Despite Chair's Death, Harvard to Keep FLA

In spite of the recent death of Fair Labor Association (FLA) chair Charles A. Ruff and in the face of mounting pressure from campus labor groups, Harvard has no intention of quitting the FLA, attorneys said yesterday.

In an interview, University Attorney Allan A. Ryan Jr. said Ruff's death would not impact the efficacy of the group, which monitors labor conditions of international apparel factories. As a result, he said, Harvard has no reason to consider leaving the group in favor of the Workers Rights Consortium (WRC), another labor watchdog organization.

"[Ruff's death] will have at least a temporary impact on the FLA," Ryan said. "Chuck was very dedicated to doing good in the world. It won't be easy to replace him."

Ruff, former White House counsel to President Clinton, had served as chair of the FLA for 14 months until his death Sunday.

Princeton University Vice President Robert Durkee, the university representative to the group, said the FLA is saddened by the loss of Ruff but hopes to move forward with its monitoring plans.

"It seems to me the right way to honor Chuck is to press ahead as actively and aggressively as we can," he said. "We need to hold the FLA to the high standards that Chuck had."

Ruff's major contributions to the FLA during his tenure included leading the process that named Sam W. Brown, Jr. as FLA's executive director and overseeing the drafting and adoption of the "Monitoring Guidance and Compliance Benchmarks," a document that provides explicit guidelines for factory monitoring.

FLA, a fairly new organization, grew out of the Apparel Industry Partnership, a White House initiative, in 1996.

According to Ryan, the FLA lost the support of labor groups in 1997 when it announced it would monitor compliance of a defined code of labor standards. The FLA then began to solicit partnerships with universities.

To date, the FLA's members include about a dozen major manufacturers, such as L.L. Bean and Eddie Bauer, several human rights organizations and 147 colleges and universities, according to Ryan.

"The FLA has made a lot of progress in the past 12 months," Ryan said. "And the top two reasons I give for this are usually Chuck Ruff and Sam Brown."

Members of the Progressive Student Labor Movement (PSLM) have been the FLA's foremost critics at Harvard. They have argued that the FLA's interests do not completely reflect those of the University.

"FLA membership is inconsistent with Harvard's code of conduct," PSLM member Benjamin L. McKean '02 said. "For example, Harvard's code specifies independent monitoring, which the FLA does not have."

Although Harvard is reluctant to join the WRC right now, Ryan said he would not rule out the possibility.

"The WRC at this point is not as advanced," Ryan said. "It is still working on its platform. If things move along, we won't rule out looking to join."

McKean said he feels Harvard has not been able to articulate any solid reason for not joining WRC.

"It's profoundly ridiculous that Harvard is not a member," he said. "FLA did not have a board of directors when Harvard joined. It did not have any of the things we are asking of WRC."