November 15, 2009 will go down in the history of workers’ rights. Bowing to one of the largest-ever student boycotts, campus clothing giant Fruit of the Loom announced that it wasn’t just going to reopen a factory in Honduras and give all the 1,200 laid-off workers their jobs back – it was also going to pay them $2.5 million in compensation, and restore union rights.
Colleges in the US, Canada and Britain had been persuaded by students to suspend their contracts with Fruit of the Loom and its subsidiary, Russell Athletic. The student protests were in response to news that the company was planning to shut its Jerzees de Honduras factory following union activity. Reyna Dominguez is one of the sewing machine operators from the factory: ‘Without the pressure from the students they [the company] would never have come to the negotiating table. There has never been an agreement like this in Honduras or the world. The feeling is something you really can’t put into words.’
