The discussion over the issue of wage disclosure from chief apparel suppliers to UW-Madison continued Thursday, with the second part of the \Labor Behind The Label"" conference. Attended by members of the Labor Licensing Policy Committee and industry representatives, the discussion focused on both the necessity and feasibility of creating the policy.
""The purpose of these wage laws is to protect those at factories which aren't in compliance,"" said Scott Nova, executive director of the Worker Rights Consortium. ""It can cause licensees to discover there can be some real problems.""
While committee members pushed for the use of the wage laws to improve conditions for laborers, industry representatives argued the project had fewer benefits than believed.
""I'm still trying to figure out what the value of wage disclosure is in bringing living wage forward,"" said Gregg Nebel of Social and Environmental Affairs for Adidas-Salomon, one of the university's top suppliers.
Nebel also criticized the vast amount of work that would coincide with the research into wages, claiming that forcing Adidas to provide information directly would take away efforts from more important issues, such as preventing forced labor and sexual discrimination in overseas factories.
""I'm against doing non-value work,"" Nebel said. ""There'd have to be a lot of people sitting around a table before we'd give a final answer.""
LaMarr Billups, special assistant to the chancellor, replied that the wage disclosure is necessary because Adidas deals directly with the university as a whole, and the university needs to know where the money is going.
""You deal with the university's morals,"" Billups said.
Plans for the future include creating a list of factories that have made chief advancements in wages, strengthening ties with them, and utilizing the existing manufacturing agreements corporations have with host countries to gain some international cooperation. The LLRP intends to build off of the existing resources, as well as get the message out to others.
""We will push agendas so it's not just us and not just Wisconsin, and so we can push it to a higher level,"" said Nancy Plankey of the UW-Madison Department of Sociology.
Megan Murphy, a sophomore at Georgetown University and member of the Workers Regulatory Commission, praised the work of UW-Madison on wage disclosure.
""We're moving on a parallel track,"" Murphy said. ""They've taken some very good, concrete steps, and as a bigger school can help out with their leverage.\
