdoing has significantly delayed and disrupted workers getting justice in past cases, their absence and refusal to hear out complaints brought by workers led to a speedy and fair resolution.

The most recent Nike victory also comes within a year of the USAS victory with Honduran unionists who work for Fruit of the Loom, the largest private employer in Honduras.  USAS activists orchestrated the largest collegiate boycott of a single company in history, with over 100 universities cutting ties to Fruit’s Russell Athletic.  Fruit entered into a truly historic agreement with workers’ union.  With these back-to-back victories, student-labor activism is reaching new heights.

Ready to get more involved?  Contact email hidden; JavaScript is required today!

USAS members and alum in Seattle have educated consumers outside the Niketown store day after day this week.

As student activists continue to step up efforts to educate consumers at Nike retail stores across the country, positive feedback is pouring.  One concerned customer e-mailed USAS to let us know that when he spoke with a Niketown store manager, the manager assured the customer that while Nike does in fact produce its apparel in sweatshops, Nike would be “closing them down” soon.  This is obviously nonsense:  first, it would amount to Nike abandoning workers rather than fixing problems.  Secondly, in the current cases of Hugger de Honduras and Vision Tex, the entire problem is that the factories already shut down due to Nike shifting its orders elsewhere

Meanwhile, the pressure is mounting on President Mark Emmert of the University of Washington as he continues to refuse taking meaningful action compelling Nike to pay the $2.2 million owed workers.  Last week over three dozen local community leaders wrote to Emmert urging him to follow the recommendation of his own advisory committee on licensing and pledge not to renew Nike’s contract with the UW.

Emmert snubbed the community leaders with this 50-word response from his Blackberry:

From: “MARK A. EMMERT” <email hidden; JavaScript is required>
Date: Mon, 19 Jul 2010 10:00:06 -0700
Subject: Re: Nike’s Predatory Exploitation of Workers, Lack of Response by the University of Washington

Rod and Colleagues,

Thank you for your letter. I very much appreciate your interest and concern and will keep them in mind as we move forward on this matter.

Please know that I remain attentive to it these issues. I am also actively involved in conversations with other institutions and entities.

Thank you for your engagement.

ME

Mark Emmert

[ sent via BlackBerry ]

While President Emmert and other university officials keep busy with those “institutions and entities”, workers in Honduras are facing the harsh realities of going unemployed for nearly a year and half.  Since the two Nike supplier factories closed in January 2009 and workers face anti-union blacklisting at other workplaces, most of the 1,800 ex-workers are struggling to put food on the table.  Still, the ex-workers have kept up the pressure on Nike in Honduras.

Do your part to pressure Nike to Just Pay It!  Contact email hidden; JavaScript is required to get involved.

A decade ago, workers began organizing a union at BJ&B, the Dominican Republic factory making Nike and Reebok caps for U.S. universities. USAS and BJ&B workers struggled together through a series of unprecedented victories and devastating losses. Yesterday, the New York Times announced that former BJ&B unionists are making history again:  At the Alta Gracia factory, the courageous women who led the union efforts at BJ&B are finally making university apparel with a strong union and living wages!

Celebrate this major step forward: share the New York Times article, and make a donation to USAS!  Your support is crucial to continue the struggle to make every apparel corporation source from union factories and pay a fair price to workers.

In 2006, BJ&B workers pose with USAS organizers holding signs in support of the Designated Suppliers Program, USAS's solution to ensure all university apparel is sourced from good union factories where brands pay a fair price so workers can collectively bargain for a living wage. (Credit: Cornell Chronicle)

In 2003, after 20 BJ&B workers leading the union effort were fired, USAS launched a campaign targeting Nike and Adidas/Reebok, the main brands sourcing from the factory.  Not only did workers win their jobs back, but they won a historic union contract with wages and benefits that the New York Times called “unheard of.” But the victory was short lived.  Brands began systematically pulling out their business and moving to non-union sweatshops, flagrantly violating universities’ apparel codes of conduct.  In 2007 Nike announced the closure of BJ&B – punishing the factory for improving labor standards.  USAS and BJ&B workers’ union, FEDOTRAZONAS, fought to bring the good union jobs back to over 2,000 workers left jobless in Villa Altagracia, the community devasted by BJ&B’s closing.

