The Michigan Daily (University of Michigan student paper)
March 15, 1999
By Michael Grass
Daily Staff Reporter

More than 300 University students, faculty and area residents marched on the Fleming Administration Building Friday afternoon following a mass rally on the Diag to protest the use of sweatshop labor in the collegiate apparel industry.

Gathered in front of Fleming on Regents' Plaza with sidewalk chalk in hand, protesters wrote anti-sweatshop slogans on the building's walls, the ground and on the Cube.

Chanting "Hey hey, ho ho, sweatshop labor has to go" and "the living wage is our demand, we know their lives are in our hands," the group called on the University administration to adopt a set of stronger labor expectations for manufactures who produce licensed merchandise for the University.

The Collegiate Licensing Company - the licensing agent that handles contracts between manufacturers and the University along with 160 other schools - is facilitating talks to improve wages and conditions in factories, but student groups at campuses across the nation have said what is being proposed is not strong enough.

Protesters, led by Students Organizing for Labor and Economic Equality, called on University administrators to meet their demands of full public disclosure of factory ownership and locations and the living wage - a realistic salary factoring in local living costs.

After meetings earlier in the month, leaders of SOLE set Friday as the deadline to take action on their demands.

Since January, protests at the University of Wisconsin at Madison, Duke University, Georgetown University and various other campuses forced administrators at those schools to call for stronger labor standards for manufacturers who produce licensed collegiate merchandise.

The rally also brought attention to the current state of contract talks between the University and the Graduate Employees Organization.

GEO held an informational walkout last week and signed a tentative contract agreement with the University on Saturday.

GEO President Eric Dirnbach and GEO strike committee member Cedric De Leon told the crowd that negotiations of GEO and sweatshop labor are related.

"Now we want to raise the standards across the board," Dirnbach said.

De Leon compared University administrators like University Chief Negotiator Dan Gamble, University President Lee Bollinger and Provost Nancy Cantor to sweatshop factories owners.

De Leon said that "we need to show this boss that no one is going anywhere," adding that "if Gamble, Bollinger and Cantor think they can walk over every union on campus, I have one thing to say - 'Over my dead body!'"

LSA sophomore Peter Romer-Friedman, a SOLE leader, told the crowd that the Nike Corporation Thursday agreed to publicly disclose information about their factories.

With the concessions from Nike, Romer-Friedman announced the end of the anti-Nike movement on campus, destroying a giant paper mache shoe, the symbol of the movement, on the steps of the Harlan Hatcher Graduate Library.

"Now that the shoe is dead, we have another victory to attain - the living wage," Romer-Friedman said, telling the crowd it is a fight for human rights.

LSA junior Dorothy Mc Givney said she thought the rally was "a wonderful example of students resisting apathy and indifference we've been led to believe our generation and our peers are suppose to personify."

SOLE negotiating team member Julie Fry, an LSA sophomore, said "this is the time to show your strength."

Mc Givney, who is not a member of SOLE, said student activists aren't the only ones worried about sweatshop labor.

"I don't think fellow students should have to feel like its too late to join in this struggle," Mc Givney said.

LSA sophomore Lucine Eusani said she'd "like to see the rest of the University wake up and see how this affects us."

Romer-Friedman told the crowd that for a hat costing $20 with the University logo, the University makes $1.50 in royalties while workers only make 8 cents.

For the 1997-98 fiscal year, the University reported $5.7 million in sales from the sale of licensed merchandise.

"This University makes so much money off the blood of the workers," Caruthers said.

With other highly-publicized sit-ins at other schools still in the minds of the student activists, SOLE members said they have not ruled out any course of action.

"We will fight until we win," Romer-Friedman said.