Chancellor John Wiley and Special Assistant to the Chancellor Lamarr Billups discuss anti-sweatshop policies. (Justin Koenig/The Daily Cardinal)
UW one of eight universities supporting anti-sweatshop initiative
The Daily Cardinal - Wednesday, 22 March 2006
Written by Erica Pelzek
Chancellor John Wiley and Special Assistant to the Chancellor Lamarr Billups discuss anti-sweatshop policies. (Justin Koenig/The Daily Cardinal)
UW-Madison recently became one of eight universities nationwide to support an initiative requiring licensees to purchase at least 25 percent of goods from unionized factories and logo apparel only from factories paying its workers living wages, according to a University Communications statement.
In response to pressure and repeated requests from both the UW-Madison Student Labor Action Coalition and the Associated Students of Madison Labor Licensing Policy Committee to adopt the Designated Suppliers Program, the Chancellor’s Office announced its decision Tuesday to commit to the full version of the initiative.
The DSP, created by United Students Against Sweatshops and supported by the Workers’ Rights Consortium, will hopefully be supported by all of the 151 universities belonging to the WRC, according to Lamarr Billups, special assistant to Chancellor John Wiley.
“We’re the first university in the nation to even acknowledge the DSP,” Billups said, adding that UW-Madison will work with the other universities to design an implementation plan he hopes all universities nationwide will embrace.
“On these issues, at a university like this where it’s such a huge licensee of apparel, like all Big 10 universities, it’s not easy, because the money we’re talking about is in the millions,” UW-Madison junior and SLAC member Ashok Kumar said. “This could be the kind of policy that could change the face of the free market because it’s requiring a certain percentage of union-made apparel, which is not seen anywhere else.”
Other SLAC members said they were pleased with the decision, but expressed concern over an alleged loophole in UW-Madison’s interpretation of the DSP.
“We’re still very concerned with the administration’s refusal to really go for the full DSP language,” said UW-Madison junior and SLAC member Joel Feingold, regarding the initiative’s requirement of buying a certain percentage of goods from unionized factories.
“They allow for that, but then they also allow for a loophole where brands would be able to buy from factories that don’t have unions, so long as it’s committed to the freedom of association,” Feingold said, referring to the right of workers to organize themselves into union-like representative bodies.
“But [freedom of association] is impossible to prove. It’s like trying to prove the
absence of darkness,” he said.
“So we’re still going to work on that and the Chancellor will still hear from us,” Feingold said.
UW-Madison will meet with the other seven universities Friday to chart out a nationwide implementation strategy of the DSP initiative.