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Update on Lands’ End Workers at Primo Factory, El Salvador

Land's End, Inc. continues to deny their complicity in blacklisting practices in El Salvador. There is strong evidence of illegal hiring practices, otherwise known as "blacklisting", at Primo, C.A. de S.V. This apparel factory is a collegiate garment manufacturer for Lands' End in the San Bartolo free trade zone in El Salvador.

Letters have been sent to Lands’ End to demand justice for the blacklisted Primo workers! Students and community members from around the world have told Lands' End that they must ensure:

1) Primo immediately hires all the workers who can prove they were blacklisted!
2) Lands' End supports the appointment of an ombudsman in the San Bartolo free trade zone to permanently remove the zone-wide blacklist!
3) The Workers' Rights Consortium's recommendations for remedial actions are followed!

BACKGROUND

In spring 2002, Salvadoran workers of the Sindicato Trabajadores de Industria Textil (STIT) organized a union in the Tainan apparel factory in the San Bartolo free trade zone in El Salvador. The factory effectively shut down in April of that year. The STIT-Tainan unionists were placed on a blacklist, and when they sought other apparel work in the zone, they were illegally denied jobs. One of the places of employment that denied them work was Primo S.A. de C.V., a collegiate apparel producer for Lands' End, Inc.

The Worker Rights Consortium (WRC) initiated an investigation of the Primo facility and produced a Preliminary Assessment in March 2003. This report focuses on Primo's compliance with Collegiate Codes of Conduct in the area of freedom of association, which is upheld by Salvadoran and international law. The report focuses exclusively on the issue of blacklisting because of the extreme hardship it has caused for former STIT unionists in the San Bartolo free trade zone.

Today, the STIT-Tainan unionists have suffered serious financial distress, as apparel work is the only kind of industrial work they are trained in, and is the most viable source of income for their families. After one year, they have been unable to find other sources of employment, have lost their homes or are being evicted, are living without enough food for themselves and their children, and are unable to pay for their children's education.

The WRC gathered extensive data through interviews of ex-Tainan workers, Primo management and supervisors, the Vice-Minister of the Salvadoran Ministry of Labor and Social Security and other government officials, and human rights and women's rights organizations. The organization also used data gathered from employment status and job-search history of ex-Tainan workers, workers' personnel files, Primo's hiring policies, and wage and hour records, as well as pay stubs of Primo workers.

The WRC also reviewed reports of the Salvadoran government concerning labor practices and compliance with labor law in El Salvador's free trade zones, including a United States Agency for International Development (USAID) report released by the Salvadoran Ministry of Labor in 2000, which was subsequently retracted after significant pressure from Salvadoran employers' associations. The researchers, who investigated the four largest free trade zones in El Salvador, were allowed easy access to the free trade zone factories because the Salvadoran Labor Ministry is viewed as very sympathetic to business interests. What resulted was documentation of widespread, chronic labor law violations under the complicity of the Salvadoran government. This report went so far as to state, "there exists an anti-union policy in the maquilas, by which any attempt at organization is repressed."

The WRC has attempted to work with both the Fair Labor Association, of which Lands' End is a member, and Lands' End, Inc., to attempt to rectify the situation in San Bartolo. Yet Lands' End refuses to take responsibility, stating in their response to USAS' concerns that the WRC has "refused to share with us the underlying facts that they believe support the allegations of unlawful anti-union discrimination." Workers' testimony is obviously not "factual" evidence for Lands' End, Inc.