CELEBRATE WORKERS' VICTORY! Renew the Boycott Against DKNY Workers have been raising one battle after another against giant sweatshop operator DKNY. It began in 1998 when women workers in one DKNY factory (East Point/Choe/Couture) spoke out against the long hours and lack of overtime pay, and demanded their right to go to the bathroom (the factory bathrooms were often padlocked). A few Chinese workers organized together and brought their demands to their union (UNITE) and the Labor Department, yet all of these efforts were in vain because DKNY executives and Donna Karan have very close relations with the union leadership. NMASS, on behalf of the DKNY workers, wrote a letter to DKNY. DKNY answered the workers' complaints by firing all of those who dared to stand up. At the same time, a union official went to the factory to threaten the other workers not to follow the "troublemakers." When these tactics backfired, DKNY closed the factory altogether, fired most of the workers, and moved the garments into another union shop (Jen Chu), located a couple of blocks away. NMASS helped to bring the Chinese and Latino workers together and organized protests and press conferences in front of the DKNY office and retail store. The workers also filed a lawsuit for wage violations, called for a consumer boycott, and tabled and leafleted in the heart of garment industry center to inform other workers about DKNY's sweatshop conditions. Unlike most other boycott campaigns that often rely on the consumer and become short lived, the Boycott DKNY campaign was successful because we organized and relied on the producers - the garment workers. The campaign quickly elevated to the national and international arenas. It became DKNY & UNITE!'s biggest nightmare. The Latina women workers also filed a lawsuit against DKNY for discrimination. The Latinas were searched daily before they left the factory, and were forced to work for lower pay sewing by hand because "their eyes were bigger than the Chinese." In June 2001, another group of workers came out from the DKNY "runaway" shop, Jen Chu, and energized the campaign. Aside from picketing, the workers also filed a class action lawsuit against DKNY and all of its contractors. This time, 20 to 30 garment workers joined in. Many of them are Fujianese and some are undocumented. Not only did they sue DKNY in Federal Court, they also won a suit against Jen Chu Apparel before the National Labor Relations Board. With DKNY workers in the midst of launching a holiday action to renew the boycott, DKNY did not dare to delay any longer or wait for the Liberty Apparel case* to be resolved. Recently DKNY entered a settlement with the workers in both the discrimination case against the Latinas and the class action lawsuit for wage violations. Under the settlement, workers in these two cases received close to a million dollars but no apology. In light of the workers rising up in New York, DKNY moved most of its operations overseas to areas where worker organizing is relatively weak, like Toronto, Canada. DKNY thought by paying the workers a little the boycott would go away-They are damn wrong! With these unprecedented victories, NMASS, along with CSWA, is planning an event to celebrate the DKNY victory (event date and location to be announced), and urges people to continue to boycott DKNY garments until DKNY brings back the work to New York, corrects all of its wrongdoing, and rehires the unjustly fired workers. * The twenty-six Fujianese garment workers who sewed Liberty Apparel's garments under sweatshop conditions are appealing a decision in the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit. The decision ignored a widely accepted interpretation of the Fair Labor Standards Act (FLSA) that established general contractors (manufacturers) as employers of their contracted workers under federal law and thereby accountable for the conditions under which they worked. Liberty Apparel denied workers minimum wage and overtime pay, and even withheld wages for four to eight months. Like DKNY, Liberty representatives often visited the factory, and they also promised workers they would be paid if they rushed to meet tighter deadlines. This ruling will impact not only the garment industry, but also other industries with subcontratcing. The case is being watched closely around the country. At the present time many manufacturers are dragging out other garment cases where workers are pursuing them, pending the outcome of Liberty.