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Students at the University of North Carclina-Chapel Hill stage a sit-in last week outside of the university’s chancellor’s office. They were
trying to pressure the administration to examine its association with clothing manufacturers that use overseas sweatshops.
Nike
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bor. Protesters said they didn’t
want donations from corpora
tions that employ people for
low wages in “deplorable”
working conditions.
In fall 1997, SALE passed out
leaflets and hung banners at a
football game to protest the Nike
donation.
In a Dec. 4,1997, Emerald arti
cle, Duncan McDonald, vice
president of affairs and develop
ment, said the University doesn’t
have any corporate ties that dis
honor it.
“What we have is a growing
level of corporate support that
comes with no strings attached
in only the hope that students
get educated and this institu
tion grows in excellence,” he
said.
In February, University of Wis
consin at Madison students
logged 97 hours of sit-in time,
and last week students at the
University of North Carolina at
Chapel Hill spent 72 hours out
side the chancellor’s office before
administrators agreed to change
their policies.
“At UW, students have a
rather high moral standard and
tend to act on them,” said Erin
Clarequinn, Alliance for
Democracy member and the sit
in facilitator.
Clarequinn said students
should be concerned about la
bor issues. She said they should
be asking themselves, “Do I
want to go to school on blood
money?” and “Do I want to go
to a school knowing my school
makes money off women in
Third World countries who
only have a fifth grade educa
tion?”
Students are demanding full
disclosure of factory information
from companies that have con
tracts or license agreements with
the school. They are also de
manding schools include a living
wage clause in the Collegiate Li
censing Company’s Code of Con
duct.
UW also demanded women’s
rights, such as a ban on forcing
female workers to take birth con
trol and pregnancy tests, and
UNC requested an independent
„ monitoring system.
Students on other campuses,
such as Brown University and
this campus, have organized
task forces and committees to
discuss and resolve the same is
sues.
Students say the issues are
ones that have not been ad
dressed by already established
codes of conduct or by the Fair
Labor Association, which is a
spin-off from President Clinton’s
1996 Apparel Industry Partner
ship, an initiative headed by
manufacturers and labor and hu
man-rights organizations whose
goal was to establish a monitor
ing program.
Nike issued a challenge for
universities and competitors to
join the FLA, an organization
made up of human-rights organi
zations, labor unions, corpora
tions and some colleges and uni
versities.
“It sets up a really strong infra
structure for monitoring, but
what it monitors is hard to de
fine,” said Sarah Jacobson, a ju
nior geology major and a member
of the University’s Human Rights
Alliance. “I think the University
needs to decide what standards
should apply to products that are
merchandised with the Universi
ty logo.
“If we decide our standards are
higher, we need to figure out
how we’re going to monitor those
standards.”
Some schools, such as UNC,
have agreed that if a company
with a contract cannot meet the
school’s Code of Conduct than
the school will sever ties with the
company.
But not everyone objects to
Nike’s labor practices.
Two students at Brigham
Young University wrote their
viewpoint for the school newspa
per, The Daily Universe.
They wrote that corporations
like Nike, Adidas and Reebok
were being misrepresented by
the media and that the debate
among students was based on
second-hand information.
After a short visit to Vietnam
and a tour through a Nike facto
ry, the two students concluded
that Nike provided “valuable
benefits to its employees” and
that compared to the Vietnam
minimum wage of $25 per
month, “$40 per month [from
Nike! is a humble, yet adequate
wage.”
They continued by stating,
“Many students are asking for
their college code of conduct to
include a ‘living wage’ clause.
We are unable to find the defini
tion of living wage, but we feel
after talking to workers in Nike
factories, they are relatively hap
py with what they earn.”
University official McDonald
said establishing a code of con
duct may be part of the solution,
but it’s necessary to determine
who is going to follow up on the
code standards.
“Duke and Georgetown said
‘Well sign a code of conduct,’
and they wrote a code of con
duct,” McDonald said. “But
when it’s all said and done,
there was no assurance that
they could monitor those labor
practices.”
UNC was successful when it
by-passed the FLA and cam
paigned to pass a code instead
that included a living-wage
clause and full public disclo
sure. With the help of a task
force, an educational campaign
and a sit-in protest, students
were able to convince the ad
ministration that the issue was
important enough to make
changes.
“We wanted independent
monitoring because we feel the
FLA doesn’t address indepen
dent monitoring — so we got
what we wanted,” said Lorrie
Bradley, a member of the Stu
dents for Economic Justice and
one of the sit-in organizers.
“The code says these are our
principals, and we won’t join
the FLA unless they meet our
principals.”
This University of Oregon is
still trying to decide whether to
pen a code of conduct or join the
FLA.
“I see the code doing one of
two things,” University Human
Rights Alliance member Jacobson
said. “Number one, it sets a stan
dard for companies who have li
cense agreements with the Uni
versity because it’s the
University’s reputation that’s on
the apparel. And if they can’t
meet the standards, then the con
tract is null and void or someone
else steps in to take over the con
tract.”
Three hundred or more com
panies are licensees of the Uni
versity’s name or logo, McDonald
said.
“If we join the FLA, we will
certainly ask all our licensees to
agree to the terms of the FLA,”
McDonald said.
McDonald said Nike’s chal
lenge to universities and its com
petitors is an interesting tactic.
“I don’t feel as if the Universi
ty is in the middle of this,” Mc
Donald said. “You’re not going to
take corporations out of the equa
tion, and you’re not going to take
government out of die equation
and you’re certainly not going to
take colleges out of the equa
tion.”
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