Wal-Mart and Hanes: Partners in Sweatshop Crimes

Not surprisingly, TOS Dominicana produces for a number of other large retailers, including Wal-Mart, which is also the factory's largest customer. The abuses that have taken place at the factory constitute a clear violations of Wal-Mart's Standards for Suppliers, as well as Domincan law. USAS wrote a letter to Wal-Mart, imploring the company to act with integrity and compel Hanes to clean up this sweatshop. Yet Wal-Mart has not even acknowledged our letter and has turned a blind eye to the workers at the factory, just as they do with their own domestic employees.

This fall, students worked on another case involving a Wal-Mart sweatshop. At the Chong Won factory in the Phillipines, workers were paid below the minimum wage, were subject to forced and unpaid overtime and were violently attacked for attempting to organize for better conditions. Yet Wal-Mart did nothing to end the violence and mistreatment of workers and allowed these abuses to continue, just as they have done with TOS.

Wal-Mart Watch, which intially wrote about the Chong Won case on their website, has also taken an interest in the TOS case and posted more information about the Wal-Mart connection on their blog. You'll see from reading the other blog posts that Wal-Mart's willingness to abuse its employees extends across the globe, from India to China to Canada to the Dominican Republic.

To get involved in taking action against Wal-Mart, including upcoming Wal-Mart protests, stay tuned to this blog or email zack@usasnet.org for more details.

Hanes is operating sweatshops in the Dominican Republic!

In April, 31 workers producing fabric for Hanes t-shirts were fired from the TOS Dominicana for trying to form a union and demand better working conditions. Workers have been subject to intimidations, verbal abuse, forced and unpaid overtime, while management refuses to address the problems in the factory and Hanes ignores the oerwheming amount of evidence gathering against them.

TOS Dominicana is a factory in the Dominican Republic that is owned and operated by Hanesbrands, Inc. The factory produces fabric for t-shirts that are sold to other garment manufacturers in the region, as well as to large retailers such as Wal-mart and major university licensees. The factory current employs over 1,100 people.

Since October 2006, there have been numerous and serious code of conduct violations taking place at TOS. Workers have been subject to verbal harassment and abuse from supervisors, forced and unpaid overtime, and severe anti-union tactics. In April, management fired 31 workers, 29 of whom were members of the union. Managers have spied on and broken into clandestine union meetings and have made several attempts to fire the two main union leaders. Workers were forced, under threat of losing their jobs, into signing new employment contracts that significantly reduced their rights and benefits, including eliminating their right to lodge complaints abbout conditions at the factory.

For the past several months, worker organizers have worked tirelessly to obtain a majority of union members in the workforce, in order to negotiate a collective contract with management and correct long-standing abuses. By firing the 29 union members in April, the factory made a deliberate attempt to reduce the union's influence and scare other workers away from defending their rights. These firings, along with management's attempts to spy on workers and intimidate the union leaders, have worsened an already intense climate of fear in the factory.

Yet, despite the factory's attempts to silence them, workers at TOS Dominicana have continued to fight these abuses and stand up for their rights. Workers filed a complaint with the Worker Rights Consortium, informing them about the violations that had taken place at the factory. The WRC's report, published on June 6 and available here, documents the abuses that occurred and continue to occur at TOS.

TOS Domincana is a unique factory, because it is owned directly by Hanesbrands, which gives Hanes unquestionable power to correct the abuses. USAS, along with the WRC and several other labor rights organizations, has contacted Hanes about this case, pressing them to end the sweatshop abuses at their factory. Hanes, despite the mounting evidence against them, continues to deny that any problems exist and refuses to take steps to improve conditions.

Students demand justice for the TOS workers and an end to sweatshop abuse in factories producing our university apparel!