AP Online
March 17, 1999
by Leslie Miller

BOSTON -- Some of the nation's most prestigious colleges want to make sure their names aren't on caps and sweatshirts made in overseas sweatshops for pennies a day.

Seventeen schools including Harvard, Brown, Princeton and Duke this week joined a national group set up to curb worker abuses overseas.

The schools made the announcement two weeks after protesters across the nation, many of them students, demonstrated against corporate giants for allegedly abusing overseas workers.

But student activists said Tuesday that they were outraged by the move because the group, the Fair Labor Association, is supported largely by apparel manufacturers such as Nike Inc. and Phillips-Van Heusen.

"The Student Labor Association is furious that this decision was made behind our back," said Nora Rosenberg, a member of a Brown-based student group that opposes sweatshops.

The Fair Labor Association evolved from a group of 18 apparel manufacturers and retailers formed after the news broke that young Chinese women were making Kathie Lee Gifford handbags for Wal-Mart at 13 cents a day.

The White House supports the group, which established a code of conduct for apparel factories and a program to monitor violations.

Some labor groups were initially part of the Fair Labor Association, but walked away.

"It's a complete cover-up. It's ineffective," said Carrie Kim, a spokeswoman for the United Needletrades Industrial and Textile Employees.

The association will monitor and evaluate member companies to make sure they comply with its standards.

"We're laying a foundation to create some accountability, some industrywide standards, some sense of monitoring in a very big, difficult world," said Michael Posner, executive director of the Lawyers Committee for Human Rights, an association member.

Harvard's attorney said the school was in a tough position.

"We don't know anything about manufacturing. We don't hire clothing workers. But students say we have a responsibility to do something about labor conditions," said Allan Ryan, a Harvard University attorney.

"We're not persuaded this will prove to be the answer to anything," he said.

Harvard along with Princeton, Brown, Columbia and Cornell are requiring companies to disclose the location of the factories where licensed apparel is made, which goes beyond the association's code.

Other colleges include Tufts, Dartmouth, Florida State, Marymount, Rutgers, Smith, Tufts, Wellesley, the University of Arizona and the University of Pennsylvania.