After the University of Wisconsin announced last week it would end its relationship with Russell Athletics next month due to questionable labor practices, two employees from Russell’s Honduras facility spoke out on campus Tuesday night concerning their experiences while working for the apparel producer.
The two employees, also union leaders, gave accounts regarding the serious opposition they experienced from the company’s supervisors while trying to organize, receiving even death threats.
Norma Castellanos, vice president for the Sitra Jerzees Union, said it came to the point where she was forced to take a different route home because she feared for her safety.
“The company started carrying out campaigns against us,” Castellanos said. “They would have supervisory workers at the factory actually make death threats — leaving messages in our work stations that they were going to decapitate us.”
According to Special Assistant to the Chancellor for Community Relations Dawn Crim, the UW Labor Licensing Policy Committee recommended the university end its relationship with the company back in December 2008 because it was not in compliance with its labor practices agreement.
On Jan. 28, the Fair Labor Association released a statement regarding its third-party investigation reports of the Honduras plant, which determined the closing was due principally to economic hardships.
According to Lydia Zepeda, UW professor of consumer science and UW Labor Licensing Policy Committee member, the FLA statement did not represent the investigation entirely.
Zepeda said both the FLA report and the Worker’s Rights Consortium report released months earlier corroborate evidence the facility did not close primarily due to economic troubles, but rather to violate employee’s rights to organize.
Castellanos and her counterpart Moises Alvarado, president of the Sitra Jerzees Union, said coming to the United States has been an eye-opening experience because they have seen the huge profits coming from the products they make for exceptionally low wages.
Castellanos and Alvarado added the labor practices implemented by the facility in Honduras have led to serious struggles to support not only themselves but also their families.
“I think our struggle is just, (and) I think we deserve a fair wage that we can support our families with,” Alvarado said.
Castellanos said she has been blacklisted from other companies throughout Honduras and is unable to find a job or pay for her children to attend school. She added the only way to move forward is to denounce events such as this when they occur.
According to Zepeda, Russell Athletics still has a chance to reestablish ties with the university before its contract expires in March if they reopen the factory and “negotiate in good faith” with the union.
