Great debate: WRC vs. FLA
■ Students, University
officials and staff members
have differing views on the
labor monitoring groups
By Ben Romano
Oregon Daily Emerald
The Fair Labor Association and
the Worker Rights Consortium have
a similar goal: ending labor abuses
in overseas factories. But that’s
where the similarities end, because
the two labor monitoring organiza
tions have substantive differences.
President Dave Frohnmayer
added the University to the FLA’s
roster on Tuesday, making it one of
15 schools in the country that be
long to both the FLA and the WRC.
For many student activists, the
differences between the two are
crucial. They say the FLA is “fun
damentally flawed,” because it has
apparel industry representatives on
its board of directors. Students
have pressured the president to
keep the University out of the FLA.
The students support the WRC,
which has vowed to maintain inde
pendence from the industry it seeks
to monitor. Meanwhile, University
administrators have been some of
the most vocal critics of the WRC,
according to WRC staff members.
Frohnmayer contends that the
choice between the FLA and the
WRC is a “subsidiary issue.” More
important, he said, is maintaining
the momentum of achieving the
monitoring conditions in factories
where merchandise bearing the
University logo is manufactured.
Sam Brown, the FLA’s executive
director, said the organization will
begin factory inspections this fall.
Students
B contend that
the monitoring
do is hollow.
to having “the
i nere were a series or problems
with the FLA that have not been ad
dressed,” said Halle Rubin
Williams, a history major who has
been involved with the issue for a
year and a half.
Williams said the apparel com
panies are allowed to select which
factories are monitored, factory in
spections are announced ahead of
time and companies are allowed to
choose a monitoring agency.
“I think that really covers up
what’s going on in the apparel in
dustry rather than uncovering it,”
she said.
Brown said he has heard these
complaints before and they often
result from misreading the FLA’s
policies and protocols.
Apparel companies provide the
FLA with a preliminary list of fac
tories they think should be moni
tored based on three criteria: facto
ry size, location and history of
abuse. The FLA’s executive director
then reviews the submitted lists
and makes the final decision on
what factories will be monitored.
“It gives us a starting point... but
I control what ends up on the list,”
Brown said. “If I get a whole list of
factories in Ohio, I’m going to be
pretty skeptical.”
Brown said that some factory in
spections are announced, but oth
ers will be surprise visits. He said
larger factories that would have to
spend millions of dollars to clean
up air quality, for example, would
not be able to do so just for the day
of an announced visit. Also, facto
ry monitors must have the cooper
ation of factory management to gain
access to records, such as payrolls.
The FLA is still working out the
details of who will do the monitor
ing. It has received applications
from private and non-profit corpo
rations, non-government organiza
tions and religious groups, all of
which are interested in monitoring
factories. When factory monitors
have been accredited, the apparel
companies will choose which mon
itors will inspect the factories that
produce their brands, Brown said.
He added that the factory’s inter
est is not always the interest of the
brand.
“The factory may be doing things
that the brand doesn’t want to be
identified with,” Brown said. “Stu
dents who assume that the brands
are necessarily complicit in that are
frequently wrong.”
Frohnmayer said a University
Senate committee that reviewed
the FLA before he made the deci
sion to join concluded that student
complaints about the organization
had been addressed.
Still, student activists favor the
WRC because of its independence
and grass-roots, student-founded
nature. But administrators find
flaws with the WRC.
In a letter announcing the Uni
versity’s intention to join the WRC
in April, Frohnmayer identified
specific concerns he had with the
organization: The WRC lacked
proper university representation on
its board of directors; the absence of
apparel industry representation
made it unbalanced; its insistence
on closed meetings flew in the face
of Oregon’s open meetings laws,
which Frohnmayer helped create
as state attorney general. He has
since expressed concerns with the
WRC’s current financial picture.
He acknowledges that some
changes have been made in the or
ganization, but, he added, “we have
to wait and see if these changes will
address our concerns.”
The WRC has made concessions.
For example, at its first national
meeting in July, the organization al
lowed university representatives to
hold five seats on the WRC board of
directors instead of three.
However, Maria Roeper, a WRC
staff member, said the organization
intends to keep meetings closed to
the media, though board minutes
will be posted on its Web page.
