UC apparel production may violate labor laws

By Barbara Ortutay
Daily Bruin Senior Staff

Forced overtime, dangerous health and safety code violations,
mandatory pregnancy testing and low wages are just some of the
conditions workers may face in factories manufacturing University
of California apparel.

A team of independent consultants, commissioned by the UC and
four other universities, released a 147-page report Friday based on
investigations into factory and sweatshop conditions in seven
countries.

The report, titled “Independent University
Initiative,” found that sub-par working conditions exist in
all the countries surveyed, and that codes of conduct and
monitoring efforts are often inefficient.

Harvard, Ohio State University, the University of Michigan and
the University of Notre Dame also participated in the report, which
for a year, sampled countries where a substantial portion of
university-licensed products are made.

“This came in response to concerns from students, faculty
and the university,” said UC spokeswoman Mary Spletter.
“We needed this report before we could determine the scope of
the problem.”

The report did not make a distinction between the five
participating universities, so it is unclear what part of the
findings were specific to UC-licensed products.

Patricia Eastman, executive director of the Associated Students
of UCLA, which licenses the UCLA logo, said Friday ASUCLA was not
prepared to comment on the report.

“We have a very strict policy that requires manufacturers
to comply with a whole host of labor standards,” she
said.

The UC revised its code of conduct for trademark licensees in
January, mandating that all licensees and their contractors
disclose the locations of their factories, let their workers
unionize, ensure women’s rights, and avoid
discrimination.

“The UC already has the strongest code of conduct in the
country for the manufacture of university-licensed apparel,”
said UC Senior Vice President Joseph Mullinix in a statement
Friday.

“As a result of joining the Independent University
Initiative, we now know that much more work is needed to address
the widespread existence of substandard working conditions,”
he continued.

Part of the report’s findings, however, showed that
workers, unions and non-governmental organizations in each of the
countries were often unaware of codes of conduct, and generally
doubted their efficacy.

In one El Salvador factory, for example, the plant’s
general manager said she did not know about the licensee’s 60
hour workweek limit even though a poster-size copy of the code,
which included the workweek limit, was posted behind her in
Spanish, the report said.

Although a commonly held image of sweatshops is that they exist
only in developing nations, the report found that labor law
violations are also widespread in the United States.

These violations, according to the report, include failure to
pay minimum wage or overtime, falsification of payroll records, as
well as the use of child labor. Because a large number of garment
workers in the U.S. are illegal immigrants, it is difficult to
enforce state or federal labor standards.

One manufacturing plant in the greater Los Angeles area, the
report found, employed a mix of documented and illegal workers,
according to the report, and routinely engaged in violations of
overtime laws, and working without compensation. The factory in
question is still in business, and employs about 70 people.

“Anything you can expect to find overseas, you can find
here at home,” the report quoted Katie Quan. director of the
John F. Henning Center for International Labor Relations at UC
Berkeley as saying.

In addition to the U.S., the report surveyed factories in South
Korea, Pakistan, China, El Salvador, Mexico and Thailand.
Discrimination against women, especially pregnant women, surfaced
in all seven countries except Pakistan, where women are not allowed
to work in factories.

In several countries, women were forced to undergo pregnancy
testing as a condition of their employment

Although he has not read the report, Cliff Fried, organizer for
the University Professional and Technical Employees, said the union
supports nationwide efforts of students improving working
conditions, and that the report is a step in the right
direction.

“I think it’s good that (the university) is feeling
so defensive that they made the information public,” he
said.

To read the report in its entirety go to
http://www.ucop.edu/ucophome/coordrev/policy/initiative-report.pdf.