It wasn’t very long ago that every time you looked at a clothing label you would see “Made in the USA.”  Not only was it made in the USA but it probably also had some sort of connection to a thriving garment industry in the Cleveland area.  Names like Joseph & Feiss Co, Bobbie Brooks, Printz-Biederman, Lion Knitting Mills, and Cleveland Worsted Mill dominated the industry and union cards kept people gainfully employed.

But this good thing has come to an end.  Now Hugo Boss, the last clothing manufacturer in Cleveland, has given notice of their intent to shutter their plant and permanently lay off 400 workers at the end of April.

Hugo is closing because they want to ship the jobs to a plant in Turkey where they can pay much less than the average current rate of $12 per hour they pay Cleveland employees.

Hugo management offered to stay if the employees were willing to cut pay to $8 an hour.

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Maybe we could understand this if the Hugo Boss label was going out of business and closing the plant because they could no longer pay their employees, but this isn’t the case.  Hugo spends millions of dollars sponsoring all sorts of sporting events:  Formula 1 racing, tennis tournaments, golf, and sailing.  So we’re telling Hugo to keep Cleveland working—forget the Formula 1 and invest in the families who have invested in you!

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