Last Tuesday marked a historic victory for the United Students Against Sweatshops (USAS) and other labor rights activists when Russell Athletics agreed to rehire dismissed workers and open a new plant in Honduras as a unionized factory.

Just over a year ago, Russell Athletic announced it would close their factory in Honduras in order to prevent their workers from unionizing. As a response, a national campaign was launched by USAS and other student organizations, including Students for Economic and Social Justice (SESJ), in order to protect the rights of the Honduran workers. This effort resulted in an unprecedented victory, in which the coalition of students persuaded one of the nation’s leading sportswear companies to agree to meet worker demands to reopen the factory and re-hire all 1,200 workers who were dismissed.

Russell Athletics has been known to aggressively fight unions so this was not an easy victory for USAS. The movement began with persuading the administration of over 90 colleges and universities to sever or suspend their licensing agreements with Russell. The agreements, some which yielded more than $1 million in sales, allowed Russell to put university logos on T-shirts, sweatshirts and fleeces. In addition, the students pressured their officials to create an independent monitoring group, the Worker Rights Consortium, which inspected factories to make sure they complied with the universities’ codes.

In its agreement, not only did Russell agree to reinstate the dismissed workers and open a new plant in Honduras as a unionized factory, it also pledged not to fight unionization at its seven existing factories there. You can view the details of the agreement here.

This is one of the most significant youth-led campaign victories in recent times and this victory reveals the strength and power of the student movement. Campus Progress applauds this victory and recognizes the efforts of one its organizing grantees, SESJ, who worked hard on this campaign.

SESJ convinced their college to cancel their contract with Russell Athletics last March after a hard-fought campaign. SESJ has received an Organizing Grant for several years in a row as part of Campus Progress’s Action Alliance Program, and won the award for “Action Campaign of the Year” at the 2008 Campus Progress National Conference. The grants provide student and youth-led issue campaigns and movement building projects with up to $1,500 to organize for progressive social change.

By Amy Minor