\Sweatshop labor"" is no longer an unfamiliar phrase for many college students. The efforts of many organizations in the 1990s brought to the world's attention the dreadful conditions faced by the workers producing items we consume everyday.
However, despite a decade of struggle by workers and their allies and a host of small victories, the situation for the majority of the world's textile workers is still abysmal-poor factory conditions, low wages, no bargaining rights and harassment still characterize the daily lives of many. And it goes far beyond Kathie Lee Gifford; these workers toil producing the familiar labels most people find in their closet-including that happy Wisconsin red many students sport.
In the last 20 years the textile market has undergone drastic changes that have resulted in a strange paradox-the global expansion of production combined with the contraction of brands. Because of an increasingly competitive market and changing trade laws (i.e., North American Free Trade Agreement), in the early '90s companies were forced to take production abroad to cut costs. This jump forced many companies particularly middle-tier companies with production based in the United States, out of business.
While it appears that there is a wide-array of brands, in reality one corporation will own a variety of brands-each marketed to a different population in an attempt to appeal to more people and make more money. Today more than 70 percent of the global textile industry is concentrated in the hands of just 14 companies.
The diverse geography of textile production has thus far made it difficult to hold corporations accountable for their actions and for labor standards to be monitored and enforced. The size and sheer monetary clout of multinational corporations makes forcing them to do anything very difficult. However, they have an Achilles' heel: their reputation.
Nike, Gap, Adidas, etc., spend millions on advertising to get the consuming public to associate their products with a certain image. The anti-sweatshop campaign has undertaken education and advertising campaigns to associate these giants with their actual business practices rather than manufactured images. And the corporations are scared.
Universities play an important role in this expansive struggle because of their public image: Companies want to appeal to college students (and alumni) and have part of a stable purchasing pool. Colleges, therefore, have a lot of power in challenging and shaping the policies of corporations who want to use their image. Currently, in order to use the Wisconsin logo in any form (from toothbrushes to T-shirts) companies need to become a Wisconsin ""licensee."" This includes an application process, an agreement to adhere to the university's code of conduct and an agreement to subject all factories to monitoring by the university's monitoring body, the Worker's Rights Consortium.
The final requirements are new. In 1999 and 2000 UW-Madison students in conjunction with other campuses nationwide pushed for the creation of codes of conduct and subsequently for the creation of the WRC to ensure the enforcement of the code. These victories were won only after incredible student activism and effort-including two separate sit-ins at the University of Wisconsin. The University of Wisconsin's code is now one of the most comprehensive and includes provisions for a living wage and women's rights.
One of the major victories of the code and the WRC was the full public disclosure of factory locations. In the recent past, corporations were not required to even reveal where their factories actually were-they claimed it was an ""industry secret."" Student and university pressure forced them to make all factory locations publicly available-an important step in being able to monitor them.
The newest front in the struggle for worker's rights is the campaign for public wage disclosure. Wage disclosure is a necessary step toward enforcing the living wage provision of the code of conduct-and toward fair wages for workers. Students at campuses nationwide are now organizing and rallying for companies who produce their apparel to make the average wages of workers who work in factories that produce university clothing available-subcontracted factories included. Companies will quite likely resist again and attempt to feign ignorance-which given the razor-sharp margins on which they make profit is utterly absurd.
UW-Madison has already begun taking steps toward full public wage disclosure broaching the issue with Adidas and with the new giant in line for the UW contract-Nike. Regardless of their responses students and workers will continue to press for this next step. Sweatshops flourish on secrecy, ignorance and apathy, and wage disclosure is one more step in the struggle for justice for worker's worldwide. Student and public pressure are key to holding our university and corporations accountable to the labor from which we all profit from.
Kate McCormack is a senior majoring in international studies and psychology.
