Two Approaches to Sweatshops

Last week, two roads diverged for universities interested in ending sweatshops. The national student umbrella group, United Students Against Sweatshops, released the Workers Rights Consortium (WRC), an outline of principles for university monitoring of overseas garment factories. The WRC calls for full public disclosure of locations and wage information of all factories producing college clothing. It also mandates the establishment of a small non-profit monitoring body responsible for responding to worker complaints. These principles represent a clear break from those currently held by the government and industry-sponsored Fair Labor Association (FLA), which would rely on classified, corporate audits for information about overseas labor conditions. Harvard ought to support the WRC principles, because they represent a bolder anti-sweatshop policy and because they are consistent with Harvard's previous commitment to full disclosure.

Since we began in the fall of 1997, the Progressive Student Labor Movement's (PSLM) No Sweat Campaign has focused its energies on the Harvard administration, trying to convince them to adopt a strong policy against sweatshops. We targeted Harvard because, through its licensing program, the University is responsible for contracting for more sweatshop labor than any number of consumers we could have contacted directly, and also because as students we have standing to complain about the actions of our university.

Of course, it is beyond Harvard's power to end sweatshops alone. Only in concert with other universities will we be able to exert enough economic pressure on the garment industry to change their practices. As colleges nationwide contemplate anti-sweatshop policies, Harvard can either lead or follow the national movement.

Until now, Harvard has done a combination of both. Only Harvard has had a high-ranking official working nearly full-time on the issue--Allan A. Ryan of the Office of General Counsel. Last spring, on the day of a large rally outside University Hall, Harvard became one of the first schools to promise that its anti-sweatshop policy would require licensees to publicize the locations of their overseas factories. Over the summer, Harvard spearheaded a five-school, $250,000 pilot monitoring program, the first university initiative actually to visit a sweatshop.

Yet, despite these moves, Harvard continues to hedge its bets. Soon after it committed to full disclosure, Harvard joined the FLA, which eschews full disclosure. And though Harvard expresses doubts about the FLA, its own pilot program looks quite a bit like it, with monitoring by PriceWaterhouseCoopers and no disclosure of data or factory locations.

In the long run, however, Harvard cannot travel both roads. It must choose a policy based either on secret information compiled by corporations or on public information inspected by non-profits.

The WRC is the first proposal we have seen that makes use of full disclosure. Full public disclosure of factory locations means that anybody can see for themselves whether a factory has good labor practices. Yet, as important as such openness is, Harvard cannot rely on just anybody to monitor factories; it will contract, or join an organization that contracts, professional inspection. The question then becomes whether to take advantage of the opportunities full disclosure offers.

The WRC proposal, assuming that factory locations and information are made public, would then staff a small, independent monitoring organization that responds to complaints rather than tries to inspect every garment factory on the globe. A secret, corporate model such as the FLA, on the other hand, lacking the aid of public scrutiny, would try to do all the monitoring itself.

Even if we believe that for-profit consulting firms with long-term business relationships to garment corporations can deliver objective information, as the present FLA plan stands, each factory would be inspected once every ten years--ten lifetimes in today's economy. And, since inspections are pre-announced, factories owners will rest easy, knowing they can abuse women workers and bust unions for years and still enjoy valuable "sweat-free" certification from the U.S. government--and Harvard.

If Harvard does not envision a plan such as the WRC, what role would full disclosure play in its eventual policy? It would be odd for a policy to bring the public as far as the locked factory gates and no further. Anti-sweatshop advocates know how to get through factory gates, so full disclosure in itself does increase the information available to the public.

Yet does Harvard really want to further the climate of antagonism and distrust that rules contemporary sweatshop debates? This would be the result of a policy that reveals factories to independent organizations, yet bars them from the decision-making process. Harvard, as a rich, non-profit institution, can afford to take a chance on an idea that puts the lauded "openness" of our global economy to work for those who are still waiting to see its benefits.

Aron R. Fischer '99-'00 is a PSLM member who concentrates in social studies and is affiliated with Dudley House.