Earlier this semester Stephanie Medina '14 and I, both members of the Brown Student Labor Alliance, went on a delegation to Central America with a group called United Students Against Sweatshops. We visited factories and met with workers who produce collegiate apparel to discuss the role of our University in the international garment industry.
In San Pedro Sula, Honduras, we joined student delegates from across the United States. We drove through industrial parks, shanty towns surrounding the factories and luxurious homes of factory management. In the nine factories we visited that produce for Hanes, Fruit of the Loom, Adidas and Nike, brave workers came forward to talk about the harsh working conditions including the constant pressure to produce faster and at a cheaper price. These workers receive pennies for the highly priced sweaters sitting in our University bookstore.
When workers try to defend themselves against the abject conditions of their factories, brands use the tactic of cutting and running — they take away orders from factories where workers are resisting and divert them to locations where wages are lower and regulations more lax.
"They tell us it's going to be our fault if the factory closes," said Rosa Evangelina, who sews for Hanes. She described her job as a maquila operator where she sews on the collars of sweaters and deals with management constantly pressuring her to produce faster and faster. Evangelina recounted stories of sexual assault and brutal public violence in her factory. If she raises her voice in protest, her boss threatens that not only will she be fired but that she can expect to be blacklisted among the surrounding factories, she said — meaning she and her family would be left with little recourse. Her story is the reality students on College Hill don't see hidden underneath the piles of sweaters in our bookstore.
Perhaps most disturbing is the fact that the Fair Labor Association, an organization meant to monitor factory conditions, ignored her complaints. "The (association) is a mask," Evangelina said with tears in her eyes. "Our co-workers are being attacked. We have made the complaint, but here we are in the same situation." Universities and corporations fund the association, but the same people that run the organization sit on the boards of these big corporations — clearly a conflict of interest .
Students have long scrutinized the relationship that schools have with their licensee brands and have called for greater responsibility toward the workers who make our sweaters, sweatpants, hats and T-shirts. In the 1990s, United Students Against Sweatshops became the first organization to unite students from across the nation to build student power in solidarity with workers worldwide.
Brown has continuously demonstrated leadership in the anti-sweatshop movement. It was one of the first schools to implement University Vendor Codes of Conduct, a set of standards brands must follow in the factories that produce our clothing. Brown is also affiliated with the Worker Rights Consortium, an organization that monitors factory working conditions. Unfortunately, even these steps have not stopped the race to the bottom. The Fair Labor Association and company strategies of cutting and running circumvent our Vendor Code of Conduct, and now we are seeing a global crisis of compliance with these codes.
We need a way to hold companies accountable for their working conditions.
The solution lies with the Designated Suppliers Program, which comes as a simple answer to the crisis of compliance with vendor codes. It requires brands to source from factories that respect workers' rights and freedom of association, pay a fair price and commit to keeping production in these factories. Under the program, brands will designate supplier factories which they think will meet the standards. Then the Worker Rights Consortium will run an investigation to confirm that the factory meets the program requirements. We will know exactly which factory produces our college clothing and the conditions in that factory.
In 2008, Brown made a commitment to the Designated Suppliers Program, but brands accused the program of violating anti-trust laws. United Students Against Sweatshops put the program under review by the Department of Justice last December, which ruled that the program did not violate any anti-trust laws. Brown can now honor its commitment and require brands to participate. In a time when brands treat the developing world as a playground for worker exploitation, we need this program now more than ever.
From this trip we realized that to truly end the race to the bottom, we need our universities to implement the Designated Suppliers Program, which provides stability and a living wage to thousands of families. There is a clear crisis of compliance throughout the chain of production. Require brands to stop cutting and running. Require Brown to honor and recommit to the Designated Suppliers Program.
Mariela Martinez '14 and Stephanie Medina '14 are members of the Student Labor Alliance and United Students Against Sweatshops.
