Posted on 10/06/2002 10:43:20 AM PDT by chance33_98
Hathaway label becomes controversy Windsong denies intent to kill firm
By JONATHAN HUMPHREY, Staff Writer
Copyright © 2002 Blethen Maine Newspapers Inc. E-mail this story to a friend
WATERVILLE — Imagine, if you can, Hathaway dress shirts being made overseas.
Until recently, the notion would have seemed almost impossible.
But soon, it could happen. Another famous American brand name no longer made in America.
The C.F. Hathaway Co. factory in Waterville is expected to close by Oct. 18. After that, what?
Sources connected to Hathaway said that although the company is about to die in Waterville, its owner, Windsong Allegiance Apparel Group of Westport, Conn., has no plans to let that happen to the Hathaway name.
"The label we're hoping to continue," Collette Sipperly, spokeswoman for Windsong and its Joe Boxer affiliate, said Thursday from New York. "We certainly believe in the viability of it. You're not going to buy something if you don't believe it has value in the marketplace."
Sipperly said Windsong, which bought Hathaway last fall, plans to continue making the Hathaway sportswear line — mainly knit tops and sports shirts.
The line will almost certainly be produced overseas in plants where Windsong makes its other lines of clothing, but that would have happened even if the Hathaway factory in Waterville remained open, Sipperly said.
Whether dress shirts will be next remains to be seen, but some say the fact that Windsong is walking away with the label and leaving a dead company behind says a lot about the apparel giant's original intentions.
Sen. Kenneth T. Gagnon, D-Waterville, is one of the skeptics.
"It now seems to be clear that that's what they were after to begin with," Gagnon said.
Windsong has vigorously denied such allegations, and some — including former Gov. John R. McKernan Jr., who led the investment group that owned Hathaway before Windsong — have gone on record saying they believe the firm.
John-Edward Alley, an official with The Made in the USA Foundation who was involved in negotiations in which the nonprofit foundation attempted to buy Hathaway from Windsong, is another believer.
"They really seem to be good people," Alley said. "I know they don't want the factory to close. That's just not their thing."
Sipperly denied flatly that Windsong wanted the Hathaway label and nothing else, repeating earlier assertions that the Waterville factory simply could not compete against the cheaper labor available overseas.
"We feel at this point that we have for the last seven months tried very, very hard to come up with a solution and realistically have not," Sipperly said. "If anyone thinks they can, we're still willing to donate all the equipment in the factory to anyone that can prove financial viability."
But many workers remain unconvinced, according to Kathy Pelletier, president of Local 486 of the Union of Needletrades, Industrial, and Textile Employees (UNITE), which represents the more than 200 workers at the factory.
Pelletier said there is talk that Windsong is walking away from the factory too soon, and kept it open just long enough to claim it had tried honestly to make a go of it.
"Personally, I can't help but feel that way because I don't feel they gave us a fair chance," Pelletier said. "I am not speaking for anyone else, and if they want to prove me wrong, go for it."
Since Windsong is planning to continue making the Hathaway sportswear line, it stands to continue profiting from the Hathaway name long after the workers who made the name famous are unemployed.
Though that may seem unfair to the workers, the line being produced overseas is less troubling to them because that has been happening for many years, Pelletier said.
"It really is nothing new to us," Pelletier said. "We always knew that some sports shirts and some knit shirts had been done overseas, and it was more or less to offset their costs here."
Sipperly said Windsong is not currently producing Hathaway shirts elsewhere, and has not licensed any other company to do so.
Windsong lost money on the Hathaway operation in Waterville, and incurred further losses by agreeing to keep the factory running past the original June 30 shutdown date in order to allow the company to seek additional business, Sipperly said.
If Hathaway had won a five-year contract to produce shirts for the U.S. Air Force that instead went to another firm, Windsong would have kept the Waterville factory open, Sipperly said.
"That would have supplied enough work to keep it viable," Sipperly said.
Only time will tell whether the Hathaway sportswear line will mark the end of the famous label, or whether Windsong will successfully resurrect it in other forms, including dress shirts.
Producing sports shirts offshore is one thing, but the very idea of Hathaway dress shirts being made anywhere other than Waterville, Maine is unthinkable to workers, Pelletier said.
To them, and to many others who remember its heyday, the Hathaway dress shirt is an icon of American office wear, once worn proudly by legions of professional men across the country.
Though casual business-wear trends and the rise of lower-priced imported shirts ended that by the 1990s, Hathaway workers never lost their pride in the product.
"We are the dress shirt people," Pelletier said simply. "You can't make them anywhere else."
Steve Weingarten, industrial director for UNITE, said even if Windsong did try to produce Hathaway dress shirts in Asia or South America, they could hardly market them as the real thing.
"If anybody thinks they're going to make Hathaway shirts in sweatshops they're going to find a lot of people yelling about it," Weingarten said. "Hathaway is a 'Made in the USA' brand. That's what Hathaway has always been, that's what Hathaway always should be."
Jonathan Humphrey — 861-9252
Seriously, I've just got one word ... "tarrifs".
FMCDH
Ah yes. Socialism puts another company out of business, and once again the "oppressed" workers decry the abuses of capitalism.
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