Ivy Officials Search for Response to Sweatshop Protests

The use of sweatshop labor to produce university-logo apparel has in recent months inspired a burst of student activism across the country.

And, even after Ivy League administrators met last week to try to head off this controversy with a shared sweatshop policy, it seems that an official solution to the problem remains elusive.

In recent months, student demonstrators at Duke and Georgetown unversities and the University of Wisconsin at Madison have attracted national attention and succeeded in bringing about policy changes at those schools.

At Harvard, the Progressive Student Labor Movement has led a similar charge--marching last week to President Neil L. Rudenstine's office in an attempt to present him with a check for $.08, the amount a Dominican worker receives for each "Veritas" hat manufactured.

In response to this sort of protest across the Ivies, last week the so-called Ivy Consortium met in New York to consider the possibility of a cross-Ivy policy on the subject.

In the third meeting of the schools since November, each university provided information about its clothing manufacturers and its policies--information that will help the eight presidents draw up policies later this spring, according to Robert K. Durkee, Princeton's vice president for public affairs.

Jeffrey Orleans, executive director of the Council of Ivy Presidents, will present the different alternatives discussed at the New York meeting to the eight presidents. Durkee said he hopes they will be able to devise a strategy in the next few weeks.

"Nothing was decided," University Attorney Allan A. Ryan Jr. said. We are "seeing if there is some common plan that the Ivies could have."

One option on the table, Ryan said, is to create an all-Ivy anti-sweatshop policy that would dictate rules to collegiate clothing manufacturers and put monitoring in the hands of the schools.

But Durkee said Princeton would prefer a code of conduct devised on the national level.

The universities could add their names to the membership list of a group like the Fair Labor Association, a conglomerate of human rights, labor and religious organizations and some apparel and footwear companies formed last year and supported by the White House. The association enforces a code of conduct for clothing manufacturers to prevent the use of sweatshop labor.

Joining a national initiative gives the schools more clout, according to Durkee.

"If it turns out there isn't an effective and appropriate national initiative [we'll look at whether] there is something the Ivies could do as an alternate," Durkee said.

A third option also remains: individual policies for each school, according to Durkee.

Whatever the mode of enforcement, the points of the policy are still under discussion.

"Sweatshop policies are something we support," Ryan said. "The difficulties have been in how we do it."

But to student activists, the Ivies are not going far enough, and Harvard seems to be backing away from its earlier commitment to higher labor standards.

"We're pretty pissed off," said Liz C. Vladeck '99, one of PSLM's negotiators. "We're not satisfied."

Vladeck called the Apparel Industry Partnership Code--the set of standards the schools were considering--"very weak.

She said PSLM would continue to press for "a living wage" for factory workers, "meaningful student participation," an effective and fair monitoring process that would involve groups like Amnesty International and full disclosure of factory locations.

Princeton announced Sunday that any sweatshop policy would include disclosure of the names of factories that produce the clothing--a concession which so far Harvard has been unwilling to make.

"It does increase the likelihood that the clothing producers will adhere to appropriate codes of conduct if the public can know," Durkee said.

But Ryan claims compiling a list of names would be a bureaucratic hassle.

"I'm not sure what the purpose of this is," Ryan said. "I sense some resistance to doing this on the part of the manufacturers."

"We'll do what we need to do," Vladek said, adding that she was pleased with the level of student support PLSM's efforts have garnered so far.

The group will "barrage" University President Neil L. Rudenstine with mail, Vladek said, and added that though sitins had been successful at other schools around the Ivy League, PSLM was not yet considering such tactics because Harvard was committed to the cause.

"They do care," Vladek said. "They are just a little too concerned with the economics of the situation. They don't appreciate how important it is to have an enforceable standard."