Chancellor John Wiley met with members of the Labor Licensing Policy Committee Tuesday to announce the University of Wisconsin will be taking the first step in conciliating student labor activists nationwide.
In accordance with a multi-university plan drafted by the United Students Against Sweatshops and adopted by the Student Labor Action Coalition, the LLPC and the Associated Students of Madison, Wiley said the university will initiate its own "pilot" plan to reduce UW apparel made in sweatshops by 25 percent.
"Basically what we're doing is creating a market," Wiley said. "We're creating a market for goods that are produced under better conditions, model conditions."
The plan — in consideration at 15 other major U.S. universities and set for implementation in fall 2006 — designates that licensees must source a fourth of their apparel from factories under the oversight of the Worker Rights Consortium.
As an investigative body responsible for ensuring overseas factories maintain labor unions or other forms of free association, the WRC will ultimately decide whether apparel is in compliance with the measure.
If a university apparel licensee is found not to be in compliance with the plan, Wiley said it could face a potential loss of its license after the expiration of its current contract.
"We're saying we expect, beginning immediately, that you will get 25 percent of the goods you produce from us from factories where the following conditions prevail, and they have to be certified by the WRC," he said.
However, before all 150 apparel licensees are held to the policy, the university must wait out their current contracts and include the plan in their renewal. Because various apparel brands are already "squeezing" the profit margins of factories overseas, Wiley said they will likely have to increase the price of their apparel to ensure workers there are paid adequate wages.
"What we're saying, by saying we demand goods produced in that way, is that we're willing to pay it," he said.
While the original USAS plan called for the gradual increase of in increments of 25 percent per year over several years, eventually reaching 100 percent, the university pilot plan will be implemented for a trial period of 18 months — at the end of which, the administration will decide to either discontinue the policy or press its regulations forward.
Yet LLPC, SLAC and other labor-rights group members in attendance applauded Wiley for his efforts toward ensuring university apparel is manufactured in proper working conditions.
"I'm pretty happy about this," LLPC member and ASM workers' rights campaign coordinator John Bruning said. "It wasn't 100 percent of what we wanted, but it's pretty close there. We're the first school that has this."
Likewise, LLPC member Joel Feingold praised the announcement and said it is a step in the right direction.
"This has the potential to change, radically change for the better the lives of workers around the world," he said. "We hope this moves in the direction of a more firm commitment to union labor — but it sounds like this is the position the chancellor is willing to take."
While Wiley's pilot program is not exactly what he and other USAS supporters hoped for, Feingold added the WRC oversight in the university's plan is critical.
"What they've done is taken the first step in the USAS proposal," he said. "Fundamentally, it's no different … because the Workers Rights Consortium will be verifying the facilities, then we will be seeing union product."
For now, Feingold said the measure is a victory for students and workers and that he hopes the university will continue to address apparel labor in the same direction.
"If there becomes a contradiction … that doesn't mean they've done what we've asked them to do," he said. "Right now, my understanding is that workers and students have won."
