As reported two days ago in this newspaper, University of Wisconsin–Madison’s Special Committee on Labor and Licensing made recommendations to Chancellor John Wiley Monday regarding the production of UW–Madison-themed apparel and sporting goods. Specifically, they recommended that Chancellor Wiley require all firms manufacturing products with the UW–Madison logo to disclose the volume of goods they produce in each factory, and to disclose how much they pay to individual factories for each kind of product they manufacture. According to the Labor and Licensing Committee’s faculty representative, Professor Dennis Dresang of the political science department, enacting these recommendations “will prevent … workers’ rights” from “being systematically violated” in repressive sweatshop conditions.

How, exactly? According to the Labor and Licensing Committee, requiring regular disclosures from companies producing Badger goods will be the best way to ensure that licensees are following UW–Madison’s Code of Conduct governing labor practices, now that the Multi-Fiber Arrangement (MFA) has ended. The MFA, which expired at the end of last year, set restrictions and quotas on textile imports to the United States. In the absence of such quotas, it is likely that garment manufacturers will shift as much production as they can to countries where labor costs are low and laws governing workplace safety, collective bargaining and labor rights are minimal.

Stipulating that UW licensees disclose their manufacturing data will help to ensure that they cannot move their production to locations where workers’ rights are systematically violated, or that they will profit from such abuses. (A complete listing of companies producing UW-Madison-related goods and the factories that manufacture them can be found at www.workersrights.org.)

The fight against sweatshop labor is a laudable one, and the adoption of the Labor and Licensing Committee’s recommendations would certainly place Madison at the forefront of that fight in the collegiate garment industry.

But what’s the point? After all, large quantities of the clothes worn by Americans — not just those adorned with college logos — are produced overseas in conditions fit to be novelized by Upton Sinclair. Although consumers often have the choice to discriminate between products that have been produced in fair and safe labor conditions and those that have not when it comes to luxury items (such as “certified bloodless” diamonds), clothing is a necessity about which many consumers cannot afford to be choosy on matters such as fair trade.

The problem of sweatshop-produced apparel is an ethical dilemma that many of us acknowledge, but are unwilling to think about seriously for very long. And it seems unlikely that student activism will solve the whole problem anytime soon.

The significance of the Labor and Licensing Committee’s recommendations lies in the fact that, as Professor Dresang put it, UW–Madison is “an institution of intellectual and moral integrity” which would be remiss by remaining complicit in the perpetuation of sweatshop conditions. Furthermore, upon adopting the recommendations, UW–Madison will be joined by over a dozen other universities with high-profile athletic programs in requiring, in effect, regular reports of good behavior from garment manufacturers.

There exists no simple or straightforward solution to the deplorable state of garment workers’ rights and safety worldwide, but the pressure of a group of major universities could very well force manufacturers to be more accountable for a large area of their operations — and that would be no trivial accomplishment. If UW–Madison takes positive steps to become “bloodless” and end the sweatshop production of its apparel, then the sea of red made up of thousands of fans at Camp Randall will merely be an expression of school pride.

Otherwise, it will form an altogether more potent and disturbing image.

Rob Hunter ([email protected]) is a senior majoring in political science and philosophy.