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TOS Dominicana textile factory in the Dos Rios industrial park is owned and operated by Hanesbrands, Inc. Employing roughly 1,100 workers, the facility is one of the largest textile producers in the Dominican Republic and the region. The fabric is sold to garment manufacturers in the Dominican Republic, including the university logo goods producer Grupo M, to Wal-Mart, and is also used to manufacture Hanesbrands' own line of blank t-shirts. Hanesbrands is a supplier of blank t-shirts to numerous university licensees. The Workers Rights Consortium found substantial, credible evidence that serious violations of domestic law and university codes of conduct occurred at TOS Dominicana. These violations include the unlawful coercion of workers to sign new employment contracts and complaint waivers reducing workers' employment rights and benefits, forced and unpaid overtime, failure to pay the legally mandated premium for work at night, verbal harassment and abuse, and the use of a range of illegal means to thwart workers' efforts to exercise their associational rights. USAS has worked in solidarity with the TOS workers for some time now, and we are thrilled to hear that the union has won their fight for a fair collective bargaining agreement with the Hanes corporation! Their successful contract negotiations represents a huge victory for organized labor in the Central American garment industry.
Below is a note to USAS from two of the union's leaders, Manuel and Julio, whom many students met in a worker tour at their campuses this past spring 2008:
To United Students Against Sweatshops: The TOS Domincana Union expresses special gratitude for your support and intervention, which resulted in the agreement between the company and our union, TOS, of Banao. We are convinced that, had we not been able to count on your support in the process of resolving the conflict between the company and the union, the workers would have had much more difficulty in coming to this agreement that we have today. We value this agreement as an advancement, but our aspirations to establish a good working environment in the long term have yet to be fulfilled. Therefore, we would like to thank you, as well as take advantage of this occasion to work more closely with your organization, and we urge you to pursue your interests in continuing your positive actions in order to ensure that our agreement is fulfilled, and also to continue advancing human and worker rights in the company TOS Dominicana. With this said, we thank you ahead of time. Cordially, MANUEL PUJOLS Secretary General of Sindicato TOS Dominicana & JULIO ANGEL CASTILLO Secretary of Complaints and Recovery of Sindicato TOS Dominicana |
