Holding signs emblazoned with letters reading, “Students and Workers Unite for Justice,” members of UW-Madison’s Student Labor Action Coalition marched up Bascom Hill Thursday afternoon to rally support for Hermosa factory workers and to encourage administration to cut off UW’s Adidas contract.

SLAC members Nick Limbeck, Joel Feingold, Molly Glasgow and Phoebe Taurick led the contingent of shouting students, all of them voicing their desire for an end to the UW-Adidas contract, which came under fire recently after Hermosa factory workers, in El Salvador, were not paid.

According to an April 10 University Communications release, “When the factory, which contracted with Adidas between 2000-’02, was closed in 2005, 260 workers were dismissed without receiving $825,000 in back pay or severance. Additionally, some unionized workers may have been put on a ‘black list’ for labor activism. Adidas and other brands contracted with the factory contend that they paid their obligations but that the factory’s owner embezzled the funds and is now being prosecuted in El Salvador.”

A UW-Madison administrator, Assistant to the Director of Community Relations Dawn Crim, is currently in El Salvador, investigating the Hermosa factory situation.

“This is a fight that has been going on for a decade and at every step of the way, the students here at Madison have forced their university into a leadership position over sweatshops,” cried SLAC member David Unger. “It was the first university to sign on to important anti-sweatshop agreements, and these efforts need to continue!”