Twenty-five universities have canceled their contracts with Russell Athletic after a November 2008 report by the Workers Rights Consortium (WRC) documented a two year effort by Russell to stop union organizing at two factories in Honduras.  As the number of schools severing ties with Russell has grown over February and March, students on campuses across the country are stepping up efforts to add their university to the list, in a campaign coordinated by United Students Against Sweatshops, ‘Rein In Russell.’

The WRC regularly monitors and investigates labor conditions in factories producing apparel for its 175 university members, in an attempt to combat sweatshops and protect worker’s rights.  WRC’s 36 page report documented a two year “campaign of retaliation and intimidation in order to stop workers at two of the company’s Honduran factories from exercising their right to organize and bargain collectively, a right explicitly protected by the codes of conduct of Russell’s university business partners.”  Russell has responded with two mailings to Universities in March claiming the “recent decision to close Jerzees de Honduras (JDH) had nothing to do with unions.”  Such high profile universities as Harvard University, The University of Michigan, The University of North Carolina and the University of Wisconsin have already cut their ties with Russell.  This week students at the University of Maryland, University of Rhode Island, and Loyola University, Chicago pressed their administrations to follow suit.

Read more from the Loyola Phoenix
Read more from the University of Rhode Island Good 5¢ Cigar
Read More from the University of Maryland Diamondback
Much more media coverage from the Worker Rights Consortium