PSLM Takes On Apparel Maker

The Progressive Student Labor Movement (PSLM) launched a new campaign this month, asking Harvard to reaffirm its commitment to fair trade in the wake of alleged labor misconduct at a factory that produces licensed Harvard-insignia apparel.

According to a preliminary report released this spring by the Worker Rights Consortium (WRC), a labor-based independent watchdog group, the Primo factory—operated in El Salvador by Lands’ End Inc.—“has systematically discriminated in its hiring process against workers perceived to be trade unionists.” This “blacklisting,” the WRC said, is illegal under both Salvadorean and international law.

PSLM, in affiliation with United Students Against Sweatshops (USAS), is pressuring Harvard to aggressively use its leverage as a licenser against Lands’ End. In addition to its own letter-writing campaign targeting Lands’ End, PSLM has asked that Harvard write a letter demanding that Lands’ End follow the WRC’s “Recommendations for Remedial Action.”

These recommendations include refraining from anti-union discrimination, providing rejected job applicants with a written explanation detailing why they were not hired, and immediately hiring rejected applicants who prove to the WRC that they were not hired as a result of anti-union discrimination.Other institutions which license Lands’ End to use their logos have sent letters, including the University of Michigan, Indiana University and the University of Southern California, according to the USAS website.

The report has also spurred PSLM to redouble its long-time efforts to convince Harvard to join the WRC.

“The WRC has proven to be an effective monitoring organization that takes into account workers’ voices,” PSLM member Anna M. Falicov ’02-’03 said.

University officials could not be reached for comment, but according to PSLM members, University President Lawrence H. Summers said last Monday that a decision on whether to join the WRC is forthcoming.

In the past, Harvard has refused to join the WRC, citing its participation in the Fair Labor Association (FLA). Since the University joined the FLA in 1999, PSLM has criticized the group as an ineffective organization run by some of the worst corporate offenders against labor.

But Falicov stressed that membership in the WRC would not be mutually exclusive with Harvard’s current membership in the FLA.

“There’s nothing wrong with being members of both,” Falicov said. “But membership in the FLA alone is not sufficient.”

Still, Falicov said membership in the WRC would not be a prerequisite for Harvard to pressure Lands’ End.

Non-WRC schools are writing similar letters, she said.

“We’d like Harvard to write a statement regardless of our former goal [of WRC membership],” she added.

In addition to explicitly denying employment on grounds of union membership, the WRC alleges that the Primo factory often refused to hire applicants who had worked at the nearby Tainan factory, known as a hotbed of labor solidarity.

“Workers, who in many cases have been unemployed or underemployed since the suspension of production at Tainan in the spring of 2002, have suffered grave financial hardship as a result of this illegal denial of employment, including, in some cases, the loss of their homes,” the report said. “Because this discrimination is ongoing, immediate remedial action...is essential to prevent further irreparable harm.”

When reached for comment on Friday, Lands’ End representatives declined to address the specific allegations of the WRC.

“We are investigating,” said Dick Mensch, a customer relations employee of Lands’ End.

—Staff writer Simon W. Vozick-Levinson can be reached at vozick@fas.harvard.edu.