UT Austin: No Monopoly Sweatshop Deal

UT has the single largest licensing program out of any university in the country, and we know that the top two contenders, the Dallas Cowboys and VF Corporation, are embroiled in scandals concerning sexual assault, domestic violence, and sweatshop abuses.

Dallas Cowboys
- In May 2007, the WRC issued a report about the Dada Dhaka factory, a Bangladeshi factory that produced clothes for the Cowboys. The WRC investigated the factory in light of allegations of anti-union activity. Investigations demonstrated that workers who had attended labor rights trainings were threatened with violence and subsequently fired. One woman, who was previously injured while working at the factory, underwent threats by management that they would attack her if she did not leave her position.
- In 2011, the Institute for Global Labour and Human Rights reported on the Ocean Sky factory in El Salvador where workers sewed apparel for the Cowboys. The report reads “the 1,500 mostly women workers at Ocean Sky are locked in a Free Zone, surrounded by barbed wire and patrolled by guards armed with shotguns...Workers report being drenched in their own sweat, since afternoon factory temperatures reach 98 degrees Fahrenheit...Factory drinking water is filthy and contaminated with fecal coli which can cause diarrhea, intestinal illness and infections. Six workers were fired for daring to alert their colleagues that the factory water was unsafe to drink...Illegally, all overtime is mandatory...Workers earn a base wage of 72 cents an hour, and 92 cents counting the attendance bonus...Even the Salvadoran Ministry of the Economy puts the workers' wages at one-quarter of a family's basic needs."
- Also in 2011, a report was released about the Apple Tree factory in El Salvador. Workers were producing Cowboys-logo infant apparel and were illegally forced to work overtime with no additional compensation for their time. Workers often became sick after drinking the factory-provided water, underwent vicious harassment and abuse from management, and were denied of a multitude of legally-ensured rights.
- The same year, the Cowboys pulled orders from the PT Kizone factory in Indonesia, withholding severance owed to 2,800 workers. The company lied about its relationship with the factory, and it was only after immense pressure from labor groups like USAS that the Cowboys paid $55,000, a meager portion of the $3.3 million owed in total.
- The Style Avenue factory in El Salvador also had numerous labor violations. According to a report conducted by the Worker Rights Consortium in 2011, “Style Avenue was found to have [...] forced overtime, illegal terminations, verbal abuse by management, failure to respect freedom of association, locking workers in the factory, excessive heat, and unsanitary conditions. After the publication of the report, additional violations occurred, which prompted the WRC to contact the licensees and urge remediation.”
- ESPN Outside the Lines produced an expose in 2012 highlighting the Cowboy’s labor violations in the Cambodian factories Bright Sky and Suntex. Workers were routinely forced to work 60 hours a week, which is a clear violation of Cambodian labor law.

VF Corporation
- In December 2010, four Bangladeshi garment workers died and 100 were injured in clashes with police outside a factory owned by the Korean-based YoungOne group, a major producer of North Face and owner of the rights to North Face in Korea. At issue was failure of the YoungOne factory to implement a new minimum wage increase.
- In 2010, VF was producing at That’s It Sportswear factory in Bangladesh (owned by Hameem Group), which burned, killing 29 workers and injuring more than a hundred. The factory had illegal construction, no proper fire exits, shoddy wiring, and locked exit doors. Workers were trapped on the top floors of the factory. Many jumped to their deaths. VF had repeatedly inspected the factory and yet had completely failed to address the safety hazards.
- In October of 2012, another VF factory, Eurotex, which was disclosed as a producer of collegiate apparel, burned in Dhaka. This was a major fire, though it did not completely destroy the factory. No one was killed in the fire, because the factory was closed for a holiday – if the fire had occurred during the workday, many could have died. When contacted about this fire, VF claimed that their own disclosure data was wrong and they had stopped using the factory.
- In August of 2013, the Worker Rights Consortium conducted a safety assessment of Optimum Fashion, a long-time VF contract factory producing collegiate apparel. After VF attempted to prevent the WRC from accessing the factory, the WRC’s inspection uncovered a number of very serious safety hazards, all of which constitute violations of university code of conduct provisions requiring licensees to maintain safe workplaces and any of which could result in injury or death to workers. These violations “included inadequate means for workers to escape the factory in the event of a fire and structural flaws that would facilitate the rapid and widespread propagation of deadly smoke throughout the factory building.”
- In January of 2014, a 20 year old YoungOne worker was shot and killed by police during a strike over stolen wages despite promises by YoungOne group to change its practices after the aforementioned 2010 murders. YoungOne produces up to 40% of all of The North Face’s apparel.
- On April 2, 2014, over 48,000 workers walked off the job at the Yue Yuen factory, a supplier for Timberland (a VF brand), in China’s largest strike in recent memory. The Yue Yuen workers had been robbed of years of legally owed social insurance payments and it was only after a massive strike in which several workers were beaten and kidnapped that the factory agreed to begin paying full social insurance and higher wages.
- On June 20, 2014 in Bangladesh, the Medlar Apparels factory caught fire, a factory that has supplied VF apparel as fa...