On Wednesday, October 8th, 2008, United Students Against Sweatshops learned that a unionized factory in Honduras called Jerzees de Honduras, is closing down as a result of Russell Athletic cutting and runnning from one of the few garment factories in the world that is not an outright sweatshop.

The Jerzees de Honduras facility is known for being one of two factories that was the focus of a wave of anti-sweatshop activism last year. In September 2007, independent monitors began investigations concerning Jerzees de Honduras and Jerzees Choloma, two factories which were owned and operated by Russell Athletic to produce collegiate apparel for universities. The investigations found that Russell Athletic responded to workers' organizing drives with an illegal union-busting campaign - firing 145 workers, all of whom were founding members of the unions.

Students quickly learned of Russell's anti-union activities, and immediately put pressure on the company (in the form of threats to cut Russell's licensing contracts with universities), which forced the company to provide back pay and offers of reinstatement to all of the 145 illegally fired workers. These workers went on reestablish their unions and press for improved working conditions, representing extraordinary progress in complying with the basic labor rights that are written in universities' codes of conduct.

Unfortunately, all this progress did not last long. Russell Athletic closed Jerzees Choloma in March of this year, and have now also cut and run from their only other unionized factory in the country, Jerzees de Honduras. And of course, Russell is not closing any of its other non-union factories in Honduras! We have perhaps never seen such brazen disregard by Russell for university codes of conduct before. In the span of less than a year, Russell Athletic will have destroyed two of the most successful efforts to implement university codes of conduct in history, and in doing so, will totally eliminate unions from its Honduran supply chain.

On top of all this, USAS has received credible reports of violence against the lives of union activists, which the workers on the ground in Honduras believe are directly related to the closure of the factory.

If universities allow Russell to cut and run from Jerzees de Honduras, it is fair to say that their codes of conduct are essentially worthless to workers. It is critical that universities and the public take immediate action to ensure that the efforts of the past 2 years are not undone.