In a message dated 07/05/2000 12:21:25 AM Eastern Daylight Time, [EMAIL PROTECTED] writes: << COMPANIES SLAM DOOR IN UNION'S FACE posted July 4, 2000 PART 1 (this email): Companies slam door in union's face Update: Charges against all but 5 dropped Does Target sell Mil Colores clothing? (Yes!) Column on union leader's attempt to meet with Target News article on union leader's attempt to meet with Kohl's PART 2: (following email): Leafleting update If required to leave store property Background on Target and Kohl's leafleting <><><><><> COMPANIES SLAM DOOR IN UNION'S FACE In late June, Pedro Ortego, head of the Federation of Textile, Garment, Leather and Shoe Workers in Nicaragua, came to the United States, hoping to meet with the heads of Target and Kohl's to discuss sweatshop abuses and union busting at the Mil Colores and Chentex factories, which both produce clothing for both companies. His trip was organized by the Nicaragua Network and Campaign for Labor Rights. In spite of repeated attempts by the Justice and Peace Office of the Sisters of St. Francis of Assisi (in Milwaukee) to arrange a meeting with Kohl's management and repeated attempts by the Resource Center of the Americas (in Minneapolis) to arrange a meeting with Target management, both companies refused the opportunity for dialogue and a first-hand account of conditions at the Nicaraguan factories. Mr. Ortega decided to visit the companies' headquarters anyway, accompanied by U.S. supporters. When he arrived at Kohl's, a company representative came running out into the parking lot to order him away. At Target headquarters, the company literally slammed the door in his face. For an account of those incidents, see the newspaper stories later in this alert. <><><><><> UPDATE: CHARGES AGAINST ALL BUT 5 DROPPED We reported in previous alerts that Mil Colores management had initiated criminal charges against 68 workers. In a presentation in Denver on June 24 to the national meeting of the Nicaragua Network, Pedro Ortega made a tentative announcement (which he has since confirmed) that charges have now been dropped against all but 4 of the workers and himself. The four workers are officers of the union at Mil Colores. While it still is a serious matter that these five unionists face criminal charges, Mr. Ortega asked Campaign for Labor Rights to communicate to our supporters that he considers it an important victory for charges to have been dropped against the others. He specifically attributed this victory to pressure brought on the U.S. companies buying from Mil Colores and asked us to convey his thanks to all of you for your hard work. <><><><><> DOES TARGET SELL MIL COLORES CLOTHING? (YES!) The Target/Dayton Hudson company has sent notices to managers of its Target outlets stating that Target stores do not sell clothing made in the Mil Colores factory in Nicaragua's Las Mercedes free trade zone. This claim has cause confusion among some participants in leafleting events. What are the facts? Brands produced at Mil Colores include the No Fear, Sonoma and High Sierra labels. High Sierra is owned by the Target/Dayton Hudson Corporation and is sold at the company's Mervyn's stores. Sonoma is owned by Kohl's department stores. The Target Corporation (formerly: The Dayton Hudson Corporation) includes the following outlet chains: Target, Mervyn's, Dayton's, Marshal Field's and Hudson's, as well as Riverview (a catalog company). When Mervyn's profits from sweatshop abuses at Mil Colores, the Target Corporation profits. Consider this: On June 25, when a Target outlet in Denver called the police and threatened to have leafleters arrested if they did not leave store property, store security also warned them not to go over to the nearby Mervyn's outlet "because Mervyn's is part of Target, too." Both the Target Corporation and Kohl's also have clothing produced at the Chentex factory in Nicaragua's Las Mercedes free trade zone. Like Mil Colores, Chentex management is engaged in a serous attempt to bust the union in its factory. <><><><><> COLUMN ON UNION LEADER'S ATTEMPT TO MEET WITH TARGET Presented with unfair-labor issues, Target turns away by Doug Grow [Minneapolis] Star Tribune, June 21, 2000 Target Corp. has taught us a lesson in living comfortably. Under the Minneapolis-based retailer's guidelines, we needn't be troubled when confronted with the horrendous conditions under which so many people live and work. Instead, we need merely shrug and say, "Hey, it's not our problem. Let's go shopping!" Target