Responding to criticism of the
WRC’s financial situation, Roeper
said she is “totally comfortable”
with the WRC’s finances. The or
ganization, which estimated its
budget for the coming year to be
$295,000, is in the process of apply -
ing for non-profit status.
While other schools have voiced
concerns about the lack of industry
representation in the WRC board,
the University is clearly the loudest
voice, Roeper said.
“Some schools absolutely don’t
want to see [industry representa
tion],” she said. “The WRC is sup
posed to be an independent organi
zation that’s investigating working
conditions. We’re not going to have
[the apparel industry] involved in
investigating themselves and their
own practices — that defeats the
purpose.”
Roeper said the WRC plans to
have meetings with the apparel in
dustry when the organization hires
an executive director. But, she
added, “we don’t intend to have in
dustry making decisions.”
Roeper acknowledged that there
are still issues to be ironed out, but
noted that the organization is still
in the early stages of development.
“It’s the first year, people tend to
forget that,” Roeper said. She said
the organization is still determining
how factory monitoring will be
done, for example.
“We will be investigating
through three primary mecha
nisms,” she said. The WRC plans
to gather information from the ap
parel industry, compile com
plaints from workers and conduct
Quick facts
The Fair Labor Association
... grew from the Apparel Industry
Partnership, a group of manufacturers,
human rights groups and universities
that the White House brought together
to address sweatshop labor issues.
... has a 14-member board. Six board
members represent industry and one
represents universities.
TheWRC
...evolved from the United Students
Against Sweatshops, a coalition devoted
to stopping sweatshop labor.
...has no apparel industry representation
on.its 15-member board. University rep
resentatives hold five seats.
SOURCE: www.fairlabor.org
www. workersrights. org
“proactive investigations.”
Once those mechanisms are in
place, “that’s when you can start
thinking about doing pilot proj
ects,” Roeper said.
Monitoring a major issue
All sides agree that the FLA is
much closer than the WRC to actu
ally monitoring factories.
“The question of who’s more im
mediately prepared to do monitor
ing and the level of monitoring is
fundamental,” said Oregon State
Senator Tony Corcoran, representa
tive from rural Lane and Douglas
counties. “It’s a little bit unfair to
criticize the WRC for not being pre
pared to go ahead with full-scale
monitoring, whereas the FLA has
the proceeds of several multina
tional corporations to go ahead
with their vision.”
Frohnmayer said the decision to
join the FLA was not a criticism of
the WRC, but that he wanted to
achieve the goals of monitoring fac
tories as soon as possible.
Corcoran said the University’s
membership in both monitoring
agencies is a positive thing.
“I’m not convinced that the inter
ests of the workers that we’re con
cerned about here aren’t in fact ben
efited by the U of O having a dual
membership,” he said. It draws
continued attention to the issue of
world trade and “appropriate con
duct in the context of world trade,”
he added.
The only other school in the Pa
cific-10 Conference to hold dual
membership in both monitoring
groups is the University of Arizona.
Students there have expressed con
cerns about the FLA and met with
President Peter Likins Friday after
noon to encourage him to sever the
school’s ties with the FLA.
Other universities have also
signed with both groups, such as
Cornell University in Ithaca, N.Y.,
which joined the FLA before join
ing the WRC. Henrik Dullea, vice
president for university relations,
said Cornell participates in both or
ganizations because “we think the
FLA is a very strong organization
that has made strong progress,” and
“our students are very involved
and active in Students Against
Sweatshops and the formation of
the WRC.”
Dullea said Cornell rejected the
notion that a school must choose
one organization or the other.
Brown, the FLA executive direc
tor, is less optimistic about the ex
istence of two monitoring groups.
“The debate between the FLA and
WRC frankly wastes a lot of time,”
Brown said. “We approach it in very
different ways, but I think they’re
bound to fail in the long run.”
The WRC doesn’t have an official
position on the FLA, but Roeper ac
knowledged that comparisons be
tween the two do matter.
“We are operating in a fish bowl,”
she said. “However, I don’t spend
my time trying to fight the FLA. I’m
trying to develop [the WRC] into a
good, successful organization.”
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