Boycott Ralph Lauren/Warnaco and be

[brelief@xxxxxxx]

Subject: Boycott Ralph Lauren/Warnaco and be sure to Tell 'em Why We  Won't Buy!

LET'S TELL 'EM WHY WE WON'T BUY!

Announcing the launch of a label campaign!  

You can:
(1) cut out labels from Ralph Lauren/Warnaco products you've previously
purchased and send them with a letter saying you won't be buying any more
until the company withdraws from Burma 
(2) cut out label (or send advertisements or sales receipt)  from
competitors (esp. Levi Strauss and Liz Claiborne, who withdrew from Burma on
humanitarian grounds) and send with a letter saying "I was thinking about
buying your product but my conscience led me to choose your competitor."
(3) write a letter declaring that you are boycotting their products until
they get out of Burma and telling them why.

The Warnaco Group, Inc.
90 Park Ave.
New York, NY, 10016
United States

Tel:  212-661-1300
Fax:  212-370-0832

Chief Executive: 
Chairman, President, and CEO: Linda Wachner, age 50, $ 3,775,156 pay SVP and
CFO (please read excerpt from "Who Stole the Dream" below.)

Description: 
Intimate apparel manufacturer Warnaco sells to more than 5,000 retailers
operating 15,000 department, mass merchandise, and specialty stores in North
America and Europe. Brand names including Calvin Klein, Olga, Valentino
Intimo, and  Warner's bras. The company is the leading marketer of bras to
department and specialty stores and is a major player in the menswear market
with such top-line brands as Calvin Klein Men's Underwear and Accessories,
and Chaps by Ralph Lauren. Warnaco also runs more than 50 retail outlet
stores to dispose of its irregular inventory and to compete with off-price
retailers.

COMPETITORS:
Benetton
Danskin
Fruit of the Loom
Hampton Industries
Kellwood
>>Levi Strauss
The Limited
>>Liz Claiborne
Maidenform
Marks & Spencer
Movie Star
Nautica Enterprises
Russell Corporation
Sara Lee
VF
 
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Consider this!

Excerpt from:

America:  Who Stole the Dream?
The Burden of the Working Woman

Economic recovery? Certainly not for women in low-paying service jobs --
clerking or waiting tables. For some, poverty is always close at hand.
By Donald L. Barlett and James B. Steele

INQUIRER STAFF WRITERS
Copyright 1996 The Philadelphia Inquirer

 ...  Not all women are losing ground in the apparel industry. Some are
making quite a nice living.
    Like Linda J. Wachner. She's the 50-year-old chairman of the board,
president and chief executive officer of Warnaco Group Inc., and chairman
and CEO of Authentic Fitness Corp.
    The New York-based Warnaco Group designs, manufactures and markets
women's intimate apparel, including such brand names as Warner's, Olga,
Valentino Intimo, Calvin Klein. By its own reckoning, the company accounts
for 30 percent of all women's bra sales in the United States. It also sells
a range of menswear, including shirts by Hathaway and Chaps by Ralph
Lauren.
    Authentic Fitness, of Commerce, Calif., designs, manufactures and sells
swimwear and activewear under the Speedo, Catalina and Anne Cole brand
names, among others.
    Many products sold by Warnaco and Authentic Fitness are manufactured
abroad. Warnaco operates plants in Mexico, Honduras, Costa Rica, the
Dominican Republic and Ireland. Both subcontract production to other
companies overseas.
    So how goes the apparel business? For the years from 1993 to 1995,
Warnaco reported revenue of $2.4 billion and profits of $134 million.
    Its U.S. income tax payments, according to reports filed with the U.S.
Securities and Exchange Commission, came to about $10 million, giving
Warnaco an effective tax rate of 7 percent.
    Which means that a company with annual sales approaching $1 billion paid
federal income taxes at a rate below that paid by families with incomes
between $25,000 and $30,000.
    You might want to view Warnaco's low tax bill from another vantage point
-- the pay of its chief executive.
    Linda Wachner's salary and bonuses for the years 1993 to 1995 added up
to $11.4 million -- or more money than the company paid in U.S. income tax.
    That does not include stock options and other stock deals. In 1995, for
example, Wachner received a salary and bonus of $4.8 million, plus $6
million in stock, for a total compensation package of  nearly $11 million.
Her stock holdings in Warnaco and Authentic Fitness in 1996 were worth
upward of $200 million.
    At the same time that Wachner's take-home pay soared into the millions,
her company reduced the take-home pay of the workers at one of its plants.
    In May, 1996, Warnaco announced it intended to close the plant in
Waterville, Maine, where Hathaway shirts have been made for more than 150
years. The closing stunned workers. Michael 
Cavanaugh, an official of the Union of Needletrades, Industrial and Textile
Employees, which represents Hathaway employees,  explained why:
    "The amount of production went up from an average of 2,000 dozen a week
to 3,000 dozen a week and the cost of that production went down almost in
half [ through 1995 and until May 1996 ] .
    "So there was some rather remarkable productivity improvements... that
was one of the major reasons why people were so shocked when this
announcement came, that, you know, `Thanks very much, but good-bye.' "
    Of the 450 people who work at the Waterville plant, about 90 percent are
women -- many single mothers. Their average pay is $8 an hour. That's
$16,640 a year.
    The $16,640 is based on a 40-hour week. After Wachner said she would
keep the plant open until an investment group could be formed to buy it, she
cut the workweek to 30 hours.
    That's $12,480 a year -- which not only qualifies families for the
earned-income tax credit but places some below the government's poverty level.
    Whatever number you pick, $12,480 or $16,640, think of it this way:
    Linda Wachner's nearly $11 million compensation package for 1995 exceeds
the total wages of the 400 women workers at her Waterville plant.

* * *

For the Campaign in Japan, write to:

POLO/RALPH LAUREN JAPAN. ,LTD.
PORO RARUFUROREN JAPAN, KK
Kiho Bldg. 2, Koji-machi 2 chome 
Chiyoda-ku, Tokyo 102
Japan

03-3222-6633

Chief Executive: 
Name:       KOMETANI, HIROSHI
Hometown:   FUKUOKA
Education:  KEIO UNIV.
Sex:        MALE (naturally)

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Copyright 1997 Newspaper Publishing PLC
The Independent  June 17, 1997, Tuesday

Ralph Lauren  In Dock Over  Burma

Bangkok (AP) - An American labour advocacy group says it will target fashion
designer Ralph Lauren  and several other garment-makers that continue to
manufacture in military-governed Burma.
	"Ralph Lauren  and Warnaco are working hand-in-hand with the brutal
dictators in  Burma, " the National Labor Committee, a New York-based
organisation fighting against sweatshops, said in a statement received in
Bangkok yesterday.
	Warnaco makes clothes under  Ralph Lauren's  "Chaps" label. In May,
President Bill Clinton banned new US investment in  Burma  to punish that
nation's military government for its increased repression of its democracy
movement and its failure to curb drug exports.
	The Burmese regime came to power in 1988 after gunning down 3,000 democracy
demonstrators. It refused to recognise a 1990 election in which the party of
democracy movement leader and 1991 Nobel Peace Prize winner Aung San Suu Kyi
scored a landslide victory.  Burma  is the world's largest producer of
opium, the raw material for heroin. But the sanctions do not investment
deals already signed.The labour group is calling for a "national day of
conscience to end sweatshops" in October and warned it would focus on  Ralph
Lauren  and Warnaco "unless there is movement".
	Consumer pressure already has forced a number of US companies, including
Pepsi, Macy's, Apple Computer and Levi Strauss, to pull out of  Burma.
	
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