Boycott Farah Pants

SEVERAL Harvard Square-area stores -- including the Harvard Cooperative Society and the J. August Company--over the summer agreed to cooperate with the ongoing boycott against the Farah Pants Company. They refused to order Farah slacks until a labor dispute at Farah's El Paso, Tex., plant is settled. The Coop and J. August should be commended for this decision and other Boston-area stores should follow suit. Additionally, students and other consumers should continue to respect the boycott.

Three thousand Farah workers, most of them Chicanos and many of them women, walked out of Farah's El Paso plant 17 months ago, striking for better wages, work conditions, and union representation. That fact, despite a flurry of Farah propaganda to the contrary, indicates that something clearly is wrong in El Paso.

The boycott triggered by that initial walkout has spread from coast to coast, forced down the price of Farah stock, and clearly shoved the company against the wall. How else to explain Farah's determined and frightened claims in newspapers far from Texas that all is well in its El Paso plant? Farah's claims are all outrageous. For example, one of the company's ads cites "an above average wage scale" as one of the benefits that accrue to fortunate Farah workers. In response, the Amalgamated Clothing Workers -- who are spearheading the unionization drive -- testified before the National Labor Relations Board that the average hourly wage at Farah is $1.80. Farah has cited no figures in its ads, so it must be assumed that the company has a nineteenth century definition for average wage.

Farah's union-busting tactics must continue to be blocked. Boston's Humberto Cardinal Medieros and the leaders of the Massachusetts state federations of Jews and Protestants have endorsed the boycott. The boycott must continue.