Now, after a decade of campaigns by garment workers and USAS targeting apparel brands, Knights Apparel – Nike’s largest competitor in the collegiate apparel market – has agreed to open the new factory in Villa Altagracia, hire back all of the BJ&B union leaders, recognize their union and pay a fair price so that the union can bargain for living wages.  The apparel will be sold in bookstores under the brand name Alta Gracia.

Let’s celebrate this important breakthrough: spread the word, and make a contribution to sustain our movement.

What’s happening in Villa Altagracia is yet another step for USAS and garment workers in changing the university apparel industry.  Together we’ll keep working towards the day when all university apparel will be produced in union factories where workers can collectively bargain for living wages.

Congratulations to every generation of USAS organizers who fought in solidarity with BJ&B workers.  The struggle continues!

On July 15th, a broad coalition of professors, community leaders, public organizations, alumni and students in Seattle sent an open letter to University of Washington President Mark Emmert demanding that he end the UW’s licensing contract with Nike.  In June, the President’s own Advisory Committee to Trademarks and Licensing unanimously recommend that he end the contract with Nike after more than a year of failing to address the severance pay owed to workers in Honduras, in violation of the school’s Licensee Code of Conduct. The increasing high-profile pressure means that the University of Washington could soon join Cornell and the University of Wisconsin in taking a strong stand against sweatshop abuses by Nike.

» See also: Press Release from UW SLAP, the USAS affiliate at UW-Seattle

OPEN PUBLIC LETTER TO PRESIDENT EMMERT
July 15, 2010

Dear President Emmert,

As you know, the Presidential Advisory Committee on Trademarks and Licensing recently recommended that the University of Washington not renew its licensing contract with Nike this coming December, barring the workers receiving “the terminal compensation owed to them under Honduran law,” or arriving at a “settlement agreement” regarding this unpaid severance.1

While the cases of the Hugger de Honduras and Vision Tex factories first came to the University of Washington’s attention before any other higher education institution in 2009, many other schools are now taking action against Nike’s violation of collegiate codes of conduct. In March 2010, the University of Wisconsin–Madison became the first university in the country to ever terminate a licensing agreement with Nike over sweatshop abuses.2 Since Wisconsin’s cut, many other universities’ anti-sweatshop oversight bodies have started seriously deliberating about how to respond to Nike’s violations, including the University of California system, Indiana University, University of Maryland, Rutgers University, State University of New York system, and New York University, among others.

Additionally, just this past week Cornell University became the second school after Wisconsin to commit to cutting their contract with Nike over the Hugger and Vision Tex cases. Cornell’s President David Skorton, decided “to allow the licensing agreement to run through its expiration date of December 31, 2010,” at which point he would allow Cornell’s “agreement to expire unless significant progress is made”3 – exactly the same recommendation that the UW’s Advisory Committee on Trademarks and Licensing has made to you. President Skorton explains his decision by pointing out that he wanted “to allow Nike time to accelerate discussions…underway between the company and union,” but that he would allow the contract to expire “if Nike does not, in…an ample period of time, make satisfactory progress in bringing this matter to a conclusion.”4

We believe that Cornell’s commitment to not renew its Nike contract at the end of December is very significant for two reasons: it is the same course of action that ACTL recommended the UW take in early June, and Cornell will be cutting its licensing contract with Nike, without cancelling its athletics contract.5 Like the UW, Nike sponsors Cornell’s athletics program through an exclusive sideline agreement with the University, making Cornell’s commitment the first time a college with its sports program bankrolled by Nike, has decided to end its licensing contract with the company over labor rights violations. President Emmert, over a year ago the University of Washington was at the forefront of higher education institutions that took strong stands against sweatshop abuses in the production of collegiate apparel. Since then, our leadership on Nike’s worker rights abuses in Honduras has been eclipsed by our peers at the University of Wisconsin and Cornell, with other schools positioning themselves to take more meaningful action than us in the near future. Given Provost Wise and Regent Smith’s conflicts of interest in serving on Nike’s own Board of Directors, which has made the UW into a national case study of undue corporations influence at a public university, it is even more important that you follow your own committee’s advice, as well as Cornell President Skorton’s recent action.

