The UW-Madison Board of Regents voted to grant Adidas a five-year contract Friday, amid fair labor disputes between several apparel companies and the university.
The new contract extends the previous agreement to 2016 and is worth about $11 million, compared to $6.35 million over the past five years in the last contract, according to the Associated Press.
Under the agreement, Adidas will continue to supply UW-Madison's athletic teams with equipment and uniforms.
Adidas' contract renewal follows a slew of workers' rights violations within the past two years involving U.S.-based companies and subcontractors abroad.
According to Cynthia Van Matre, administrative program manager of UW-Madison trademark licensing, all large apparel companies do some form of subcontracting and Adidas has done well setting up a system to monitor their subcontractors.
""They've established very high guidelines and procedures to follow,"" she said.
However, UW-Madison officials were forced to take action when a case surfaced at the Adidas Hermosa plant in El Salvador, where workers did not receive severance pay when laid off in 2005.
Adidas eventually compensated the employees of the Hermosa plant in May, 2007.
Justin Doherty, UW-Madison assistant athletic director, said the contract between UW-Madison and Adidas allows the university to look into company practices themselves.
""Essentially they agree to open their door and open their books to us to make sure they are complying,"" he said.
Van Matre said the university also uses the Worker Rights Consortium, an independent organization that monitors working conditions in apparel factories worldwide, to discover unfair labor practices.
""They're out in the fields working with the factories of the world,"" she said about the organization.
Further violations of UW-Madison's code of conduct have occurred recently, including an incident with Nike where over 1,500 Honduran workers were abruptly laid off by a Nike subcontractor and unfairly compensated. UW-Madison's Labor Licensing Policy Committee terminated the university's contract with Nike in April, 2010.
Last month, Nike allocated $1.54 million for unpaid wages and pledged to start training programs for the Honduran workers, according to a Nike press release.
