By Neil Offen

noffen@heraldsun.com; 419-6646

DURHAM -- Jim Wilkerson called it "unprecedented," "stunning," "groundbreaking."

Scott Nova called it impossible without the leadership of Duke University.

Nova, the executive director of the Washington-based Worker Rights Consortium, on Monday lauded Duke's role in helping bring about what's being called a historic workers' rights breakthrough in the global apparel industry.

The anti-sweatshop movement celebrated last week the decision by Russell Athletic to rehire 1,200 workers in Honduras who had lost their jobs when the apparel company closed its factory soon after the workers had unionized.

"Duke's leadership in making this happen was absolutely critical," Nova said. "They were among the first three schools to take a stand on the issue. Their early leadership truly made a difference."

Wilkerson, Duke's director of licensing and store operations, said it clearly had been the right thing to do.

"We attempted to persuade Russell to correct their violations and their noncompliance with our code of conduct [for companies that make the school's T-shirts, sweat pants and other gear with its logo], but we were not able to do that," he said. "So we decided to sever our relationship with Russell and terminate its licensing agreement with us."

Duke's decision last April -- which was "not without significant financial risk to the school," according to Nova -- led to a rush of other universities joining the campaign. By midsummer, more than 100 colleges and universities, including UNC-Chapel Hill, had ended their relationships with Russell.

"We think we helped start the ball rolling," Wilkerson said.

That ball ultimately forced Russell to reinstate the dismissed workers and open a new plant in Honduras as a unionized factory. The company also said it would not fight unionizations at its seven existing factories there.

Duke's leadership on workers' rights goes back further than its decision to cut off Russell. In 1998, the university was the first school to adopt a code of conduct for all companies who had license agreements with it.

"What happened with Russell couldn't have panned out without more than a decade of work, and that work began with Duke," Nova said. "Duke was the first university to adopt such a code and they have been a stalwart in the campaign ever since."

Duke's leadership, he added, not only had an effect on other licensees, but also helped convince other universities to enforce codes of conduct. "And that's translated itself into more vigilance and better practices," Nova said.

The concerted effort by so many universities, Wilkerson said, showed "that strong action can lead to extremely positive results."

Those results "are very gratifying," he said. "This is a groundbreaking achievement for workers' rights, and it's unprecedented really, in Central America, where even achieving a minimum respect for workers' rights has been so difficult to achieve."