"Fruit of the Loom Transformed Workers’ Rights in Honduras. It’s Now Accused of Union-Busting", 1 April 2025

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In 2009, Fruit of the Loom’s Jerzees de Honduras workers’ union and its parent organization, the Central General de Trabajadores, or CGT, came together to sign what would become known as the Washington Agreement, which WRC called an “unprecedented” win for collective bargaining rights because of its legally binding nature, co-governed oversight and dispute resolution mechanism. As part of the pact, Fruit of the Loom opened Jerzees Nuevo Dia. It signaled the dawn of a different approach, one that provided unionists the opportunity to expand collective bargaining in Honduras as a whole...

By the end of 2021, Anner said, 22 collective bargaining agreements covered nearly 46,000 garment workers, or some 44 percent of the 105,000 people making clothing in Honduras. Wages rose to such an extent over the 15 years since that the country’s living wage gap stands at 4 percent...

Jerzees Nuevo Dia, along with another Fruit of the Loom unit known as Confecciones Dos Caminos, are on the chopping block. The company...has been “quietly and slowly” winding down five of the six cut-and-sew facilities it operated in Honduras while ramping up imports from third-party supplier factories in countries such as Bangladesh, where workers do not benefit from the same protections. The only plant that Fruit of the Loom has not targeted also happens to be the sole non-union one...

Fruit of the Loom has defended what it describes as “operation restructuring,” saying that it needs to “consolidate manufacturing capacity, adjust to changes in product demand and ensure the company remains financially healthy” amid “significant disruption” in the North American market, including the “considerable growth” of retailer private label offerings and “increased competition” from products imported directly from Asia. It also refuted claims that it was anti-union.

“Unfortunately, our restructuring effort has impacted multiple company facilities in the U.S., El Salvador, Haiti and Honduras over the last several years,” it said in a statement. “Decisions to close facilities are only made after careful review and consideration of alternative actions and are in no way based on the presence of unions in a facility. Fruit of the Loom has set an example in its commitment to freedom of association in its facilities, and this commitment remains by continuing to operate multiple unionized facilities in Honduras and elsewhere globally.”...

But Evangelina Argueta, a coordinator for CGT who led the fight at the former Jerzees de Honduras, said workers believe that the factory closures are a form of union-busting. It doesn’t make sense otherwise, they said, to retain a non-unionized over a unionized unit. Fruit of the Loom, according to Argueta, had already tried to negotiate a more favorable collective bargaining agreement “for the health of the company,” which the union had agreed to because it thought this would preserve the two facilities. This did not appear to be the case, however.

“We have made it clear to the company that we know that this closure of factories is anti-union,” Argueta said through a translator. “We have proved that they are shutting down every unionized factory, except for the non-union plant, as well as moving production from Honduras.”

The relationship between Fruit of the Loom and the unions representing its Honduran workers has deteriorated since the passing of then-CEO Rick Medlin in 2016, she said....

“You know, we have to ask a basic question: why is it every time there’s some market downturn, the first factories that get closed are the unionized ones?” Anner asked. “There’s a pattern there that we’ve seen in this industry forever, and that’s what concerns me about this case. You’re not only taking jobs from so many workers that had good jobs, but you’re also killing an example that’s so meaningful.”...

...My fear is that without that union protection, the factories that are remaining that don’t have unions are not just facing lower wages and a squeeze on benefits but also abuse because workers aren’t meeting their quotas. And we know that’s so common and endemic in this industry.”...

Argueta said that the company’s actions could have a broader chilling effect on freedom of association in Honduras...

Right now, CGT and the unions are...urging Fruit of the Loom, among other things, to extend by six to 10 months severance payments for workers with medical issues from years of repetitive, backbreaking, high-stress work. Argueta said that Fruit of the Loom has long reaped the benefits of the Washington Agreement: Production was high and its reputation received a boost. “We as workers knew that if Fruit of the Loom rose, we did too, so we wanted to do good work with them,” she said. “Now the workers feel defrauded.”...

And while the Washington Agreement doesn’t explicitly prohibit factory closures or layoffs, Scott Nova, WRC’s executive director, said he believes they violate the spirit of the deal, as exemplified by Jerzees Nuevo Dia...