News Details

The truth about the closure of Jerzees de Honduras

March 09

Dear Our Collegiate Partners:

We value our partnership with your school and we're honored that Russell Athletic merchandise is part of your collegiate community. That's why we want to protect our good name and reputation by doing everything possible to share the facts about our manufacturing operations. You've probably heard some attacks recently that have been aimed at our company, and we thank you for taking time to understand the truths contained in this letter.

The recent decision to close Jerzees de Honduras (JDH) had nothing to do with unions. In fact, we previously recognized that plant's union status on October 3, 2007 -- more than a year prior to the closing. As the Fair Labor Association (FLA) noted in its report: “If the primary motive of the company had been to frustrate the union, it could have closed JDH earlier and even switched production from Honduras to Mexico.”

We made the painful decision to close this plant due to deteriorating economic conditions that caused a severe global slowdown in the demand for fleece products. We are not alone in facing a decline in business. Approximately 25 different Honduran factories closed in the last year, including many apparel manufacturers. Furthermore, JDH was our only facility with a lease that permitted us to vacate immediately. The choice was that black and white, and an independent investigation commissioned by the FLA found that basing our decision on the lease saved the company $2 million, enabling us to protect jobs in our other plants. It's also important to note the decline in the apparel market forced us to announce the closure of seven other company facilities in the U.S. and Central America, all of which were non-union.

Our company has earned a reputation as a good place to work in Honduras and elsewhere around the world. In Central America, 1,821 employees, including 521 in Honduras, have worked with us for 10 years or longer. People remain loyal to a company that treats them fairly. We are still the largest single employer in Honduras, have positive employee morale and we maintain a very strong relationship with the Honduran government.

The misinformation campaign which has been launched against us neglects to mention that our Honduran employees' average take-home pay is more than 25 percent above the country's national minimum. We also provide our people with a range of important benefits and initiatives that help improve both living and working conditions, including medical care, employee health fairs, prenatal care, paid holidays and paid vacations. Especially ironic is the fact that all our plants in Central America are air conditioned, and include cafeterias offering healthy lifestyle menus. These are not the “sweatshop” conditions that certain advocacy groups irresponsibly claim exist at Russell. Some of the people who are making these misleading accusations have never been to Honduras, much less visited one of our plants.

Russell Athletic already has policies in place that meet or exceed most employer codes of conduct for agreed-upon sound workplace principles. These are outlined on our website, www.russellsocialresponsibility.com/pages/russell_employee_programs.html. We're reviewing our policies and we'll provide independent certification of our compliance with this code and the principles it's based upon.

In the meantime, we hope you have found these facts about the way our company does business to be useful. If you have any additional questions, please allow us the opportunity to meet with you and provide you the full story of how we treat our people, their benefits and their work environment.

We value and appreciate your business.

Sincerely,

Matt Murphy
Sr VP Licensed Products
p: 678-742-8245
e: murphymatt@russellcorp.com