Russell Athletic sent a four-page letter to its retail, team, university, and licensing partners to further explain and defend itself against anti-union and sweatshop allegations from activist groups. In the letter, Gary Barfied, Russell's EVP, wrote, “Many of their allegations, while outrageous, can be easily disproved. I want to make sure you are getting accurate information directly from me so that we can defend our good name and reputation and protect the livelihoods of our employees.”
The full letter follows:
Dear Customer:
I am writing to share the latest news on what has been a most difficult situation for our company. As you may know, activists have targeted our company with a deliberate misinformation campaign regarding our operations in
We have had numerous discussions with customers all over the country and we know that many of you fully appreciate the dubious motives and tactics of these activists. My purpose in writing is not to confront these activists, but merely to continue to set the record straight.
The central false claim of the activists is that we closed one of our Honduran plants, Jerzees de Honduras (JDH), because workers there tried to unionize. Even though the global economic downturn has forced us to shut down 9 plants since the beginning of 2008 and reduce our worldwide employment by more than 12,000 jobs, JDH is the only one that has drawn attention. I want to make sure you understand why the JDH factory has become such a lightening rod.
As you read the facts, it is important to keep in mind that JDH was the only unionized plant to close; the others were non-union. While expressing loud indignation at the JDH closure, at no time have the activists ever expressed a single note of concern for the displaced employees at the other closed plants, or even for the non-union employees at JDH (which were the majority). Their sole focus seems to be the union workers at JDH.
To advance this campaign, the activists have gone to great lengths to paint Russell Athletic as “the bad guys.” We have been accused of operating sweatshops, making or sanctioning death threats, having ties to human trafficking and practicing slave labor. One recent college student newspaper even carried an “article” linking us to promoters of prostitution.
We expect that you will hear more from these activists. Before that happens, we ask you to consider some relevant facts that no one has ever disputed:
Russell is not alone in our need to respond to the economic slowdown. Plants have been closing all over the world. An independent report commissioned by the Fair Labor Association (FLA) and performed by A.L.G.I., a group of labor compliance experts, documented that 25 Honduran manufacturing facilities closed in 2008 alone.
Another report commissioned by the FLA and done by The Cahn Group, a corporate responsibility consulting firm, found there were two clear business reasons for closing JDH: 1) Demand for products sewn there was lower than any of our other factories, and 2) it was the only facility with a lease that permitted us to vacate immediately, conserving more than $2 million in avoidable costs.
Under Honduran law, it requires only 30 people to organize a union at a facility. Yet, even with that extremely low threshold [by
We had already recognized the union at JDH for more than a year before announcing the plant closure. The A.L.G.I. report confirmed there was a “cooperative rapport” between management and union leaders. The report stated: “It was only when Jerzees de Honduras management communicated that the facility was going to close down that the problems seemed to start.” Indeed, the
To be clear, there were some problems surrounding union recognition that occurred at JDH and a different Russell plant in
In addition, the Worker Rights Consortium (WRC), one of the most vocal of the activist critics, distributed a January 2008 memo to all WRC member schools praising us for making “very substantial progress.” At one point, the WRC called our efforts “unusually successful” and wrote, “This was accomplished as a result of effective cooperation between management and the union.”
Yet now, in 2009, the allegations of Russells “anti-union behavior” focus largely on the events of the past. It is neither right nor fair, and its certainly not truthful, for critics to continue to restate the 2007 events as if theyre still happening in 2009 while ignoring the corrective actions that were taken and the intervening circumstances of the severe economic downturn that forced the closure of 9 of our plants. Furthermore, it simply defies logic that in only a few months time, we would undo all the positive progress for which we were praised.
Of course, much of what our critics say defies logic. Why would Honduran activists touring colleges claim Russell Athletic did not pay them all their wages and severance when we have documentation from the Honduran Ministry of Labor and signed statements from the workers themselves that prove otherwise? If these people are not telling the truth about something so easily disproven as failure to pay wages and severance, can they really be trusted when it comes to the other outrageous and undocumented claims they have been making on college campuses all over the country?
As another example, the WRC has publicly accused us of fabricating a claim that we voluntarily gave JDH workers paid time off to go on job interviews. We have numerous documented examples that prove the truth of our claim. Of course, only after accusing us of lying and being challenged on it did the WRC even bother to contact us on the issue in a half-hearted attempt at verification.
Finally, this week USAS inferred in a web posting that JCPenney terminated our relationship because of this issue. The fact is that in mid-March, we were notified that JCPenneys new brand strategy would result in the elimination of the Russell Athletic brand (along with several others) in their stores. That decision was made before JCPenney even received the letter from USAS in early April. We know that USAS was clearly informed by JCPenney in a letter that the JDH situation had nothing to do with its decision, but of course, USAS portrays the “facts” in the light most favorable to their agenda.
Unfortunately, this is indicative of the methods and reliability of the entire body of the “investigation” that the activists purport to rely on in their campaign against Russell. Their job is easy. It is a case study in using hearsay, innuendo, rumor, defamation, jumping to conclusions and every other disdainful sort of unrestrained activism.
They simply say whatever they want to knowing that nobody will dare hold them to any reasonable standard of
accountability. The actions of the activists in this situation are truly shameful, but they seem to believe that the end justifies the means.
As a result of the campaign against us, more than 20 schools have terminated their contracts with Russell, many without even giving us the courtesy of an opportunity to present our side of the story. Fortunately however, not everyone is so easily swayed by the activists propaganda, as more than 200 other schools have decided in 2009 to renew their agreements. Many of these schools have given Russell Athletic a chance to tell our side of the story and, afterward, they felt comfortable in continuing to partner with us. They have done so even under the pressure of the activists misinformation campaign. It would in many ways have been easier for them to “make the problem go
away” by simply cancelling our contract, but these schools determined the facts in this case made sticking with Russell the right thing to do. One school advised us recently that after a thorough investigation by their committee,
they found no basis for any college or university to suspend our contract, noting a recognition that Russell has become embroiled in a “very ugly political situation”. We very much appreciate their willingness, and the willingness of schools like them, to make a principled decision and not succumb to political pressures.
Looking forward, we are in the middle of implementing a Continuous Improvement Process in our corporate responsibility program developed in response to recommendations we received from the FLA. Among other things, it includes a series of steps to help our displaced employees and to further protect the rights to freedom of association at our remaining plants. The
We urge you to visit www.russellsocialresponsibility.com, as it provides a great deal of information about the JDH situation and our cooperation with the FLA. If you have any questions, though, please contact your sales representative or feel free to give me a call at 678-742-8000.
I apologize for the length of this letter, but sincerely appreciate your taking the time to consider the facts of this matter.
Sincerely,
Gary Barfield
Executive Vice President
Russell Athletic/Spalding
