President Barack Obama’s bailing out of the banks may lead to his running out of dress clothes.
Hart Schaffner & Marx, or Hartmarx, which manufactures menswear for several brands, filed for bankruptcy protection in January.
Workers at the Hartmarx factory in Des Plaines voted unanimously Monday in favor of staging a sit-in should Wells Fargo decide to liquidate the company.
According to the company’s Web site, Kellogg Dean Dipak Jain has been a member of Hartmarx’s board of directors since 2002. Jain could not be reached for comment or confirmation Tuesday.
Virtually all of Hartmarx’s 3,500 workers are represented by a union called Workers United, union representatives said. They also said they had few qualms with the Hartmarx board of directors and that the focus of their fight is Wells Fargo.
“This is our home right here,” said Joe Scalise, a union district president who cuts suit patterns and has been with Hartmarx for 43 years. “There are mothers, sons, sisters, husbands, wives, so if one loses their job, everyone loses their job and they have mortgages to pay.”
Tony Brancato, who has also worked 43 years – since he was 15 – said, “A lot of those mortgages are with Wells Fargo.”
The union representatives said Wells Fargo had received two bids from companies willing to buy Hartmarx and allow it to function as it always has, as well as one that wants to liquidate the company.
“We want Fargo to sell to one of the two companies that will continue business as usual,” Brancato said.
Joe Costigan, the treasurer for the Chicago and Midwest branches of Workers United, said the problem does not lie with the company or the product but with the bank it now belongs to.
“In January the banks weren’t lending money to businesses,” Costigan said. “Without providing a ladder of credit the company had to file for bankruptcy.”
He said the storied quality of Hartmarx’s products should be enough to keep the company afloat.
“Hartmarx has been around for 120 years,” Costigan said. “It has survived the depression and every financial crisis since. It should be able to survive this.”
