The discovery of workers’ rights violations in a Lands’ End factory in El Salvador prompted Georgetown University not to renew its contract with the company this year.
Lands’ End, whose contract with Georgetown expires this January, was responsible for manufacturing apparel bearing the Georgetown University logo. The Georgetown University Licensing Oversight Committee made the recommendation to cancel the contract after Lands’ End failed to comply with Georgetown University’s Code of Conduct for Licensees.
In his Jan. 22 letter to Lands’ End, which finalized the decision to cancel the contract, Vice President for Public Affairs and Strategic Development Dan Porterfield cited the Code of Conduct for Licensees as the reason for the cancellation. “Licensees shall recognize and respect the right of employees to freedom of association and collective bargaining,” the Code of Conduct states.
The LOC made the decision to end relations with the company after learning that it was engaging in “blacklisting,” the practice of refusing to employ unionized workers.
The Workers’ Rights Consortium, a non-profit organization whose purpose is to help enforce the manufacturing Codes of Conduct adopted by its 106 affiliated colleges and universities, discovered that blacklisting was occurring in a Lands’ End factory in El Salavador. The factory, called Primo S.A de C.V., lies in the San Bartolo free trade zone in El Salvador. According to LOC and GU Solidarity member Megan Murphy (CAS ‘06), blacklisting is common in San Bartolo.
Since October 2003, the WRC, of which Georgetown is a founding member, and the LOC have been communicating with Lands’ End about violations of workers rights, but with little progress. “Until recently, Lands’ End flatly denied the existence of any blacklisting or workers rights violations,” stated LOC member Emil Totonchi (SFS ‘06).
It was only after Land’s End learned that Georgetown, along with several other colleges and universities, was canceling its contract, that they admitted that there were workers rights violations in Primo.
Chris Mordi, a spokesman for Lands’ End, said that the company was working with the Fair Labor Association to try to immediately formulate and execute a plan to solve the problem of workers’ rights violations. The FLA is a non-profit coalition of companies, colleges and universities, and Non-governmental Organizations which monitors facilities used by member companies of the FLA for violations of workers rights.
Totonchi however, said that progress was very slow. “They have yet to make any real, concrete policy changes to remedy the situation in Primo,” he said.
The WRC investigated the factory in October and November 2002. In their Preliminary Findings and Recommendations report, which was published in March, they stated that they found evidence of blacklisting. Many companies operate in the San Bartolo free trade zone under special customs and tax controls and are licensed to produce goods for export through the granting of incentives to help fuel their development.
One of the groups that faced discrimination from Lands’ End was the formerly-unionized workers at another, Taiwanese-owned apparel factory called Tainan, which closed in April, 2002. The WRC interviewed 22 former Tainan employees who had sought employment at the Primo factory, but were either turned down or fired a short time after being hired.
The LOC hopes that Lands’ Ends’ new attitude will eventually foster change, despite its slow start. Murphy maintains that the message the University is sending with this decision is not an entirely negative one. “We are saying, there have been problems. You need to recognize them, and if you work with the WRC to get positive concrete change, then we will reinstate the contract,” said Murphy. “We are not trying to run away. We want to work with them.”
The LOC was established in fall 2000. It manages and reviews policy towards licensees, and makes recommendations to the University about individual licensees based on their findings.
