Poor people? Surely not here?

Voices of many political movement
demanding a code of conduct
A sit-in to protest

College campuses' have been the voices of many political movements, such as civil rights, the Vietnam War, and the anti-apartheid protests. While these protests were known for their volume the newest concern, sweatshop labor, is gaining ground among college students.

Protests on universities have been springing up since 1997 at the University of North Carolina. Since then Brown University, Duke University, the University of Toronto, the University of Wisconsin Madison, as well as other schools having been holding protests of their own to speak out against college apparel being manufactured in sweatshops.

"Throughout North America sweatshop labor is becoming a great concern," said Chris Ramsaroop, executive of the Arts and Sciences Student Union at the University of Toronto.

A sweatshop is defined as a system where workers are in an environment where they do not feel they can advocate for themselves, said Sara Jewett, president of Students Against Sweatshops at Duke University. SAS was founded at Duke in 1997, and is currently in its second year. Although Ms Jewett is the president she said the group is more consensus based. Ms Jewett said in sweatshops workers feel they cannot speak up for themselves on issues concerning their wages, or their treatment as employees. She said workers are afraid to lose their jobs, so they work in harsh conditions.

"Even though they may seem like horrible jobs to us, those workers need those jobs," Ms Jewett said. "We have to help improve the conditions of those jobs."

College apparel only makes up 2.5 percent of the clothing market, but universities decided this is where they had some pull. On UW's campus five years ago it was discovered Reebok had a contract with the university, and it had to use Reebok equipment, said Kurt Ellison, member of Alliance for Democracy at UW. He said the original protest against sweatshop labor did not win a ban of Reebok sweatshop products on campus, but it did allow the campus to speak against Reebok. Mr Ellison said prior to the protest the university would be found libel for speaking against Reebok, so this was the student's first success at UW.

"I think the anti-sweatshop movement has provided a space for students to participate in true democracy where there voices are being heard," Ms Jewett said. "Sweatshops unmask the ugly face of the neoliberal economic models that affect all of us."

Demanding a code of conduct

Most universities began protesting their college apparel by demanding a code of conduct be made to improve working conditions. Duke began working on theirs in 1997, and it says: no child labor can be used in making Duke apparel, there must be safe work conditions for employees and no forced birth control can be used. Currently SAS at Duke is working on getting factories to accept a living wage, which is the ideal wage that would allow workers to survive and is more than the minimum wage.

"It is different from minimum wage," Ms Jewett said. "Often times people can not eat nutritionally or afford decent housing on just minimum wage."

At the University of Toronto a recent sit-in was held because the university was stalling on creating a code on conduct, Mr Ramsaroop said. He said after 10 days the students had a code of conduct along with a living wage for the manufacturers of their apparel.

Currently Toronto is working on getting the university to divest its money from companies using sweatshop labor, Mr Ramsaroop said. He said students want the money to be divested until sweatshop factories improve their conditions.

Last January Duke held a sit-in demanding the disclosure of the factory locations that produced Duke apparel, Ms Jewett said. She said they were promised the locations within a year, and this February SAS received the locations.

"Disclosure is big," Ms Jewett said. "Over spring break we sent 20 students out to visit the factories, in North and South Carolina. Some of the information on the disclosure list was wrong, however. Three out of the five locations were headquarters rather than factory locations. Right now we are just trying to get the right information."

Duke cut contracts with 20 locations that would not disclose their factories, Ms Jewett said. She said the factories with cut contracts might be able to produce Duke apparel again if they disclose their factory locations; otherwise there is an unfair advantage for the factories that do not tell.

Duke is also pushing for admission into the Workers Rights Consortium, an organization developed from student ideas based off the Free Labor Association. The FLA was created in Washington D.C. in the summer of 1999, and by fall 130 universities were members. The FLA's goals are to develop one code of conduct for all factories, and to send monitors to factories to observe conditions. However, students began to feel their was a conflict of interest because apparel makers held six of the 12 votes on the FLA board, while the universities had one, and the other votes went to non-profit groups.

"The FLA involves corporations making major decisions with monitoring reports," Ms Jewett said. "It's a conflict of interest.

"The WRC is not perfect," Ms Jewett said. "It is based more on the idea that you have monitors to protect workers. Neither (FLA or WRC) will be the answer, but Duke has been committed to push administrators to sign on to the WRC."

Ms Jewett said one of students complaints are the FLA is not dealing with some of the reports it receives from factories. She said if Nike suspects the FLA will discover its factory conditions it will just leave the area and not fix it. She also said Nike has been pulling out of schools for joining the WRC.

"Our goal is to make sure our global manufacturers are as efficient as can be," Cheryl McCants, corporate responsibility manager for Nike said.

Ms McCants said Nike developed a code of conduct in 1992. She said a worker has to be 18 to work in a Nike footwear factory, there are clinics for employees that cannot afford healthcare, and there are schools on the factory premises. "Nike was the first company to disclose its factory addresses," Ms McCants said. "Sometimes we get calls for phone numbers, but we won't give those out because they have to do the leg work."

Nike has been making progress according to Ms McCants, but not enough progress for students.

A sit-in to protest

This February UW had a sit-in to protest its dislike of FLA, Mr Ellison said. He said UW had an advisory board on campus consisting of students, administrators and faculty/staff; the board was ignoring requests from students to pull out of the FLA.

"There were no official notes taken at the advisory board meetings, the meetings were irregular and people were appointed to the board that did not know much," Mr Ellison said. "We knew we did not want to be a part of the FLA, we just needed the advisory board to listen."

UW students pulled out of the advisory board and held a sit-in in the chancellor's office on Feb. 16, Mr Ellison said. He said the protest ended in the arrest of 54 UW students, for unlawful assembly and disorderly conduct, who refused to leave the sit-in until their demands were met. Mr Ellison said UW students won and the university is now part of the WRC and the FLA.

UW has also received factory locations that its students are looking at, Mr Ellison said. He said some contracts have been canceled with corporations that did not disclose their factories, most of which were U.S. based sweatshops. He also said several factories just gave them PO boxes, and were supposed to give street address.

"The sweatshop movement is important because all workers have a right to certain working conditions," Mr Ellison said. "We can make a direct change by getting the university to not sign contracts with companies that use sweatshop labor."

Mr Ellison said UW is not planning any protests right now because other than little things there is nothing major to jump on. He said they are also preoccupied with their legal battle right now for which students could receive expulsion. "There is a strong campus awareness at UW," Mr Ellison said. "600 students rallied for those arrested in the sit-in, which was the largest arrest on UW's campus since 1970."

Ms Jewett said the sweatshop labor issue will be an on-going battle, but more schools need to get involved for progress to be made.

"I want to see networks between workers, organizations, universities and students develop so that we are taking direction from workers," Ms Jewett said. "I would like to see students challenged even as they are challenging a system, so that we develop into a generation of sensitive, compassionate and visionary leaders. Until more schools get disclosure (from factories) we'll continue to struggle with imperfect information and good intentions that might not be ideal answers."

By: Mark English

© Copyright 2001. Galt Western Personnel Ltd. Unless otherwise specified, you may reprint this article, quote from it, use it in research or projects, duplicate it or distribute it. Credit of authorship and source MUST be given to galtglobalreview.com. Ownership of Copyright remains with Galt Western Personnel Ltd.

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