ASUCLA puts profits over human rights

Monday, October 27, 1997

ASUCLA puts profits over human rights

EDITORIAL: Loophole in anti-sweatshop policy allows UCLA Store
to sponsor overseas labor violations

The student’s association (ASUCLA) recently admitted to
something morally wrong and irresponsible: We support sweatshop
labor. As long as we make money, we have no problem doing business
with companies which engage in labor and humanitarian
violations.

Over the summer, the students’ association adopted an
anti-sweatshop policy, which forbids the sale of merchandise made
in unsafe working conditions.

But there’s a catch. This policy can apply only to domestically
produced goods, because there exists no agency which monitors
factories and clothing plants overseas.

ASUCLA knows this. And it knows it will never have to
discontinue the sale of Nike products because it’s betting its
money on an agency that doesn’t exist.

We don’t need an independent monitoring group to validate the
allegations. There’s enough proof to convict Nike 10 times
over.

Nike, the shoe and clothing giant, has been the target of
international allegations that its products are manufactured in
sweatshops in Third World nations. And despite the controversy
surrounding the corporation’s production practices, ASUCLA will not
stop selling Nike goods at this time.

It’s a shocking revelation that ASUCLA is continuing to support
Nike, but it’s true, and every day students add to the problem by
purchasing products which have been manufactured under poor working
conditions by under-aged laborers. In its refusal to stop selling
Nike products, ASUCLA has shown its true colors – money is more
important than anything else – even human suffering.

What disturbs us is that ASUCLA, as part of a university, should
conduct business without principles. This is an institution of
higher learning, and if the university cannot demonstrate
responsibility and integrity, how can its students?

The association maintains that in order to halt all business
with Nike or any other company, they must be provided with proof
from an independent monitoring agency that says products were made
in a sweatshop. Until that happens, it’s business as usual.

Countless reports have surfaced in the past few years about the
suffering Nike workers endure just to earn the little money they
receive. Women working in the Vietnamese factories are forced to
work overtime, because they need to meet the daily manufacturing
quotas.

Workers at manufacturing plants in Vietnam make only 20 cents an
hour, or $1.60 a day – not nearly enough to compensate for their
time and labor. Nor is it enough to survive, given the cost of
meals and the other expenses that must be paid. Workers have come
forward and told their stories to reporters, claiming that they
were hit over the head for minor sewing errors, or being forced to
stand out in the hot sun for half an hour for spilling a tray of
fruit.

And the list of abuses goes on.

Having full knowledge of these reports, clothing outlets such as
the UCLA Store continue doing business with Nike – all in the name
of making money.

On the other side of the globe, tired and weak workers toil day
and night for measly pay. And across the globe, retailers like
ASUCLA profit off these products and make their dirty money. It’s
time to stop contributing to the problem. Students should stop
buying products from a company which makes money off the suffering
of others. There’s a certain sense of responsibility that goes
along with being a student at a university. And buying Nike
products only helps to further the company’s stranglehold on
sweatshops.

ASUCLA must stop making money off others’ suffering. The reasons
they provide for continuing relations with Nike are nothing more
than shallow and transparent excuses to increase profits.

ASUCLA’s principles are driven only by money. Show them some
cash, and they’ll do whatever you ask them to.