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Proman Garment Workers Demand Fair Severance
By Mike Liu
August 1, 2005
Workers at the Proman Manufacturing Co., a sportswear producer in South Boston, attempted to demand a fair severance when faced with the factory's impending closure. Proman Mfg. Co.'s owner, Joseph Proman, laid-off all of its 40-plus Chinese and Latino workers last Wednesday.
Though some workers have worked for decades for Proman Mfg. Co., Proman refused to offer severance pay, or give prior notice of layoffs to workers until the week before the factory's closure.
Proman produces among other things, sophisticated sports bras for labels such as Franklin Sports and Proman's own Sportjock. Franklin Sports is carried by universities across the country -- including Boston College -- whose apparel factories are monitored by the Workers Rights Consortium. While most Proman workers made as little as $6.75 an hour, the Massachusetts minimum wage, in one of the most expensive cities, the Workers Rights Consortium's code of conduct includes provisions for a living wage.
Workers together with the Chinese Progressive Association, Brazilian Immigrant Center, Centro Presente, American Friends Service Committee, and Jobs with Justice picketed the plant during the past month and organized petitions.
Their actions forced Proman to pay vacation pay owed to the workers since July 1st, which Proman had been illegally withholding to intimidate the workers from further organizing. But demonstrating his determination not to give anything to his workers, Proman has called the police to intimidate workers and refused to negotiate.
The workers' modest demands, delivered in a petition in early July, included:
- One week of severance compensation for every year of work for all employees;
- Two months' prior notice of factory closing, where it will move, and if current workers can apply for jobs; compensation for every day short of 60 days notice;
- Cooperation with state and city agencies in requesting Trade Adjustment Assistance for worker retraining
Proman claimed he did not have the money to pay any severance, but he owns property worth $2.5 million in Newton, including a 7-bath, 5-bedroom mansion with a swimming pool.
While the owners get richer, workers struggle for a few hundred more dollars even as they face unemployment. What kind of system is this?
Picketing outside Proman Mfg. Co.
