University leads national anti-sweatshop effort
UW–Madison is playing a key role in national initiatives aimed at ending the use of sweatshop labor.
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Chancellor’s statements: Re: Progress on sweatshop issue (second) Feb. 19, 2000 Re: Progress on sweatshop issue (first) Feb. 18, 2000
Related stories: More than 300 UW licensees disclose factory locations Report calls for partnership on living wages, sweatshops Highlights of the Living Wage Symposium Report
Related resources: UW-Madison and Sweatshops (Background stories and information) |
Among the initiatives already underway:
- An international pilot monitoring project is under way with four other universities. This spring, the university will receive a report on the results of the project, which involves factory inspections of licensed manufacturers in Costa Rica, Korea and Mexico, in partnership with four other colleges and universities: Boston College, Duke University, Georgetown University and the University of North Carolina-Chapel Hill.
- Companies that want to sell products displaying the UW–Madison name, Bucky Badger, the motion “W” and other university trademarks must apply through the Atlanta-based Collegiate Licensing Company, which is enforcing new anti-sweatshop guidelines. Under the guidelines implemented Jan. 1, licensees must publicly disclose factory locations and follow other stringent workplace standards. The CLC reported this week that 310 of UW–Madison’s 447 total licensees have disclosed factory locations. The CLC continues to receive disclosures from manufacturers, and its representatives plan to follow up to get information from companies that have thus far failed to respond.
- UW-Madison hosted a Living Wage Symposium that drew students and faculty members from across the country, along with labor and religious leaders involved with the living wage issue and the sweatshop movement. UW–Madison’s CLC Task Force Advisory Committee will review the living wage symposium’s recommendations and findings as it continues to monitor university initiatives aimed at ending sweatshop labor.
- Chancellor David Ward created a committee of students, faculty and staff to advise the chancellor on these issues and review progress on anti-sweatshop initiatives.
“UW-Madison has gone farther than every other university in its attempts to address sweatshop labor, and the recommendation to create a multi-university partnership is right in line with what this university has already been doing for some time,” says John Witte, director of the La Follette Institute and co-chair of a campus advisory committee.