illustrated this no-problem lifestyle when Pedro Ortega showed up to meet with its executives on Tuesday. Ortega, 34, is head of the Federation of Textile, Garment, Leather and Shoe Workers in Nicaragua. He also faces up to 30 years in prison for being the "intellectual author" of an ill-fated worker protest at a Managua textile plant, Mil Colores, which is favored by Target's purchasers for such things as jeans and Honors-label clothes. Neither Ortega nor the members of the union he leads are naive. They didn't expect that Target would come into Nicaragua and demand that workers have the right to be represented by unions. "We know that the executives want to make money at any cost," Ortega said through an interpreter, "but we thought that if they heard our story, it might bother them a little, and maybe they would help make change." But the easiest way not to be bothered by awful stories is simply not to hear them. Which is what Target officials did Tuesday, refusing to meet with Ortega. Hey, it's not our problem. In truth, the refusal was not a surprise. On Monday, Ortega received the same treatment at the corporate headquarters of Kohl's department stores near Milwaukee. Here's a sketch of the story he wanted to tell: In January, desperate workers at the Mil Colores factory decided to try -- again -- to organize a union. A previous effort had been crushed in 1998. Pay for textile workers in Nicaragua is the worst in Central America: about $80 a month -- if they toil 14 hours a day, six days a week. (A worker would need about $180 a month just to get above poverty level.) But bad as the pay is, other conditions are worse. Production quotas are excessively high, and there's no respect for workers, 85 percent of whom are women. There's mass corruption over money allegedly set aside for worker health care. Workers who dare question the system are fired. On Jan. 11, workers opted to unionize. On Jan. 20, all union leaders were fired. On Jan. 27, workers protested the firings with a work stoppage, leading to a few beatings and a few arrests. On Feb. 2, Mil Colores fired 200 workers and pressed criminal charges against 68 of the people who had participated in the work stoppage. Other textile plants, nearly as bad as Mil Colores, refuse to hire the fired workers. Ortega's mission to the United States, which is being funded by the U.S.-based Mid Atlantic Campaign for Labor Rights and has the support of such organizations as the labor-minded Minnesota Fair Trade Coalition, is delicate. He wants companies such as Target and Kohl's to use their influence in Nicaragua to help workers organize. At the same time, he doesn't want to offend the U.S. companies, because they could take their business elsewhere, and there is a desperate need for jobs -- even bad ones -- in his country. In fact, the U.S. organizations that are trying to help Nicaraguan workers selected Target and Kohl's as places for visits from Ortega and distribution of leaflets because the two companies are believed to be more sensitive than others to negative publicity. There are no calls for a boycott in any of this. Rather, Ortega hopes U.S. consumers will write Target executives and ask them to recognize the workers' right to organize. Before Ortega arrived in Minneapolis, the Minnesota Fair Trade Coalition had tried to arrange a meeting between him and Target executives. Target said there would be no meeting -- and stuck to that plan Tuesday. Instead, the company released a statement saying that it had commissioned auditors to check conditions at Mil Colores and that no evidence "supporting allegations of abusive working conditions," had been found. What about allegations of union busting? "The audit at Mil Colores did not, and was not intended to, address any issues directly related to labor negotiations and/or union organizing activities between Mil Colores management and workers," Target said in its statement. "We do not believe that is an appropriate Target Corporation role." So Ortega knew that he probably wouldn't be seeing any executives. But for the sake of symbolism and of TV cameras, he watched as Larry Weiss of the Minnesota Fair Trade Coalition knocked on Target's corporate doors. Nobody answered. <><><><><> NEWS ARTICLE ON UNION LEADER'S ATTEMPT TO MEET WITH KOHL'S Nicaraguan union leader seeks support for garment workers by Georgia Pabst Milwaukee Journal Sentinel, June 20, 2000 A Nicaraguan union leader was in Milwaukee on Monday [June 19] to rally support for garment workers who, he says, make