As concerned students, faculty, workers and community members of the University of
Washington, we respectfully request that you commit to not renewing the UW’s licensing
agreement with Nike this December, unless Nike reaches a settlement with the Honduran union
that makes the workers of Hugger and Vision Tex whole again. A failure to do so will make a
mockery out of the UW’s code of conduct and past leadership on anti-sweatshop issues, and will
confirm that some corporations are more equal than others, and can get away with egregious
sweatshop abuses – as long as they bankroll college sports.

We look forward to hearing your response.
Respectfully,
The Undersigned

Stephanie Adler, Student Labor Action Project Representative to the Advisory Committee to Trademarks and Licensing (‘09)

Bob Barnes, Co-Chair, Jobs with Justice King County Organizing Committee

Kristen Beifus, Director, WA State Fair Trade Coalition

Juan Jose Bocanegra, El Comité Pro-Reforma Migratoria y Justicia Social

Rick Bonus, Associate Professor, American Ethnic Studies UW

Maralyn Chase, Washington State House of Representatives, 32nd District

Heather Day, Director, Community Alliance for Global Justice

Greg Devereux, Executive Director of WFSE, State Council 28

Hala Dillsi, Associated Students of the University of Washington (ASUW),  Director of Community Relations (’05 – ’06)

Jake Faleschini, Graduate and Professional Student Senate  (GPSS),   President (’08 – ‘10)

Angelina Snodgrass Godoy, Assistant Professor, Law, Societies and Justice and Jackson School of International Studies UW

Larry Gossett, King County Councilmember (District 2)

Vinod Goswami, UFCW Local 21

James Gregory, Professor, Department of History UW

María Guillén Valdovinos, Former Chair, ASUW La Raza Commission (’08) and Women’s Commission (’09)

Trevor Griffey, Co-Chair, UW Licensing Advisory Committee (’07 – ‘08)

Rick Hoffman, King County Labor Council

Eunice How, Co-Chair, Jobs with Justice King County Organizing Committee

Steve Lansing, UFCW Local 21

Nick Licata, Seattle City Councilmember

Ashley Miller, ASUW Vice-President (’06)

James Metheny, Seattle Housing and Resource Effort

Lonnie Nelson, Mothers for Police Accountability

David Parsons, President, UAW Local 4121

Pride at Work, King County Chapter

Connie Rodriguez, Laborers International Union

Ileana Rodriguez-Silva, Associate Professor, History UW

Andrew Schwartz, ASUW Representative to the Advisory Committee to Trademarks and Licensing (‘09)

Matthew Sparke, Professor, Geography Department and Jackson School of International Studies UW

Jeff Stevens, GPSS Secretary (‘05)

United Auto Workers Local 4121 E-Board

• David Parsons, President
• Jessica Pikul, Vice President
• Evette Jasper, Financial Secretary
• Dylan Mayer, Recording Secretary
• Phil Harding, Trustee
• Jean Dinh, Trustee
• Steven Beda, Sergeant-at-Arms

Services Employees International Union Local 925, UW Chapter

SweatFree Washington

United Students Against Sweatshops, Seattle Organizing Committee

UW Student Labor Action Project

UW SweatFree Coalition

Washington State Fair Trade Coalition

Washington State Jobs with Justice, King County Organizing Committee

Yecelica Valdivia, Former Chair, ASUW La Raza Commission (’07) and Gay, Bisexual, Lesbian, Transgender Commission (’08)

---

[1] Margaret Levi correspondence with President Emmert & ACTL, Advice re Nike, June 8, 2010

[2] University of Wisconsin–Madison News, UW–Madison to end Nike licensing relationship, April 9, 2010, http://www.news.wisc.edu/17937

[3] David Skorton correspondence with Cornell Licensing Oversight Committee, Letter from Cornell University President, June 29, 2010

[4] Ibid.

[5] Inside Higher Education, Another One Bites The Dust, July 2, 2010, http://www.insidehighered.com/news/2010/07/02/nike

Mr. Nigel was unavailable, so the students covered the front of the building in flyers to educate Nike’s neighbors and the many pedestrians passing by.

