Five years ago, universities throughout the country began adopting anti-sweatshop codes of conduct for university apparel. Since that time, we have seen codes of conduct used successfully to support workers' efforts to achieve positive change in individual factories. We are very proud of these achievements. But it is also true that even in factories in which there have been significant gains, these gains have been sharply limited and are under constant threat due to the destructive pressures of the apparel industry, and that the majority of university apparel continues to be made in factories that violate workers' rights. Workers producing university garments continue to endure abusive treatment, excessive hours, wages that are insufficient to meet basic needs, and illegal repression when they organize for improvements.

In order to make the principles behind our codes of conduct a reality, we believe our universities need to strengthen our policies and set a higher standard. Last year, USAS launched a new campaign to get university apparel to be produced in a set of sweat-free designated factories. Each of these factories will be required to have either a representative employee body, or exhibit an openness to worker organizing, so that workers can have a voice at work. Each factory will be required to pay workers a living wage, as negotiated by worker representatives. And university licensees will be required to order products at prices and in sufficient quantities to allow the factories to pay a living wage and provide secure employment. This proposal is motivated by the following basic realities:

Workers need a voice at work to prevent sweatshop abuses:

Workers are the best monitors of their working conditions. Unlike outside auditors -- which may visit a factory once every several months or years -- workers are on the shop floor day-in and day-out and they know better than anyone else what problems exist. When workers have a voice on the job through a union or other organization, they have the power to advocate for their interests and correct abuses when they occur, without being forced to rely on outside entities. Yet most factories producing university goods refuse to recognize workers' organizations and consequently workers have little power to prevent abuses.

Current wages are insufficient to meet workers' basic needs:

Employment in factories producing for major multinational brands should be a ladder out of poverty. But by any reasonable measure, wages in factories producing collegiate apparel are woefully inadequate. Even according to official government data, wages of collegiate apparel workers in most major apparel producing countries fall well below what is deemed as necessary to cover basic subsistence needs for a family. At current wage levels, in order to provide meals for their families that meet basic, minimal nutrition standards workers would need to spend fifty to seventy-five percent of their incomes solely on food; as a result, workers families' diets frequently lack critical sources of nutrients such as meat, fish and fruit. Rigorous cost of living analyses show that apparel workers typically earn roughly one half to one fourth of what they need to provide basic nutrition, shelter, energy, clothing, education, and transportation -- what could be called a living wage.

Wages are kept low by price pressure from university licensees and other multinational brands:

A key force keeping wages so low is the unreasonably low prices paid by brands to contract factories. In recent years, brands have demanded dramatic cuts in the prices they are willing to pay for their goods. For example, according to U.S. government data, during the past decade the price for cotton knit shirts paid by U.S. brands to factories in the top 15 producing countries fell by an average of roughly fifty percent. By relentlessly demanding lower prices, brands squeeze their contractors and effectively place a ceiling on workers' wages. While labor costs are a small portion of a factory's overall production costs, they are the cost factor over which managers have the most control. Thus managers feel tremendous pressure to keep wages to an absolute minimum. And because in most apparel producing countries there is little meaningful enforcement of labor law, factories can cut labor costs through illegal means -- such as paying wages below the legal minimum -- with impunity.

Brands prevent improvements by failing to reward factories that respect worker rights:

Complying with labor standards entails increased costs: it costs more to pay the minimum wage than to ignore it; it costs more to buy necessary safety equipment than to avoid such purchases. Yet brands, including university licensees, rarely reward factories that take on the costs of respecting worker rights by taking into account these expenses when negotiating prices or by directing business to factories that standout for their compliance with labor standards. As a result, factories that do opt to accept the added costs of compliance are -- perversely -- made less likely to succeed than nearby factories that violate workers' rights. It is thus not surprising that so few factories respect worker rights standards.

It is economically feasible to substantially raise wages:

The economics of the industry are such that workers' wages could be raised by substantial margins without factories or brands losing profits or consumers paying substantially higher prices. Wages typically account for about one to three percent of the final retail cost of a garment. For example, for a shirt sold on campus for $20.00, workers would typically be paid about 25 cents. If the shirt's retail price were to be increased to $20.25, and the additional 25 cents went directly to workers, wages could be doubled. If brands absorb some of the increased costs, then price increases would be that much smaller.

For workers to achieve truly sweat-free conditions, we must create an alternative to the Wal-Mart model:

University products typically comprise a small minority of the goods being produced at a given factory; the rest of the factory's production is for big box retailers or other non-collegiate brands that are not committed to our universities' standards. We cannot ensure that the rights of workers making university apparel are respected so long as this apparel is being produced along side Wal-Mart products and under the sweatshop conditions that Wal-Mart and other brands have established as norms for the industry. Only by creating an alternative model, in which business is contingent upon respect for workers' rights rather than solely low prices, will it be possible for workers making collegiate apparel to win truly sweatshop-free conditions. Under our proposal, university apparel will be made in factories that produce primarily for the university market where workers will truly be able to exercise their rights free from the destructive pressures of the apparel industry at large.

Students throughout the US and Canada have been fighting this battle on their college campuses, and they have been winning. If you would like to get more involved in this campaign, or get more information, then please email organize@usasnet.org