Students to Hold Anti-Sweatshop Meeting in NYC

About 50 students from 30 universities--including Harvard--will meet a few blocks from Times Square this weekend to discuss coordinating their anti-sweatshop efforts.

At the center of the discussions will be the formation of a standard "Code of Conduct" that manufacturers should meet--in the group's opinion--in order to produce items that bear university names.

Also attending the meeting will be representatives from the Collegiate Licensing Company (CLC), which is primarily responsible for drafting the code.

The CLC is a company that selects manufacturers for university named products, acting as a go-between for approximately 75 percent of universities, said Bruce B. Siegal, vice president and general council of CLC.

According to Daniel M. Hennefeld '99, a member of the Progressive Student Labor Movement, he and and several students working for worker rights groups in New York City planned the conference to unite college movements and give students a strong voice in discussions with the CLC.

"I think the campaigns so far have been very campus focused," Hennefeld said. "We just want to have better coordination and communication between campaigns."

Hennefeld said that students were the impetus behind CLC's decision to formulate a code, but they have been left out of CLC discussions so far. For this reason, Hennefeld said he is upset.

"We're mad because students started this campaign and the CLC has decided to get in on it and come up with a code of conduct without student input."

Without addressing student con- cerns--among them a living wage and fulldisclosure of factory names andaddresses--Hennefeld said the CLC code would be"illegitimate."

Siegal said the CLC is interested in studentinput, but their concern with sweatshops was notinitiated by student movements.

The CLC has been planning to take actionagainst sweatshops since last summer, after thenational media drew attention to sweatshops, hesaid.

"It was my sense that students started gettinginvolved in the latter part of the fall and in thewinter and in the spring," he said.

Nonetheless, Siegal said students have alreadyinfluenced the CLC greatly. A code developed byDuke University students served as a startingpoint for the CLC's own code, he said.

CLC does not have any financial incentive tomake sure manufactures treat their workersdecently, Siegal said. The company's decision isstrictly moral, he said.

"If it's a successful program, to us it'srewarding because it's something that is morallyimportant and is the right thing to do," Siegalsaid.

Hennefeld said he questions whether the CLCwill be a staunch advocate for worker rights. "Idon't think the CLC has been too concerned withmorality," Hennefeld said.

The responsibility for getting universities toonly license their products to humane manufacturersstill lies with students, Hennefeld said.

"I think what the campaign is about is studentsat individual campuses getting involved andputting pressure on their administrations," hesaid.

At Harvard the largest rally against sweatshoplabor was in April, when over 100 students ralliedalong with a worker from the Dominican Republicoutside University Hall

Siegal said the CLC is interested in studentinput, but their concern with sweatshops was notinitiated by student movements.

The CLC has been planning to take actionagainst sweatshops since last summer, after thenational media drew attention to sweatshops, hesaid.

"It was my sense that students started gettinginvolved in the latter part of the fall and in thewinter and in the spring," he said.

Nonetheless, Siegal said students have alreadyinfluenced the CLC greatly. A code developed byDuke University students served as a startingpoint for the CLC's own code, he said.

CLC does not have any financial incentive tomake sure manufactures treat their workersdecently, Siegal said. The company's decision isstrictly moral, he said.

"If it's a successful program, to us it'srewarding because it's something that is morallyimportant and is the right thing to do," Siegalsaid.

Hennefeld said he questions whether the CLCwill be a staunch advocate for worker rights. "Idon't think the CLC has been too concerned withmorality," Hennefeld said.

The responsibility for getting universities toonly license their products to humane manufacturersstill lies with students, Hennefeld said.

"I think what the campaign is about is studentsat individual campuses getting involved andputting pressure on their administrations," hesaid.

At Harvard the largest rally against sweatshoplabor was in April, when over 100 students ralliedalong with a worker from the Dominican Republicoutside University Hall