In other news, check out this report in the Huffington Post summarizing the Just Pay It campaign to date: “Student Campaign Takes on Nike Like Never Before”

Inside Higher Ed covered the Cornell victory under the headline “Another One Bites the Dust.”  In April, the University of Wisconsin became the first-ever school to cut ties with Nike over worker rights violations, following a campaign by USAS affiliate Student Labor Action Coalition.

The latest article debunks Nike’s excuses for not paying the $2.2 million they owe workers in Honduras:

While Nike has offered training and vocational programs, the company insists the payments are the responsibility of the subcontractors. That position, however, runs afoul of many university codes of conduct – including Cornell’s, which holds licensees responsible for the actions of subcontractors, the university’s oversight committee maintains.

In a letter announcing the decision, Cornell president David Skorton said that the Ivy league school will drop Nike when its licensing contract with the sportswear giant expires on December 31, unless “significant progress” is made.  Given the clear-cut nature of the case, the only reasonable measure of progress is whether or not Nike has paid the $2.2 million legally owed to workers.

As we celebrate this victory, students around the country continue to wage the “Just Pay It!” campaign on their campuses and in their cities.  To bring the movement to your campus, e-mail email hidden; JavaScript is required

See also:

» June 23, 2010: Ex-Workers’ Letters Emphasize Daily Suffering while Nike and Universities Drag their Feet
» May 1, 2010: Thousands march on Nike in company’s hometown
» April 28, 2010: Nike on Trial in its Hometown: Portland Community Leaders Call for Fairness after Hearing

Cornell’s action comes in the wake of protests organized by local chapters of United Students Against Sweatshops, a national labor rights watchdog group. The campaign, called “Just Pay It!,” succeeded in pressuring the University of Wisconsin to cut its contract with Nike in March, and is expanding to other colleges asking them to follow suit. The University of Washington and University of California system are currently considering whether to drop Nike.

Members of Cornell Students Against Sweatshops and the Cornell Organization for Labor Action waged a 6-month campaign to pressure the University to drop Nike. The students organized educational teach-ins; got endorsements of over 30 Cornell organizations, including the Student Athletes Council; passed faculty and student government resolutions calling for a contract cut with Nike; brought worker representatives from the two affected factories in Honduras to speak on campus; held morning “Working Out for Workers Rights” exercise sessions that led to the student newspaper endorsing their Nike campaign; and held rallies and protests demanding that the University Administration cut Cornell’s contract.

“We think President Skorton’s decision to let Cornell’s Nike contract expire in December sends a strong message to Nike: clean up your act, or other schools will follow Cornell and cut contracts,” said Casey Sweeney ’13, who is the President of the Cornell Organization for Labor Action, and a Regional Organizer with United Students Against Sweatshops. Sweeney added that so far, “President Skorton has not mentioned what will happen with Cornell’s 5-year exclusive athletics contract with Nike,” which is currently being considered for renewal. Casey Sweeney says that “the entire communities of Cornell and Ithaca got behind our campaign to hold Nike accountable,” and students “want to see President Skorton clarify that Cornell’s athletics contract won’t be considered for renewal until December.”

Additionally, the students plan on holding the University to its promises next fall semester. “Cornell needs to prepare itself for the serious possibility of Nike failing to pay its workers the money they’re owed,” said Alex Bores ’13, who’s the President of Cornell Students Against Sweatshops. “One way President Skorton can prepare for losing Nike’s sponsorship of Cornell athletics, is by actively searching for other potential contractors right now,” says Bores, who went on to say that “next year, our campaign will most likely focus on talking to students and athletes about what sports company they’d prefer to replace Nike as Cornell’s main athletic sponsor.” President Skorton’s decision makes Cornell the first school whose athletics program is sponsored by Nike, to publicly commit to dropping its business with the company over labor rights violations.

But universities that give Nike lucrative contracts, like Cornell University, are still dragging their feet while workers’ families have suffered over 17 months without jobs and without the money Nike owes.  Now is the time for action:  If you haven’t yet, please send an e-mail to Cornell president David Skorton and urge him to terminate Cornell’s contract with Nike immediately.

