No Sweat University

Last Tuesday, we represented Harvard students at a conference on sweatshops at the Smithsonian Institute in Washington, D.C., hosted by the U.S. Department of Labor. The conference--called No Sweat University--brought together students, university presidents, licensing directors and apparel manufacturers. Several panels featuring representatives of the above groups discussed how universities could ensure that retail garments featuring school logos are not made in sweatshops--by adopting licensing codes of conduct.

These codes of conduct, such as the one proposed last semester by students here at Harvard, are policies that set standards for working conditions in the factories that make university-licensed apparel and provide mechanisms for enforcing those standards, such as independent monitoring of the factories.

Collegiate licensing is a $2.5 billion-a-year industry, and universities have a responsibility to avoid either associating their school names with industry human rights abuses or indirectly profiting from those abuses. Numerous universities such as Harvard have recognized this responsibility and have begun to work towards eliminating collegiate apparel sweatshops through codes of conduct.

However, schools have generally been hesitant to commit to the principles advocated by students and labor-and human-rights experts as necessary for a strong code of conduct. We want a code that will be more than a piece of paper and that will really help improve conditions for sweatshop workers.

Administrators and licensing agents who spoke at the opening reception stressed the togetherness of this university anti-sweatshop movement, but they made no mention of the students who were responsible for starting the campaign and raising awareness about it, nor of the significant concerns of students regarding the lack of important provisions in current codes of conduct. We students were troubled by this self-congratulatory tenor, and we did not consider togetherness to be an accurate description of the situation given our concerns, concerns which we felt were not being addressed.

However, several panelists did recognize the importance of students and student concerns during the day, and the presence of the students was felt by everyone there. Peter Liebhold, a speaker on the first panel and the curator of the Smithsonian's exhibit on the history of sweatshops, spoke about the importance of student activism in pushing for the protection of human rights through the power of the university. Mr. Liebhold specifically referred to student-activists at Harvard who pressured Harvard to divest from South Africa. In addition, Congressman George Miller (D-Calif.) praised students for their passion and expertise on the issue of sweatshops, while warning universities to heed students.

The student speaker on each panel made forceful arguments about the need for strong standards in codes of conduct for student involvement in these codes. They stressed the importance of including full public disclosure and a living wage in university codes of conduct.

Because the legal minimum wage in many countries is significantly lower than the amount workers need to pay for the basic necessities, our codes must require that manufacturers pay their workers a living wage, to be determined by cost-of-living analyses. Perhaps even more importantly, universities must force the manufacturers to disclose the exact locations of their factories. The schools must have this information in order to deploy monitors to inspect the factories. Students, human-rights groups and the public must have access to this information to ensure the integrity and public accountability of the system by bringing sweatshop abuses into the open rather than allowing factories to hide them.

Several panelists supported these student principles, such as Dr. Robert Kohan, a professor of political science from Duke, who echoed the need for some form of public disclosure so that workers or human-rights groups at a particular factory could pull the code of conduct fire-alarm and alert universities to code violation. Koehane also pointed out that the quick consensus called for by some administrators should not be used an excuse for a weak code.

One of the highlights of the conference followed the response of Brad Figel, a representative of Nike, to the question of why Nike and other companies would not publicly disclose their factory locations. After Figel explained that this is competitively-sensitive information, John Wiley, the Provost of the University of Wisconsin and moderator of that panel, complained that this company line just isn't credible, a comment which received enthusiastic applause from students.

Coming back from this conference at which students had played such a significant role, we realized that we have important work to do here at Harvard. We need to work with our administration to create and implement the best code we can as part of what has become a national movement capturing the attention of the federal government. Last semester, we built public support for a code of Conduct and raised awareness about sweatshop abuses. In April, we held a rally in the Yard at which two workers from the Dominican Republic who worked in a sweatshop there to make university-logo hats for Harvard and other schools spoke about their experience. We will continue our public activities and our discussions with administrators until we see a strong Code of Conduct implemented, and we hope that sympathetic members of the University will voice their support.

Thankfully, our administration (which was also represented at the conference) has been happy to talk with us about the possibilities for a Harvard Code and to consider our suggestions. We have made progress on the inclusion of cost-of-living language in the Harvard Code, something that has not been done at other schools. We hope that our administrators got a great deal out of the conference too and took note both of the importance of public disclosure and of the fact that many seemingly difficult Code of Conduct standards have been accepted even by manufacturers. We believe that we will be able to work together to do what is right and to use the power of the Harvard name, in cooperation with other universities to protect the rights of those who make our clothes.

Daniel M. Hennefeld '99 is history and literature concentrator living in Eliot House. Benjamin O. Shuldiner '99 is a history and science concentrator also in Eliot House. Both are members of Progressive Student Labor Movement.