New Era Cap Company Fact Sheet

* New Era Cap, founded in 1920, has been privately owned by the Koch family for four generations.
* It is headquartered at 160 Delaware Avenue, Buffalo NY 14202. The CEO is Chris Koch. Phone: (716) 604-9000.
* New Era Cap makes over 30 million caps a year and is the leading licensed headwear company in the world. It is the exclusive manufacturer of official Major League Baseball caps and UK football teams including Manchester United. New Era also produces for the urban fashion market.
* New Era Cap owns and operates one union plant in Buffalo New York. It has two non-union plants in the south and one in Mobile, Alabama that was recently organized by the Teamsters. Workers there are trying to negotiate their first contract. * New Era Cap employs about 1,300 workers in the United States and 200 internationally.
* New Era Cap sources from four manufacturing facilities in China, one in India and one in Vietnam. New Era has international retail operations in Canada, Japan and Europe.
* New Era Cap’s estimated annual revenues are between $250 -300 million. The company seeks to double its revenues by 2010. It also hopes to extend the company’s international retail reach from 200 stores to 1,000.
* New Era Cap has retail stores in Buffalo, New York, Toronto, London and Atlanta. Caps are also sold at major retail stores, including Hatworld/Lids, Foot Locker, and Modell’s.
* New Era Cap is a member and holds a board seat of the controversial Fair Labor Association (FLA), a garment industry group heavily criticized by human rights and anti-sweatshop groups. These groups claim that the FLA is ineffective, lacks transparency and is not independent of the manufacturers who make up its members and much of its board. New Era claims to be in compliance with the FLA Code of Conduct, which prohibits racial discrimination and violations of workers’ rights. Tim Freer, New Era Cap’s VP of Global Human Resources, sits on the Board of Directors of the FLA.
* Workers at the New Era Cap manufacturing facility in Derby, NY are represented by CWA Local 14177. * In 2001-2002, workers at the Derby plant struck for 11 months. Major issues of dispute included health and safety violations, outsourcing work to Asia, and cruel production quotas. The striking workers received support from anti-sweatshop, student and religious groups. New Era Cap and CWA settled the dispute in July 2002 and successfully renegotiated a contract in 2005. New Era Cap received the “Champions at Work” award from Cornell University for resolving this dispute.
* On July 12, 2007 workers at the New Era Cap company plant in Mobile, Alabama voted for union representation. There are 100 workers in the unit. The predominantly black female workforce turned to unionization amidst complaints of low pay, forced overtime and racial discrimination. * Workers at the New Era Cap manufacturing facilities in Jackson, AL and Demopolis, AL are non-union.
Between April and October 2007, New Era Cap terminated over 20 workers at the Mobile plant including numerous union activists. The company has since contracted with temp agencies to bring in a number of new workers. In addition, the National Labor Relations Board is currently investigating charges that the company illegally interrogated, intimidated, and terminated workers during the union’s organizing campaign.
* New Era workers in Mobile are represented by Teamsters Local Union 991, 122 Broad Street, Mobile, AL 36602.

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An Appeal for Justice

Mr. Chris Koch
CEO, New Era Cap

Through your longstanding partnership with Major League Baseball and your more recent success in the hip-hop, fashion and overseas markets, New Era Cap has become an icon of American culture. We therefore applaud your declared commitment to corporate social responsibility.

Thus, imagine our distress to hear reports that New Era Cap is engaging in racial discrimination as well as intimidation of employees seeking to form a union at your Mobile, Alabama distribution center. Black workers who have given New Era years of loyal service at low wages are being passed over for promotion by management. We also find management threats that workers could jeopardize their existing benefits by voting for union representation to be outrageous.

It is time for a new day at New Era.

You must insist that your company’s behavior lives up to its rhetoric. We urge you to end all vestiges of racism at your Southern facilities and reinstate the 22 Mobile workers that you have terminated during the recent union campaign. Bargain in good faith and guarantee that all New Era employees may exercise their rights in an atmosphere free of fear and coercion.

Respectfully,

Please copy and email this back to Jessica Rutter at the Teamsters Union - JRutter@teamster.org