Despite the dramatic and urgent reality for the 1,800 workers affected, Cornell and other universities are demonstrating a total disregard for the seriousness of this situation.  They should follow the example of the University of Wisconsin, Madison, where a student campaign persuaded the school to terminate its licensing contract with Nike.  Nike executives themselves must also stop making excuses and Just Pay It!

Ex-Workers’ Letters to Nike

Antonia, an ex-worker at Vision Tex, writes:

Ex-workers of Nike supplier factory Vision Tex rally to demand the money they are owed. June 12, 2010.

Nike,

I am Antonia Lopez Andrade, an ex-employee of Vision Tex with the identification number 0502-1961-00030. The motive for this note is to ask you to take responsibility for all of my rights that I earned as a worker. Since my job with you ended, you owe me 2 weeks of wages, the Christmas bonus, vacation and all of these past 17 months without work. I have had many difficult problems, economic problems. I need the money for groceries at the store, and I do not want to wait any longer. This also makes me so worried that I suffer nights of insomnia and hopelessness over my mortgage and keeping my lights on and the water running.

Please reply.  [Download the original letter in Spanish.]

Gladys, who worked at the Hugger facility, writes:

June 19, 2010

Employee number 1807-1964-01618

I am Gladys Yolanda Ortiz. I worked for 8 years at the factory Hugger de Honduras, which closed operations without paying me my severance. Because of this, I ask that Nike Inc. comply with their own code of conduct for all of us workers – everyone who worked at Hugger de Honduras for a very long time and for low wages. We have been without work, and without money. For this reason, we beg Nike Inc. to pay us what is rightfully ours. They are a large, prestigious company that takes pride in being socially responsible.

Sincerely,

Gladys Yolanda Ortiz [Download the original letter in Spanish.]

Dilcia from Hugger writes:

Saturday, June 19, 2010

I am an operator affected by the factory closure. My name is Dilcia Lorena Zelaya. I worked at the factory that closed operations and left us without our severance. We demand that Nike pay us for having labored to make their branded products and, above all, that they be fair to their workers. We are only demanding our rights. For example, I originally worked one year and did not even receive maternity for my son. Please pay us.

Sincerely,

Dilcia Lorena Zelaya

Hugger textile factory   [Download the original letter in Spanish.]

And finally, Marta from Vision Tex writes:

Executives of Nike,

I am Marta Lidia Garcia, ex-employee of Vision Tex. I worked for 3 years and have nothing to show for it. I am a single mother with four children. I am currently unemployed and my children need many things, including things for school. Now my kids can’t go to school. Why? Because I can’t give them what they need to go to school. It is because of this that I need to be paid my severance. I ask you to please help us obtain our severance pay. We are suffering very much right now in Honduras and cannot find other work. Help us, please.

Marta Lidia Garcia   [Download the original letter in Spanish.]

Please share these important stories by e-mail, Facebook, Twitter and with people you talk with today. Again, if you have not yet taken a moment to express your concerns to Cornell University’s administration, please e-mail Cornell president David Skorton now. Your voice is an important part of this urgent struggle for justice.

Ex-workers demand Nike pay them what they're owed at a rally in Honduras, June 12, 2010.

Take action now:  Tell Cornell to Cut Nike!

Hundreds of you have already e-mailed President Skorton, urging him to terminate Nike’s contract immediately to send a strong message that worker rights violations will not be tolerated.

Workers in the factories Hugger de Honduras and Vision Tex lost their jobs in January 2009.  They were sewing Nike apparel for U.S. universities.  Both factories were shut down when Nike dramatically decreased its orders following workers beginning to organize unions.  The ex-workers of the two plants, together with USAS and the Honduran union federation CGT (Central General de Trabajadores), are demanding Nike pay the $2.2 million dollars legally mandated severance pay.  Nike has not fulfilled this basic responsibility to workers, and the situation for the workers and their children is becoming more dire by the day.

The ex-workers are still taking action in Honduras to demand Nike pay what they’re owed.  Check out this slideshow of photos from workers’ most recent rally.

USAS affiliates at schools around the country are waging a campaign we call “Just Pay It!”, calling on our colleges and universities to stop doing business with Nike until they pay workers everything that they are owed.  To get involved at your school, e-mail email hidden; JavaScript is required.