On their tour of United States universities, two former Honduran garment workers visited the University of Wisconsin to share their stories on workers’ rights violations and to thank UW for its decision to sever its contract with Nike.

After becoming the first university in the world to cut its contract with Nike, it is powerful to hear how UW personally affected people’s well-being, Student Labor Action Coalition member and UW freshman Beth Huang said.

Gina Cano from the Hugger de Honduras factory and Lowlee Urquia from Vision Tex factory in Honduras, who both lost their jobs Jan. 19, 2009, and were denied payment of severance fees by Nike, shared detailed accounts of their life situations since the factories closed.

After working for Nike for 13 years, Cano and 1,200 other Hugger de Honduras employees lost their main source of income and received only 21 percent of what was owed to them in benefits.

At the Vision Tex factory, 458 employees, including Urquia, lost their jobs and were simply allowed to collect 26.5 percent of owed benefits through the sale of old factory machinery.

While still running, the factories, which were subcontractors of Nike, refused to pay their employees for their overtime work and denied putting money into the social security fund, which would allow for employees to receive access to hospital care, Cano said.

Cano added after so many workers lost their jobs without obtaining their severance pay, even more people have died due to the inability to afford medical attention.

In one instance, a woman receiving cancer treatment was unable to finish her sequence of treatments due to monetary difficulties and therefore died, leaving her three children behind, Urquia said.

“People can no longer afford to pay for schooling, transportation or even housing,” Urquia said. “One of my children couldn’t finish elementary school.”

Urquia added all the former employees are looking for is a tiny fraction of Nike’s mass amount of funds, which they helped to earn, but also stressed no amount of money would be able to compensate for the immense amount of suffering that has resulted.

Even though Nike is introducing new occupational training sessions for the employees and promises to bring work back into the area, these are simply words that Hondurans cannot trust, Urquia said.

In order to force Nike into paying the severance provisions, people involved in the situation and possible consumers must put continual pressure on them, Cano said.

Cano also thanked UW for the action it took to ensure workers’ rights would be sustained and encouraged UW students and faculty to support other universities working toward the same goal.

“I’d really like to thank all the wonderful people here in Wisconsin because you really gave us a lot of happiness,” Cano said. “We can see that you really understand all the situations that we’re going through, and you made us really happy with what’s happened here.”

SLAC, United Students Against Sweatshops, the International Socialist Organization, UW National Lawyers’ Guild, Textile and Apparel Design Program, and WISPIRG sponsored the event.