Rabbis Call for Boycott

The Board of Rabbis of Southern California has urged “our colleagues and members of synagogues of which they are spiritual leaders to refrain from purchasing” products manufactured by the Farah Manufacturing Co. of E1 Paso, Texas, one the country’s leading manufacturers of slacks, until the firm negotiates with the Amalgamated Clothing Workers of America.

According to a letter sent out by the Board of Rabbis, almost 25 percent of the firm’s 9000 workers have been on strike for more than 19 months. “The average take-home pay of the workers. 95 percent of them Mexican-Americans and 80 percent women, is $69 a week,” the letter stated. “Although the National Labor Relations Board has recognized the ACWA as the legal bargaining agency for the cutting room workers following an election, the company has consistently refused to negotiate with that union and has, pursued activities deemed unlawful by the NLRB.”

The Board of Rabbis, noting that the ACWA has urged a nation-wide boycott of Farah products, said it took action to refrain from purchasing the firm’s products “until the boycott is ended” after its Social Action Committee under the chairmanship of Rabbi Sidney J. Jacobs together with Board President Rabbi Meyer Heller considered “the circumstances surrounding the strike” for the past months.

“It has invited and received representations, verbal and written, both from the ACWA and the management of the company,” the Board’s letter stated. The decision to recommend solidarity with the union boycott came after these representations, were evaluated against the background of the right of employes to organize in a union and bargain collectively.