Protest against sweatshops should persevere
Letter to the Editor
Soon Notre Dame will decide whether or not it wants to join with 74 other schools already signed on to the Worker Rights Consortium (WRC). The WRC is a monitoring system that will begin to end sweatshop labor by focusing on the manufacturing of collegiate apparel.
Notre Dame may have led the way early on in the fight against sweatshops but that position as a leader is being lost. Seventy-four other schools have already decided to join forces under the WRC.
The WRC is the best way for this University to stop using sweatshops. It gives a voice to those who know best what goes on in a sweatshop — the workers. It also publishes the information it finds so the public will know what abuses are present in a companies factories. The WRC will use Non-Governmental Organizations (NGOs) that are already in countries with sweatshops. These NGOs will continuously monitor the situation at apparel factories.
Notre Dame is a founding member of the monitoring system known as the Fair Labor Association (FLA). The FLA was created by the Apparel Industry Partnership in 1998 to "provide the public with confidence" that their clothes are not made in sweatshops.
Many student and human rights groups feel that the FLA is just a public relations ploy that will only do minimal amount to change the current industry-wide use of sweatshops. The FLA will only check an average of 10 percent of the apparel factories each year once it is in full operation. It could be over 10 years from one factory check to the next.
The FLA also keeps the factory abuses to itself. The public will never know what companies to avoid when buying sweatshop-free clothes. This is not adequate. The WRC is clearly better with continuous monitoring and making its findings available to the public.
Notre Dame now wants to create its own monitoring system. This system will be similar to the FLA. There will only be spot checks of a company's factories by Notre Dame's monitoring system. It will not publish any of the abuses it finds either, leaving the public and students in the dark.
Although Notre Dame has a chance of doing good alone, by joining with 74 other schools so much more can be done.
Notre Dame has many things to be proud of but this pride should not get in the way of doing what is best to end sweatshops. Notre Dame should resume its position as a national leader and join the WRC. Saint Mary's has already joined the WRC as have some of our closest football rivals: University of Michigan and Purdue.
Joe Smith
senior
O'Neill Family Hall
February 20, 2001
All Viewpoint Stories for Wednesday, February 21, 2001
