We admire you as an accomplished actor and we appreciate your commitment to humanitarian causes. But through your endorsement of Hanes products, you are connected to egregious sweatshop abuses. Your voice is urgently needed. We respectfully ask that you demand that Hanes immediately put an end to the violation of worker rights at the TOS Dominicana factory in the Dominican Republic. If Hanes refuses to stop the abuses, we ask that you sever your relationship with Hanes.
- Hanes
- Kevin Bacon
- Enilda
- Marielena
- Elvys
Hanes' Factory: TOS Dominicana
Hanesbrands Inc is one of the world’s largest apparel companies, boasting sales of $2.2 billion in 2006. Serious worker rights violations have been found in the factories around the world that produce its underwear, t-shirts, and bras. Among them is TOS Dominicana, a major textile plant in the Dominican Republic, which was recently built by Hanes with an investment of $85 million. A range of grave worker rights abuses – from psychological abuse to retaliation against workers who have joined together to protest violations – have been documented at the plant. Yet, despite repeated appeals from labor and human rights groups, Hanes has failed to stop the abuses.
Why Kevin Bacon?
One of the world’s best recognized and most successful actors, Kevin Bacon serves as a key paid celebrity endorser for Hanes. We know that Hanes values his services as a spokesperson for the company and wishes to continue this lucrative relationship. As a result, Mr. Bacon is in a powerful position to stop the abuse of workers at Hanes' factory TOS Dominicana. If Mr. Bacon told Hanes that he would not continue to help Hanes sell its t-shirts and underwear unless the abuses at TOS Dominicana are stopped, we know that Hanes would listen. So we are asking for his help on this urgent cause.
Enilda
"They don’t make accommodations for pregnant women; they say if women can’t do the work that they should just go home. Even though it is dangerous, women keep doing the work because they are afraid of losing their jobs. There are women that have miscarried because of the workload. This is something that needs to get better. There are people who have fallen at work and broken their legs. There was one person who fell because of the grease that the machine was expelling; can you imagine if this happened to a pregnant worker? "
Marielena Marte
"One day I was very sick and needed permission to go home. I went to the supervisor and he sent me to the nurse. I arrived at the nurses office and she sent me back to the supervisor, at that point I had no more strength and I was about to faint. The nurse never believes that workers are sick unless they faint.
"There was one case with a woman at work who said she was sick, and the nurse didn’t pay any attention to her and sent her back to work. When they had to take her out she was purple in the face and could barely breathe from the fabric and lint in her lungs had given her bronchopneumonia. It had to get to that point for them to give permission for her to leave."
Elvys Manuel Abreu
"I am an operator in the knitting department. I work on 6 or 7 machines at a time, and when a coworker doesn’t come we sometimes work 8. The machines are huge, they are about the size of a normal room. The pressure is intense. They need to recognize that we are not animals. We are not machines like the ones we are working with.
"One time, one of the tubes came loose in the machine and it broke my finger and I had a cast up to my elbow. But I had to keep working with the cast because they wouldn’t pay me if I stayed home, even though it was a work injury."
