University to take tough stance on sweatshop labor

The university will push for a tougher code of conduct for companies that produce university-licensed products as a result of an agreement between Chancellor David Ward and students.

The agreement, meant to prevent UW apparel from being produced in sweatshops, ended four days and four nights of protest by students and others who slept outside the chancellor’s office during a “sit-in” in Bacom Hall.

UW–Madison plans to endorse a proposed code of conduct drafted by a task force of universities that contract with Collegiate Licensing Co. The code would make demands on subcontractors about the conditions of their factories and treatment of their workers.

Much of the controversy surrounding the code’s draft language concerned the lack of specific detail related to harassment, discrimination, wages and other provisions. According to Casey Nagy, the university’s negotiator with the CLC, the task force planned to develop an appendix to further explain these terms after first hearing from the various campuses.

“In this sense, the protest activity helped to heighten awareness of details that the UW–Madison community feels strongly about and will help focus the next round of discussion for the task force,” Nagy says. Specifically, UW–Madison will:

• Insist on full public disclosure of company names, owners and other information for all facilities that produce licensed articles.
• Convene a symposium and sponsor institutionally funded research to determine “living wage” requirements. The amount of research funding will be determined by the specific proposals, which will be reviewed by the Graduate School Research Committee.
• Submit the findings for inclusion in the code, unless the results are widely disputed by the university community. If other universities don’t agree to alter the code to require payment of living wages as determined by these findings within three months of their submission, UW–Madison will withdraw from the code.
• Include specific provisions about women’s rights in the university’s negotiating stance. Provisions include ensuring that manufacturers not require pregnancy tests as a condition of employment, not pressure women to use contraceptives and not fire them for taking maternity leave. The administration has agreed that if those provisions and others are not added to the College Licensing Co. code, the UW will withdraw its support.
• Sponsor annual community meetings on the code and establish a CLC Task Force Advisory Committee of students, faculty and staff. A crowd of about 100 students, faculty and staff crowded the rotunda of Bascom Hall Friday, Feb. 12, as administrators and students worked out the agreement over nearly two hours.