clothes sold at Kohl's Department Stores and Target Stores under sweatshop conditions. Pedro Ortega, secretary general of the Nicaraguan Federation of Textile, Garment, Leather and Shoe Workers, said more than 200 workers at the Mil Colores factory in Nicaragua's free-trade zone have been fired for trying to form a union to address working conditions that include low pay and filth. He said many of those fired were women and single mothers who made 20 cents an hour, or about $10 a week. Some face criminal prosecution that could lead to up to 30 years in prison for trying to organize, he said. He spoke before an audience of 75 Monday night at the Sisters of St. Francis of Assisi, 3221 S. Lake Drive. Earlier in the day, Ortega, School Sisters of St. Francis of Assisi representatives and members of the Campaign for Labor Rights tried to meet with officials from Kohl's at the company's Menomonee Falls headquarters but were turned away. Gary Vasques, executive vice president of marketing for Kohl's, said the delegation did not have an appointment and the people they wanted to meet with were not in the building. "We take any and all allegations regarding human rights and union violations very, very seriously - so much so that we hired a neutral third party to investigate," he said. Vasques said that PricewaterhouseCoopers thoroughly investigated the complaints by the national labor committee about the Nicaraguan factory in the spring and found the allegations without merit. An anti-sweatshop shareholder resolution was proposed at the Kohl's annual meeting in May by the Sisters of St. Francis of Assisi on behalf of Cardinal Stritch University. The university owns 2,850 shares of Kohl's common stock. Ortega said the Nicaraguan factories make clothing sold under the Sonoma and Cherokee brands sold at Kohl's. He contended that workers in the factory receive the lowest minimum wages in all of Central America. With 60% unemployment in Nicaragua, there's a great need to generate employment, Ortega said. "So the government lets the companies do what they will so they can have employment and foreign investment," he said. >>
Labor Alerts (7,700 subscribers), a free service of: Campaign for Labor Rights 1247 "E" Street SE, Washington, DC 20003 Phone: (541) 344-5410; fax: (541) 431-0523 Web site: <www.summersault.com/~agj/clr> CLR is a member of the Alliance for Global Justice. To subscribe/unsubscribe, contact <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>. COMPANIES SLAM DOOR IN UNION'S FACE posted July 4, 2000 PART 1 (this email): Companies slam door in union's face Update: Charges against all but 5 dropped Does Target sell Mil Colores clothing? (Yes!) Column on union leader's attempt to meet with Target News article on union leader's attempt to meet with Kohl's PART 2: (following email): Leafleting update If required to leave store property Background on Target and Kohl's leafleting <><><><><> COMPANIES SLAM DOOR IN UNION'S FACE In late June, Pedro Ortego, head of the Federation of Textile, Garment, Leather and Shoe Workers in Nicaragua, came to the United States, hoping to meet with the heads of Target and Kohl's to discuss sweatshop abuses and union busting at the Mil Colores and Chentex factories, which both produce clothing for both companies. His trip was organized by the Nicaragua Network and Campaign for Labor Rights. In spite of repeated attempts by the Justice and Peace Office of the Sisters of St. Francis of Assisi (in Milwaukee) to arrange a meeting with Kohl's management and repeated attempts by the Resource Center of the Americas (in Minneapolis) to arrange a meeting with Target management, both companies refused the opportunity for dialogue and a first-hand account of conditions at the Nicaraguan factories. Mr. Ortega decided to visit the companies' headquarters anyway, accompanied by U.S. supporters. When he arrived at Kohl's, a company representative came running out into the parking lot to order him away. At Target headquarters, the company literally slammed the door in his face. For an account of those incidents, see the newspaper stories later in this alert. <><><><><> UPDATE: CHARGES AGAINST ALL BUT 5 DROPPED We reported in previous alerts that Mil Colores management had initiated criminal charges against 68 workers. In a presentation in Denver on June 24 to the national meeting of the Nicaragua Network, Pedro Ortega made a tentative announcement (which he has since confirmed) that charges have now been dropped against all but 4 of the workers