CornellWatch

For years, Russell Athletics wooed the Cornell Store with cheap sportswear, adorning their children/students with Big Red sweatshirts, Big Red sweatpants, and Big Red fatsuits. Their relationship grew so strong that Russell comprised around 15 percent of the Store’s apparel sales last year — at this apex of their romance, they thought nothing could bring them down. Unfortunately for the two starry-eyed lovers, there was trouble in paradise: trouble being Russell’s death threats to newly unionized workers, and paradise being a Honduran factory. Luckily, the Store was quietly informed of Russell’s human rights abuses by COLA (Cornell Organization for Labor Action), when the workers’ rights activists displayed the curiously illuminating banner pictured at right on last Wed, Feb 19. The very next day, the University quit Russell in much the same way one quits a lover who, by golly, beats his Honduran foster kids. The press release:

Cornell University today announced that it is ending its business relationship with Russell Athletic on March 31, 2009. The decision was made after a review of the facts surrounding the closure of a Russell apparel factory in Honduras on Jan. 31, 2009. Investigations by the Worker Rights Consortium and the Fair Labor Association both concluded that the closing of the factory, Jerzees de Honduras, which was described by Russell as an economic decision, was also due in part to anti-union animus.

The University’s words might seem devoid of emotion, but trust me, they’re just holding back. The mark-up on the Store’s items is already ridiculous, and with Russell’s cheap cheap love/goods, they were making oodles upon oodles of love/profit. Anyway, the Store probably just doesn’t want to admit an organization as rabblerousing as COLA was the homewrecker/informant. Here’s what COLA’s Stephanie Knight had to say:

I think the banner protest absolutely had an influence on Cornell’s decision to sever their ties with Russell.  COLA has been putting pressure on the administration in various ways these last few weeks to cut Russell, and the banner protest was just the latest action we organized.  We had asked the administration to give us an answer as to how they were going to respond to Russell’s labor violations, and as soon as we did the banner drop, they did.  COLA is thrilled that Cornell has chosen to stand up for workers’ rights and abide by their own Code of Conduct.

The administration doesn’t want the public to think their decision was swayed by anything other than “a review of the facts,” but obviously they only responded to the issue once it had received ample negative attention and student protest.  Unfortunately, COLA has a bad rap among the Cornell administration, but you can’t deny that our tactics are effective!

COLA and MEChA are hosting workers from HEI Hotels and Resorts this coming Tuesday, 2/24, who have been denied their right to organize a union free of intimidation and fear.  The CEO and other top executives of HEI are Cornell alumni, and HEI maintains close ties with the Hotel School/Johnson School through a practicum currently being taught.  More info about the event/back story is below.

—-

Cornell Organization for Labor Action (COLA) and MEChA de Cornell invite
you to listen to the experiences of workers at HEI Hotels and Resorts
Corporation, a company that prides itself for being one of America’s
largest hotel management corporations, but forgets to share its wealth
with its workers.

When: Tuesday Feb 24 at 5:30pm
Where: 115 Rockefeller Hall

As the Alma mater of HEI Executive Management and academic associates of
HADM 6690: Sustainable Global Enterprise in Hospitality, Cornell
University has an obligation to address worker intimations at HEI. The
company was founded in 1985 by Cornell Alum: CEO Gary Mendell, his brother
Steve Mendell (Executive VP of acquisitions), and Steve Rushmore.

For any questions, please contact Stephanie Knight (sck73) or Chirs Brown
(cb459).

MEChA meets every Monday at 5:00pm in the LSP center (4th floor
Rockefeller).COLA meets every Thursday at 4:45pm in 108 Ives.

Tags: admins, COLA, cornell, news, newsy narrative, russell

This entry was posted on Monday, February 23rd, 2009 at 8:47 am by D. Evan Mulvihill and is filed under news, newsy narrative. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. Both comments and pings are currently closed.