San Francisco Chronicle
January 8, 2000
by Tanya Schevitz, Staff Writer

The University of California has adopted a new anti-sweatshop policy that requires companies that manufacture clothing and other products sold with its campus logos to provide a living wage and safe working conditions for their employees.

The new policy comes after students protested last year to pressure the administration to ensure that the $10 million in foreign-made sports uniforms, T-shirts, mugs, banners and other merchandise sold every year with UC emblems are produced under humane labor conditions.

The policy strengthens a manufacturers' "code of conduct" that the UC system adopted in August 1998, adding the following provisions:

• It requires all licensees and their contractors to pay a "living wage" and to allow workers to engage in collective bargaining.

• It requires the licensees to disclose publicly the names and addresses of their manufacturing plants and any changes in business operations.

• It adds protections for female employees against forced use of contraceptives and pregnancy tests and tightens requirements for health and safety conditions.

In a letter to chancellors of the 10 UC campuses, UC President Richard Atkinson said, "The concern is that sweatshops exist that violate humane labor standards. From the start, the university has taken a strong position against unethical and inhumane work standards."

The code is effective immediately, but companies with existing UC agreements are not required to adhere to the code until their agreements with UC come up for renewal.

"Everybody should fall under this fairly soon," said Mary Spletter, a UC spokeswoman.

Students said they are pleased that the university is finally joining the dozens of academic institutions that already have tightened their policies.

"I'm absolutely ecstatic," said UC Berkeley senior Jeremy Blasi, 21, a member of an advisory group of students, faculty members and campus administrators that drafted the new code. "It is wonderful that UC has finally decided to listen to the students.

"We are confident that when it is enforced, it can improve the lives of garment workers across the world who make merchandise for the university," he said by phone from Michigan, where he was attending a national student conference on sweatshops.

While the updated policy marks a step forward in trying to codify protections for workers, it raises the question of how to effectively monitor the tremendously complex system of manufacturing worldwide.

"The most important thing now is not their piece of paper, but whether this actually has any effect for workers on the ground," said Eric Brakken, an organizer for United Students Against Sweatshops in Washington, D.C.

Under heavy pressure from students, universities across the country have responded in various ways to crack down on an industry that produces $2.5 billion annually in college merchandise. But the various options for monitoring are plagued with controversy.

Although 127 universities have joined the Fair Labor Association, a White House-sponsored coalition of corporations and human rights groups, some student and labor groups criticize the association as offering weak worker protections and limited monitoring by accounting firms that currently conduct visits for corporations.

UC students want the administration to join the Workers Rights Consortium, a group that is criticized for not having a broad monitoring system because it wants to stimulate workers to organize themselves and only investigate when a complaint is made.

However, UC has joined Harvard University and several other institutions and commissioned a study by the accounting firm PriceWaterhouseCoopers designed to gather information on conditions in factories that manufacture products bearing their emblems.

Findings that could be used to set up a monitoring system are expected in several months.

Medea Benjamin, director of Global Exchange, a San Francisco group advocating for humane labor practices, said the real picture of what is going on in a factory is unlikely to emerge from sporadic visits by representatives from accounting firms.

Instead, she said, UC should use nonprofit groups, labor groups and university experts to set up a monitoring system, using local representatives to make employees aware of the new regulations and to make them feel comfortable about reporting violations.

UC spokeswoman Spletter said the university believes its process for developing a procedure for enforcement will be effective.

Simon Pestridge, labor practices manager for Nike Inc., said that although its contract with UC Berkeley runs into 2001, consumers already can be confident that they are buying merchandise that meets UC's new requirements, because the company has its own code with similar provisions.

"Anything that strengthens working conditions is great," he said.

© 2000 San Francisco Chronicle