Following the sports merchandise company's repeated incompliance with workers' rights inspectors, UW-Madison decided Friday to terminate its licensing contract with New Era Cap Company.
The termination, which is effective immediately, cuts off New Era as a licensee and forbids the company from manufacturing its signature baseball caps and sportswear with the official University of Wisconsin logo.
We're terminating the contract based on New Era's actions not really being the type of company this university wants to be associated with,"" Dawn Crim, special assistant to the chancellor, said at a Labor Licensing Policy Committee meeting Friday.
The university decided to terminate because of New Era's refusal to comply with UW-Madison's code of conduct that says UW logo licensees must allow a monitoring agency to observe work practices.
Crim said New Era did not uphold this agreement when it did not allow the Worker's Rights Consortium, a labor rights monitoring organization hired by UW-Madison, to enter its U.S. factories.
If the WRC was allowed access to the New Era facility in Mobile, Ala., it is likely they would have found poor labor practices, according to UW-Madison sophomore Chynna Haas, who traveled to the factory earlier this month with students from other universities with New Era contracts.
Haas traveled to Alabama as a student delegate of United Students Against Sweatshops.
At Friday's LLPC meeting, Haas shared stories from many of the black, single mothers who sort caps at the distribution factory and say they experience daily racial abuse and sexual harassment.
Haas explained New Era's point system that gives workers penalty strikes when they skip work. A worker can get up to seven points before being laid off, but Haas says the strikes are unfairly applied.
She said women were given strikes for tasks such as going to the hospital for a heart attack, leaving to attend to a house fire or moving a son into his first day of college, even with a note from the university's dean.
Haas said some of the workers made a stride in forming a union, but their membership has led to retaliatory action from supervisors.
""Workers who show up wearing their union shirts, proud to finally get respect at work are being targeted for bogus reasons,"" she said. New Era released a statement Jan. 21 denying all allegations of unfair labor practices.
Haas said she could understand the grounds for UW-Madison's termination with New Era but was unsure how its message would resonate at the factory in Mobile, where workers see hundreds of different logos a day.
""It's not a strong enough message to the workers,"" Haas said of the New Era termination. ""I wish the university would have the courage to stand up to New Era and say we're cutting the contract because your company has bad labor practices.""
Crim said UW-Madison legal officials explored the option of threatening New Era with a breach of contract suit, which may have brought forth some of the workers' anecdotes. However, since a breach can only be carried out while still under a contract, the university decided a termination would be the quickest, most effective way to end ties with the company.
Other LLPC members said they thought a termination was only a quick-fix solution and bringing the case to court would have made a bolder statement.
""You can't sidestep these issues forever,"" said Jan Van Tol, a UW-Madison junior on the committee. ""I'd like to see one university stand up and say, 'Yeah, we're going to fight this, we'll go to court.' It may be a battle, it may take years, but we'd set a precedent.""
Dennis Dresang, a LLPC member and UW-Madison political science professor, said a licensee case like this could take years of suits and countersuits and may not bring an outcome that was originally intended.
""Terminating a contract sends a message,"" Dresang said. ""It sends a message that can be amplified '¦ without getting the university in legal trouble.""
However, the university hopes its early termination with New Era will show future licensees how UW-Madison does business, according to Crim.
""Our cutting the contract sends a message to all licensees that the University of Wisconsin is not someone to be taken lightly if you're not willing to follow the code,"" she said.
The termination with New Era will have almost no ramifications for Badger sports fans because other licensees make the products like those from New Era.
""We can afford to work with other licensees that will comply to our code,"" Crim said.
This is the second time in the past decade UW-Madison has cut a licensee contract with the New York-based company.
