Students at 40 major colleges and universities have announced a new national campaign to end what they deem sweatshop production of collegiate apparel. Students affiliated with United Students Against Sweatshops (USAS), a national network of student labor rights activists, are asking universities to adopt a new plan by which they will require licensees like Nike, Reebok, Adidas, Champion, who make college-logo T-shirts, sweatshirts and caps to produce this apparel only at “sweat-free” factories where workers are paid a living wage and have been allowed to form unions and bargain collectively.
The New Sweatfree Campaign is the second phase of what USAS calls their “seven-year struggle to bring justice to the global garment industry.” USAS still believes that “sweatshop” production of collegiate apparel is still “rampant” in El Salvador, Mexico, Lesotho, Indonesia, Haiti, Thailand, China, the United States, and elsewhere.
USAS did say that workers have made strides and “tremendous improvement” towards protecting their basic labor rights through representation and collective bargaining-as in the Kukdong factory in Mexico which supplies Nike and Reebok, and the Just Garments facility in El Salvador. But USAS said that university policies and independent monitoring have not been sufficient to sustain these “victories.” The group accuses major apparel brands of shifting orders out of good factories like these, forcing them to shut down.
Student activists have worked with worker organizations, NGOs, unions and other allies to create a new policy which will require that apparel produced with college and university logos be sourced from good factories. These factories will have to demonstrate respect for rights of association — as evidenced by the presence of a legitimate, representative union or other representative employee body. Apparel brands will also have to commit to paying enough to these factories so that workers can negotiate living wages. The Worker Rights Consortium (WRC), an independent monitoring organization with 144 college and university affiliates in the United States and Canada, will enforce and monitor the policy. This approach will strengthen the gains made by workers in factories all over the world, including the United States, Africa, Latin America and Asia.
“By requiring Nike, Adidas, and Champion to source their products from factories where workers have representation and pay more to their factories, USAS will help end the race to the bottom by persuading universities to require higher standards in factories — this means better wages, improved health and safety and worker representation in the workplace,” said Liana Dalton, a junior at the University of Wisconsin-Madison.
Jessica Rutter, a national organizer for USAS said, “We know that we'll face resistance-but we firmly believe that the rights of people must take precedence over the drive for university licensing fees and corporate profits. Despite tremendous opposition, we've won in the past. In 1999, students created 'codes of conduct' for licensed collegiate apparel by putting their bodies on the line-sitting in, being arrested. In 2000, students brought into existence one of the world's preeminent independent labor monitoring organizations, the Worker Rights Consortium-and the codes of conduct came to life. But it's not enough — our apparel is still being made in sweatshops. Now we are going to the take it to the next level.”
Schools Participating in the Day of Action on Wednesday:
Boston College, Bowduin, Brandeis, Brown, Colorado University-Boulder, Columbia, Cornell, Duke, Georgetown, Grand Valley State, Indiana University, Kansas State, Loyola Chicago, Macalester, Mass Institute of Technology, Michigan State University, Purdue, Saint Louis University, Santa Clara, Skidmore, Smith, SUNY Stonybrook, Temple, UC-Santa Cruz, UC-Berkeley, UC-Davis, UC-Irvine, UC-Riverside, UC-San Diego, University of Connecticut, University of Illinois-Urbana-Champagne, University of Maine, University of Massachusetts-Amherst, University of Michigan, University of North Carolina-Chapel Hill, University of Pittsburg, University of Rhode Island, University of Southern Mississippi, University of Wisconsin-Madison, Yale University