and himself. The four workers are officers of the union at Mil Colores. While it still is a serious matter that these five unionists face criminal charges, Mr. Ortega asked Campaign for Labor Rights to communicate to our supporters that he considers it an important victory for charges to have been dropped against the others. He specifically attributed this victory to pressure brought on the U.S. companies buying from Mil Colores and asked us to convey his thanks to all of you for your hard work. <><><><><> DOES TARGET SELL MIL COLORES CLOTHING? (YES!) The Target/Dayton Hudson company has sent notices to managers of its Target outlets stating that Target stores do not sell clothing made in the Mil Colores factory in Nicaragua's Las Mercedes free trade zone. This claim has cause confusion among some participants in leafleting events. What are the facts? Brands produced at Mil Colores include the No Fear, Sonoma and High Sierra labels. High Sierra is owned by the Target/Dayton Hudson Corporation and is sold at the company's Mervyn's stores. Sonoma is owned by Kohl's department stores. The Target Corporation (formerly: The Dayton Hudson Corporation) includes the following outlet chains: Target, Mervyn's, Dayton's, Marshal Field's and Hudson's, as well as Riverview (a catalog company). When Mervyn's profits from sweatshop abuses at Mil Colores, the Target Corporation profits. Consider this: On June 25, when a Target outlet in Denver called the police and threatened to have leafleters arrested if they did not leave store property, store security also warned them not to go over to the nearby Mervyn's outlet "because Mervyn's is part of Target, too." Both the Target Corporation and Kohl's also have clothing produced at the Chentex factory in Nicaragua's Las Mercedes free trade zone. Like Mil Colores, Chentex management is engaged in a serous attempt to bust the union in its factory. <><><><><> COLUMN ON UNION LEADER'S ATTEMPT TO MEET WITH TARGET Presented with unfair-labor issues, Target turns away by Doug Grow [Minneapolis] Star Tribune, June 21, 2000 Target Corp. has taught us a lesson in living comfortably. Under the Minneapolis-based retailer's guidelines, we needn't be troubled when confronted with the horrendous conditions under which so many people live and work. Instead, we need merely shrug and say, "Hey, it's not our problem. Let's go shopping!" Target illustrated this no-problem lifestyle when Pedro Ortega showed up to meet with its executives on Tuesday. Ortega, 34, is head of the Federation of Textile, Garment, Leather and Shoe Workers in Nicaragua. He also faces up to 30 years in prison for being the "intellectual author" of an ill-fated worker protest at a Managua textile plant, Mil Colores, which is favored by Target's purchasers for such things as jeans and Honors-label clothes. Neither Ortega nor the members of the union he leads are naive. They didn't expect that Target would come into Nicaragua and demand that workers have the right to be represented by unions. "We know that the executives want to make money at any cost," Ortega said through an interpreter, "but we thought that if they heard our story, it might bother them a little, and maybe they would help make change." But the easiest way not to be bothered by awful stories is simply not to hear them. Which is what Target officials did Tuesday, refusing to meet with Ortega. Hey, it's not our problem. In truth, the refusal was not a surprise. On Monday, Ortega received the same treatment at the corporate headquarters of Kohl's department stores near Milwaukee. Here's a sketch of the story he wanted to tell: In January, desperate workers at the Mil Colores factory decided to try -- again -- to organize a union. A previous effort had been crushed in 1998. Pay for textile workers in Nicaragua is the worst in Central America: about $80 a month -- if they toil 14 hours a day, six days a week. (A worker would need about $180 a month just to get above poverty level.) But bad as the pay is, other conditions are worse. Production quotas are excessively high, and there's no respect for workers, 85 percent of whom are women. There's mass corruption over money allegedly set aside for worker health care. Workers who dare question the system are fired. On Jan. 11, workers opted to unionize. On Jan. 20, all union leaders were fired. On Jan. 27, workers protested the firings with a work stoppage, leading to a few beatings and a few arrests. On Feb. 2, Mil Colores fired 200 workers and pressed criminal charges against 68 of the people who had participated in the work stoppage. Other textile plants, nearly as bad as Mil Colores, refuse to hire the fired workers. Ortega's mission to the United States, which is being funded by the U.S.