The Daily Cardinal
by Christopher Guess
Wiley: Apparel standards will demand unions
Unionization will be target for apparel companies
Companies who manufacture officially licensed apparel products will be required to purchase at least 25 percent of their goods from factories that allow some form of unionization for workers, under UW-Madison's pilot program, Chancellor John Wiley announced Tuesday.
"This will apply to all 150 of our licensees producing UW-Madison logo apparel," Wiley said.
The announcement pleased members of the Student Labor Action Coalition and the Labor and Licensing Policy Committee who have been working to get the chancellor to have UW-Madison logo apparel union-made.
"I think this is a great first step," UW-Madison senior SLAC member Ruth Castel-Branco said. "This is a decision we have been waiting for for a long time."
"I'm looking forward to seeing exactly how we're going to implement it," Castel-Branco added.
UW-Madison junior and member of SLAC and LLPC Joel Feingold called it "fantastic."
"I think this is a tremendous step toward achieving the vision that was outlined in the designated suppliers program," he said.
The Workers Rights Consortium, a regulatory body overseeing factory conditions, will certify factories that allow a representative body for the right of free association.
"What we are primarily interested in is working conditions that we are not ashamed of, and there are a variety of ways to accomplish that," Wiley said.
One of the things Wiley said convinced him to implement the plan was his visit to South Africa in November.
"I learned a lot about apparel manufacturing conditions in South Africa," Wiley said. "It's not a very pretty picture right now."
According to Wiley, the 18-month plan will be implemented fall 2006 and more decisions will be made as companies implement their plans.
LaMarr Billups, special assistant to the chancellor, said he plans to deal with the new program in the context of a business relationship.
"I want to give [the licensees] the opportunity to lay out their problems - before we take a license," he said.
But if suppliers say they absolutely won't be able to comply with the program, Billups said their license would be revoked.
Although UW-Madison is one of the first universities to adopt a sweatshop policy, Billups said other schools are close behind.
"At least a half a dozen of them said they will move in this direction and probably would have accomplished it by early next year," he said.