PSLM Meets Potential Monitor

Leaders of the Progressive Students Labor Movement (PSLM) said they came away from a meeting with University attorney Allan M. Ryan Jr. and a representative of Price water house Coopers (PWC) on Wednesday still unhappy about the conditions of a deal between the University and the accounting company.

PSLM members Benjamin L. McKean '02, Daniel M. Hennefeld '99, Elizabeth C. Vladeck '99, Eleanor I. Benko '02 and graduate student Joel Rainey sat down with Ryan and PWC Manager Randy Rankin to discuss Harvard's intent to hire PWC to monitor companies that manufacture University apparel.

The meeting, which was held on the ninth floor of the Holyoke Center and lasted over an hour, was a disappointment to PSLM members hoping to get words of reassurance from PWC about their accounting methods.

"The meeting only confirmed a lot of our fears," Hennefeld said, who said his group's representatives largely discussed with PWC the manner in which the company would monitor apparel-companies producing for Harvard.

"They can't be the only monitor that Harvard hires," McKean said. "If it's to be a real fact-finding commission, then there must be a company to monitor the monitors."

Ryan said he believed the Wednesday meeting went well, adding that it was still the University's intent to hire PWC.

"The purpose of the meeting was to get students to talk to Price Waterhouse face-to-face and ask any questions they had," he said. "From that perspective, the meeting was a great success."

But McKean said he was concerned that PWC's monitoring consists of conducting over 7,000 accounting visits per year, calling such practices "cookie-cutting auditing."

In addition, PWC's monitoring "consists of sending two people to a site for nine hours, for only one day"--not enough, he said. Auditing visits are announced, the workers are only interviewed for 20 minutes, and even then, the managers know which workers have been interviewed, leading to an atmosphere of intimidation, McKean said.

According to a news release PSLM issued Wednesday night, Jeff Ballinger, founder of the human rights group, Press for Change, said he found PWC's methods "basically unsound."

"If you do the interview in the factory, you can't expect to hear anything that the boss wouldn't want you to," Ballinger said.

McKean also cited a conflict of interest between PWC's clients and its position as an independent monitor to prevent sweatshop abuses. The company, for example, represents Sara Lee, owner of Champion Goods and one of the companies that produces Harvard apparel.

"Rankin said that [PWC] consults Sara Lee only on their U.S. meat-packing plants, but it's a $6 billion-a-year business," McKean said. "I'm not confident that he's aware of all the connections."

PSLM is pushing for a non-governmental organization (NGO), in addition to PWC, to monitor Harvard's apparel-producing affiliates even though PSLM members said they also recognize the faults of NGOs.

"There are no specialized NGOs for blanket monitoring," McKean said. "But you could have local NGOs double-checking Pricewaterhouse numbers."

The meeting was arranged by Ryan, who "has a genuine concern for Harvard's involvement in sweatshops," McKean said.

On Tuesday, Ryan had arranged for PSLM leaders to talk with Aaron Kramer, a representative of Business for Social Responsibility, a partner of PWC in the monitoring of apparel companies.