Event ends: February 8, 2013 – 9:00 pm
Hear from garment workers who sew apparel in Honduran and Haitian factories owned and contracted by Gildan Activewear, a Montreal-based apparel company that recently became the largest supplier in the Western hemisphere to sportswear giant Adidas.
Workers will be speaking out across New York to encourage the State to uphold its commitment to not subsidize sweatshops, and in the backdrop of a mounting campaign against Adidas. Six universities have already committed to end their apparel contracts with Adidas over the brand's refusal to pay $1.8 million in legally-owed severance pay to 2,800 former Indonesian workers at a factory called PT Kizone, which shut down unexpectedly over a year and half ago.
Come, listen, and take action during our five-city tour, February 4-8th. Click the links below for the details:
Albany [1]
Buffalo [2]
Ithaca [3]
New York City [4]
Rochester [5]
Syracuse [6]
Speakers:
Telemarque Pierre is a factory worker and union leader at Premium Apparel, in Port Au Prince, Haiti. The factory produces t-shirts for Gildan, a Canadian company. Gildan clothing is sold in university bookstores, worn by New York state police, and at Walmart. Today at Gildan's four Haitian contract suppliers (Genesis, Premium, Palm and SISA), workers continue to face prohibition of union activities in the factories and arbitrary firings. Moreover, several of Gildan’s Haitian suppliers refuse to pay the new mandatory minimum wage of less than $6/day.
Yannick Etienne is the director of the Haitian workers’ rights organization Batay Ouvriye. Batay Ouvriye brings together independent, democratic unions and worker rights organizations, and educates, empowers and organizes wage-workers, self-employed workers as well as the unemployed for the defense of their rights.
Raquel Navarro is a garment worker and union leader at STAR, an Adidas supplier factory in Honduras owned by Gildan. Gildan is Adidas’ largest supplier in the western hemisphere. After Raquel and her colleagues formed a union in November 2007, a bloody struggle ensued, including the illegal firing of 55 union activists. Still today, mass layoffs continue. Recently, Gildan’s vague plans to close factories provoked a dangerously hostile atmosphere towards union leaders where Gildan management allowed death threats against union leaders to transpire.