UCOP becomes part of un-Fair Labor Association

Claycomb and Benjamin-Gomez are members of United Students
Against Sweatshops.

By Gilliam Claycomb and Arlen
Benjamin-Gomez

This January, the UC Office of the President slapped student
anti-sweatshop activists in the face by joining the Fair Labor
Association, an organization that claims to monitor the employment
practices of companies that make university and other company
apparel.

It may be hard to believe that the BearWear sold in our own UCLA
store is sweatshop-made, but the fact remains: deplorable labor
conditions exist everywhere, even right here in Los Angeles.

Students across the country have been mobilizing against such
worker exploitation, forming one of the largest student movements
in decades. In 2000, the UC system took groundbreaking action
against sweatshops because of student pressure. We developed one of
the most comprehensive codes of conduct, holding companies
accountable for the ways in which our clothing is made. We also
signed onto the Workers Rights Consortium, a worker and
community-based organization that monitors factory conditions.

Since then, however, UC attention to student-labor concerns has
waned. Last spring, student governments at UC Berkeley, UCLA, UC
San Diego, UC Davis and UC Santa Barbara passed resolutions urging
UCOP not to join the FLA. Student anti-sweatshop activists, in an
advisory committee to the administration, also unanimously opposed
joining the FLA. However, UCOP ignored this widespread declaration
of student opposition and joined anyway.

Why are students so opposed to FLA membership?

The FLA was founded by Nike, a notorious labor abuser, and is
controlled by a governing board where companies hold six of 14
seats. As the board requires a two-thirds majority vote, these
companies can block decisions that do not favor them. The board
includes only one university representative, which diminishes the
amount of input from the affiliate schools and students.

A particularly shocking aspect of FLA is its system of
monitoring. Members of the FLA submit a list of factories they want
monitored, allowing them to choose only the factories with the
fewest violations. The FLA also notifies companies of the place and
dates in which visits will occur, allowing management to correct
““ or hide ““ problems beforehand.

If this isn’t ridiculous enough, companies actually choose
which firms will monitor them and pay them directly, which can
influence the validity of the reports. Also, only 10 percent of a
company’s factories must be monitored each year for the
company to receive certification as compliant with FLA standards,
essentially giving them a sweat-free stamp. This 10 percent cannot
possibly represent the labor practices of a whole company,
especially under such a monitoring system.

Secrecy is the major factor which allows sweatshops to form and
persist. The FLA is not obligated to release reports of factory
visits or the locations of factories to the public. This lack of
transparency allows unfair labor practices to remain hidden from
the public, and violates one of the main features of the UC
system’s code of conduct.

Without access to this information, labor rights groups are
unable to ensure that workers’ complaints have been heard.
The FLA can make sweeping statements about a company’s labor
practices without anyone knowing how, when or where its factories
were examined. Lack of transparency also allows companies to close
up shop and move production elsewhere if conditions are found to be
sub-standard. Rather than improving conditions for workers, this
cut-and-run practice devastates local workers relying on these
jobs.

Keeping the needs of workers at the front of the monitoring
process is vital to ending sweatshop abuses. The FLA seems to have
missed this point, as it requires minimal consultation with workers
during factory investigations. The FLA does not specify how and
where worker interviews should take place, and FLA monitors often
speak briefly with workers on the factory floor, while consulting
mainly with factory supervisors in their offices.

Last summer, when we were visiting Indonesian workers in Nike
and Adidas factories with United Students Against Sweatshops, the
workers were later verbally harassed and interrogated after
speaking with us. In countries such as Indonesia and Mexico,
company thugs often threaten workers with physical violence. In
such intimidating circumstances, workers are unlikely to speak up
without protection.

The FLA does not provide any system to safeguard workers’
jobs or personal safety after investigations.

By using bogus monitoring practices that often hurt, rather than
help workers, the FLA hopes to certify their members as sweat-free
in order to improve their image among consumers and students.

By joining the FLA, the UC system is legitimizing an
illegitimate process. Anti-sweatshop activists and workers across
the world will not be fooled by the un-Fair Labor Association
““ and neither should you.