Students, Workers Urge Georgetown to Defend Workers’ Rights

by James Parks, Feb 2, 2009

Students at Georgetown University today called on the school to honor its ethical commitments and cut ties with an apparel manufacturer that students say busted a union and violated workers’ rights at a plant in Honduras.

At a rally on the university’s campus in Washington, D.C., Moises Elias Montoya Alvarado and Norma Estela Mejia Castellanos, who work at Russell Athletics’ Jerzees de Honduras factory—which produces Georgetown logo apparel—described how the company closed the plant this past weekend and shipped the work to cheaper nonunion plants. The Jerzees de Honduras factory, located near Pedro Sula, Honduras, is the only unionized Russell plant in the country.

“We have been campaigning for a year and a half to end the abuses in our factory and ensure that we are treated with dignity and respect,” said Montoya Alvarado.

Because I have stood up for my rights and the rights of my co-workers, I have been the subject of violent retaliation, including death threats written on the factory walls and threatening notes left at my sewing machine. I came here today, together with these students, because Georgetown has the power to help put an end to the abuses and death threats that my co-workers and I face at home.

Russell announced its plan to close the plant in October 2008. Prior to the closing, several universities including Miami of Florida, the University of Minnesota and Georgetown, urged the company not to close the plant or delay the action.

The Georgetown students say closing a factory due, partially or wholly, to the formation of a union is a violation of the school’s codes of conduct for apparel production. They delivered a letter to university President John DeGioia, urging him to immediately cancel the school’s apparel deal with Russell. 

Marley Moynahan, a sophomore at Georgetown and a member of the Georgetown Solidarity Committee, an affiliate of United Students Against Sweatshops, says it’s the right thing to do.

As a Jesuit university, we expect our campus community and Georgetown as an institution to be a leader in worker rights and to stand in solidarity with those whose dignity is neglected and whose voices are being suppressed. Georgetown should remain true to its contracts and its codes of ethics.

The University of Miami, a major licenser of logo apparel, already has terminated its licensing deal with Russell over the violations, and other universities are considering similar moves, Moynahan says.

Russell is the largest supplier of athletic team uniforms in the United States and also sells sweatshirts, T-shirts, fleece and other casual wear throughout the world. It has more than $1 billion in annual sales and employs more than 15,000 employees worldwide.

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