Memorandum
To:
City of Berkeley Commission on Labor
From: Bay
Area Sweatfree Coalition
Date:
Wednesday May 17, 2006
Re:
Enforcement funding for sweatfree ordinance for
the City of Berkeley
Introduction
As many of you know,
sweatfree ordinances are a new method to create local responses to the complex
problems of globalization. Over 70 sweatfree ordinances have been passed
in cities, counties and states across the country.
We believe that the
City of Berkeley is uniquely positioned to move the anti-sweatshop movement
forward by passing this ordinance. If the city passes this ordinance with
full funding, it will be the third city to do so and will show the potential
for these ordinances to take hold. With the language as it is currently drafted,
if passed with funding, Berkeley’s sweatfree ordinance will be the
strongest in the nation.
This memo is an
effort to address the question: How can the sweatfree ordinance be enforced?
Scope
The scope of the
ordinance is broad – it includes not only garments but all purchases by
the City like equipment, materials, etc. This is the same as San
Francisco’s ordinance and represents a giant leap forward in fighting
sweatshop abuses around the world.
Enforcement
In order to enforce
this ordinance, funds are necessary for a two-pronged approach:
1) To contract with an independent
non-profit monitoring agency which will visit factories that produce goods
purchased by the City of Berkeley, in whatever country in the world they may
be. Los Angeles is contracting with the Workers Rights Consortium, a
monitoring agency with years of experience auditing factories.
2) To
gather information about the vendors that the City of Berkeley currently
contracts with; specifically, who are their contractors and subcontractors and
where are they located.
This is based on
similar sweatfree ordinances that were passed with $100,000 enforcement funding
in San Francisco and Los Angeles. Those cities allocated $50,000 for a
monitoring agency and $50,000 for a part-time city staffperson to gather the
information.
Former Senator Tom
Hayden has these comments about enforcement of the Berkeley sweatfree
ordinance:
“The ordinance
will not work without funding for an independent monitor with no corporate
conflicts-of-interest. The reason for this is that workplace abuses are
likely to occur in Asia and Latin America manufacturing sites where periodic
inspections will be required, not a task for your City staff. Links with
human rights and labor groups in those countries are not enough. An
experienced monitor able to make spot inspections and conduct independent
interviews with workers offsite is essential.”
Consortium
possibility
National
anti-sweatshop organizations are working to establish a sweatfree consortium
for cities, counties, and states. Public entities would buy into this
consortium which would then monitor their factories in other countries.
The amount public entities pay would be based on a percentage of their
procurement budget.
This consortium would
be modeled on two similar efforts: the Workers Rights Consortium which was
established as a consortium for universities and the Governor’s Sweatfree
Coalition which is setting up a consortium for states.
Sweatfree
Communities, a network for local action against sweatshops, www.sweatfree.org, is leading this effort.
Request
For the estimated
cost of #1 above, or for the City of Berkeley to participate in the consortium,
I refer you to the attached letter from the Workers Rights Consortium. Based on the analysis from Scott Nova,
the Executive Director of the WRC, the cost to the City of Berkeley will be
$25,000. This takes into account
the fact that the City of Berkeley spends $89 million on goods and services per
year.
We are estimating
$20,000 in city staff costs to compile the information on vendors, contractors,
and subcontractors. This number is
open to negotiation as city staff see fit.
Therefore, at this
time we are requesting $45,000 to fully fund this ordinance.
Thank you for your
time and attention.