PHILLIPS-VAN HEUSEN
Sweatshop CEO gets 'Golden Rat' award
By Mary
Owen
New York
New York activists from the Global Sweatshop Coalition gave
their first "Golden Rat" union-busting award to Bruce Klatsky,
head of Phillips-Van Heusen, outside the company's annual
stockholders' meeting in New York on June 17.
PVH has been a target of labor and human-rights groups since
December 1998, when it closed Camisas Modernas SA (CAMOSA).
CAMOSA was the only unionized PVH apparel plant in
Guatemala.
Klatsky, interestingly enough, serves on the board of the
international group Human Rights Watch.
"Bruce Klatsky, you say you defend human rights, but the
question we have is, why have you closed the only factory in
Guatemala with a collective-bargaining agreement?" asked Myra
Mendoza from the Garment Workers Justice Center of the Union of
Needletrades, Industrial and Textile Employees. "We demand you
reopen the factory and respect the workers' union."
Protesters carried signs reading "We demand a living wage
for garment workers" and "Clothes should not be stained with
sweat and blood."
Towering nearby was a giant inflated rat from Asbestos and
Hazardous Waste Laborers Local 78. A symbol of corporate greed,
the rat mocked union buster Klatsky with a sign that read
"Hello, my name is Bruce."
"I bring you the greetings of the 550 workers of PVH's
Camisas Modernas factory who, at this moment, are without work
or condemned to jobs with miserable wages and disgraceful
conditions," Marisol Lopez told the cheering crowd.
On June 15 Lopez, who is secretary general of the CAMOSA
workers' union, delivered an exhaustive, scathing report on the
CAMOSA situation to Klatsky. The report by labor, church and
student investigators detailed how PVH illegally shut down the
only unionized apparel-for-export factory in Guatemala and
shifted production to sweatshops.
Laid-off CAMOSA unionists have held a round-the-clock vigil
outside the plant since it was closed. They are counting on
international solidarity to help get it reopened.
Rosibel Flores of the Melida Anaya Montes Women's Movement
brought greetings from the women of El Salvador. Jerry Domin
guez of the Mexican Workers Association also spoke.
Earlier in the day, Dominguez had been arrested at a picket
line outside Blake and Todd, a nearby restaurant and caterer
where Mexican and Ecuadoran delivery workers want UNITE Local
169 as their union.
"Who's the rat? Bruce is the rat! We're going to keep coming
back until we've won this fight," he said of the CAMOSA
struggle.
For copies of the report and updates on the CAMOSA struggle,
readers can contact US/LEAP at (773) 262-6502;
www.americas.org/labor; or the Global Sweatshop Coalition at
(212) 645-5230, e-mail: nicadlw@earthlink.net.
This article is copyright under a Creative Commons License.
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