-based Mid Atlantic Campaign for Labor Rights and has the support of such organizations as the labor-minded Minnesota Fair Trade Coalition, is delicate. He wants companies such as Target and Kohl's to use their influence in Nicaragua to help workers organize. At the same time, he doesn't want to offend the U.S. companies, because they could take their business elsewhere, and there is a desperate need for jobs -- even bad ones -- in his country. In fact, the U.S. organizations that are trying to help Nicaraguan workers selected Target and Kohl's as places for visits from Ortega and distribution of leaflets because the two companies are believed to be more sensitive than others to negative publicity. There are no calls for a boycott in any of this. Rather, Ortega hopes U.S. consumers will write Target executives and ask them to recognize the workers' right to organize. Before Ortega arrived in Minneapolis, the Minnesota Fair Trade Coalition had tried to arrange a meeting between him and Target executives. Target said there would be no meeting -- and stuck to that plan Tuesday. Instead, the company released a statement saying that it had commissioned auditors to check conditions at Mil Colores and that no evidence "supporting allegations of abusive working conditions," had been found. What about allegations of union busting? "The audit at Mil Colores did not, and was not intended to, address any issues directly related to labor negotiations and/or union organizing activities between Mil Colores management and workers," Target said in its statement. "We do not believe that is an appropriate Target Corporation role." So Ortega knew that he probably wouldn't be seeing any executives. But for the sake of symbolism and of TV cameras, he watched as Larry Weiss of the Minnesota Fair Trade Coalition knocked on Target's corporate doors. Nobody answered. <><><><><> NEWS ARTICLE ON UNION LEADER'S ATTEMPT TO MEET WITH KOHL'S Nicaraguan union leader seeks support for garment workers by Georgia Pabst Milwaukee Journal Sentinel, June 20, 2000 A Nicaraguan union leader was in Milwaukee on Monday [June 19] to rally support for garment workers who, he says, make clothes sold at Kohl's Department Stores and Target Stores under sweatshop conditions. Pedro Ortega, secretary general of the Nicaraguan Federation of Textile, Garment, Leather and Shoe Workers, said more than 200 workers at the Mil Colores factory in Nicaragua's free-trade zone have been fired for trying to form a union to address working conditions that include low pay and filth. He said many of those fired were women and single mothers who made 20 cents an hour, or about $10 a week. Some face criminal prosecution that could lead to up to 30 years in prison for trying to organize, he said. He spoke before an audience of 75 Monday night at the Sisters of St. Francis of Assisi, 3221 S. Lake Drive. Earlier in the day, Ortega, School Sisters of St. Francis of Assisi representatives and members of the Campaign for Labor Rights tried to meet with officials from Kohl's at the company's Menomonee Falls headquarters but were turned away. Gary Vasques, executive vice president of marketing for Kohl's, said the delegation did not have an appointment and the people they wanted to meet with were not in the building. "We take any and all allegations regarding human rights and union violations very, very seriously - so much so that we hired a neutral third party to investigate," he said. Vasques said that PricewaterhouseCoopers thoroughly investigated the complaints by the national labor committee about the Nicaraguan factory in the spring and found the allegations without merit. An anti-sweatshop shareholder resolution was proposed at the Kohl's annual meeting in May by the Sisters of St. Francis of Assisi on behalf of Cardinal Stritch University. The university owns 2,850 shares of Kohl's common stock. Ortega said the Nicaraguan factories make clothing sold under the Sonoma and Cherokee brands sold at Kohl's. He contended that workers in the factory receive the lowest minimum wages in all of Central America. With 60% unemployment in Nicaragua, there's a great need to generate employment, Ortega said. "So the government lets the companies do what they will so they can have employment and foreign investment," he said.
