FLA votes to require factory disclosure
By JASON McFARLEY
News Writer
It can't hurt, but by itself, it likely won't benefit the University either.
That's the lukewarm response from most parties at Notre Dame involved in anti-sweatshop initiatives following the enactment of a new measure by some 140 colleges belonging to the Fair Labor Association (FLA).
The measure, approved unanimously by the FLA's university advisory committee in June, will require manufacturers to disclose the locations of the factories where they make school-logo merchandise. The policy will affect 141 member colleges and universities, including Notre Dame.
The adoption of the provision by the advisory panel stipulates that any FLA-affiliated college or university with a licensing program will require public disclosure of factory locations by its licensees.
But the shift may not signal the types of changes here that many other campuses will potentially experience.
"To be honest, this is not a very significant step for us," said Notre Dame business professor Ollie Williams.
While Williams called the recent action an "important collective breakthrough," it is seemingly familiar territory for the University, which since last fall has recommended that all licensees manufacturing apparel bearing Notre Dame insignia disclose their factory locations.
Prior to this summer's measure by the coalition of colleges, about three-quarters of Notre Dame's more than 200 licensees voluntarily disclosed factory addresses. Effective immediately, addresses from companies such as Adidas and Champion, two of the University's largest licensees, will be demanded.
"Now we're not just calling for that information; with this policy, we're requiring it," said Bill Hoye, chairman of Notre Dame's Task Force on Anti-Sweatshop Initiatives.
FLA policy already mandates that licensees with $10 million or more in annual revenue be FLA members or participate in the organization's primary monitoring system.
The FLA was created with the backing of President Bill Clinton's administration to address alleged abuses in the apparel industry, including sweatshop labor. In addition to participating colleges and universities, manufacturers and human rights groups have membership in the FLA.
Maureen Murtha, the FLA's university liaison, said members' involvement in the organization translates into a united and visible stand on labor issues.
"On their own, schools like Notre Dame and [the University of] Michigan have clout, but not so much when you consider the overall size of the overall footwear and apparel markets," Murtha said. "This new measure brings a lot of schools together and makes them much more effective."
Murtha said Notre Dame is one of about 40 schools associated with the FLA that already requires their licensees to publicly disclose factory locations. She said the decision by the 100 or so other schools in the FLA to follow suit was prompted in large part by growing student protests concerning unfair labor practices.
At Notre Dame, the Progressive Student Alliance (PSA) has been outspoken on the labor practices issues. PSA president Aaron Kreider said demanding public disclosure is a positive step, but he expressed some qualms about what the measure will mean for his organization and the University.
For one thing, Kreider noted that while Notre Dame's anti-sweatshop task force receives input from the student body president, no PSA members serve on the committee. That is a fact the sociology graduate student finds troubling.
"They've excluded our group and any other activist group even though we're the ones that put the issue on the agenda," Kreider said.
Another problem, according to Kreider, is that factory addresses should be public records, not restricted to access by University officials.
Although disclosure procedures vary from school to school, it is currently Notre Dame's policy to not publicize this information.
Kreider also said that the addresses are only one bit of information with which University officials should be concerned.
"The issue is so much bigger. It's also important to obtain information like wages and working conditions in the factories," said Kreider, who also advocates the University's joining the Workers Rights Consortium, a group with a stricter code of conduct and watchdog efforts than the FLA. Saint Mary's College is a member of the WRC.
But Williams, who is also an expert in sweatshop legislation, said that making the addresses a matter of public record is not necessarily important. Instead, he said that information should be used to support a University mechanism for monitoring factories and ensuring sound labor standards.
"If [factories] know they might be inspected, it might serve as a deterrent for instituting sweatshop conditions," Williams said.
Hoye agrees.
He said the University continues, with great success, to monitor factories through a global accounting firm.
And, according to Hoye, who is also Notre Dame's associate vice president and counsel in the Office of General Counsel, several recommendations by his anti-sweatshop task force have already received approval from University president Edward Malloy and are well under way.
One such recommendation, a proposed pilot project, would create a regional monitoring system composed of accountants, human rights activists, clergy members and other non-governmental representatives to serve as a watchdog over North and Central American factories, Hoye explained.
Hoye said that plans are also in the works to prohibit the manufacture of products sporting the Notre Dame insignia in countries that ban people's rights to organize or form unions. He said that would include China, the second leading manufacturer (behind the United States) of Notre Dame products.
For another project, Hoye expects to have results no later than October from a living wage study this summer in Mexico. That work may translate next spring into an academic symposium on the living wage which will be available for course credit to Notre Dame and Saint Mary's students.
"Fair labor is an issue this University is very concerned with, and we're putting forth the effort to address needs throughout the world," Hoye said.
All News Stories for Friday, August 25, 2000
