Straight Talk on Sweatshops

The winter chill is beginning to pierce through our fleeces in fair Cambridge. Thousands of miles away in warmer climates, workers are risking their lives to produce T-shirts and sweatshirts and baby bibs with the Harvard insignia, so that we might wear our allegiances proudly.

But as more time passes and Harvard continues to drag its feet, it's getting harder for us to don those clothes without the slightest twinge of guilt or, rather, discomfort with the situation.

With the Oct. 10 release of a report on its manufacturing conditions, Harvard finally admitted to what most of us already knew: Harvard apparel is produced in sweatshops. Sweatshops are manufacturing plants where workers are paid very little and human rights are regularly violated. In this particular report, monitors found that workers are routinely and unknowingly exposed to carcinogens, forced to work unpaid hours and often end up working 50 to 80 hours a week in order to feed themselves and their families. Child labor is common, as are forced abortions to keep women working. As in the United States, women employees often earn less than men for the same work, but that difference is lethal when even the highest paid men are earning under a dollar per hour.

The labor conditions in these factories aren't merely unconscionable, they're also illegal. Most sweatshops are in countries with stronger labor standards than our own, but the government often lacks the resources to enforce them. In addition to local laws, Harvard's own standards of conduct for licensees and contractors require decent working conditions and a living wage for all the workers producing goods that bear its name. So why isn't Harvard taking action to enforce these standards?

Perhaps the University doesn't feel the time is right. If Harvard took action, wouldn't hundreds of people lose their jobs?

In fact, there are ways to improve sweatshop conditions without costing Harvard a lot of money or causing workers to lose their jobs. The most important step for Harvard is to join the Workers' Rights Consortium (WRC), an organization of universities that monitors sweatshops and holds management accountable for working conditions. The Harvard Corporation has thus far refused to join the WRC, citing an alleged lack of corporate participation and leadership. The organization was founded only a year ago, and some consider this a drawback as well. In fact, on both counts the WRC has made considerable progress: It was incorporated earlier this month, which should dispel viability concerns, and it changed the structure of its governing board to include equal representation among students, administrators and sweatshop experts. In addition, the WRC is in constant contact with the corporations it monitors. It would represent a clear conflict of interest to give those corporations a direct role in the WRC's governance.

Whatever the WRC's supposed weaknesses, they weren't enough to keep Brown, Columbia, NYU and 59 other major universities from joining. The WRC is the only viable sweatshop watchdog organization which espouses independent rather than corporate monitoring.

The sweatshop issue is highly complex, and many of us, frustrated by the contradictions that present themselves and our inability to get a straight answer, prefer to leave the decision to Harvard's managers. We want to trust them to do what's best.

But Harvard's history shows that this isn't a good idea. Harvard currently owns $16 million worth of combined stock in Kohl's and Target department stores, both of which sell clothing that is produced in notorious sweatshops. Last June, an attempt to organize for an eight-cents-per-item raise was brutally crushed by management in a factory producing clothes for Kohl's and Target, which fired hundreds of workers to teach them a lesson, according to the National Labor Committee. Harvard's sizable holdings give it the power to influence their labor policies, and yet Harvard has taken not even issued a statement. The Harvard Corporation stubbornly held out for years before agreeing to partially divest from apartheid South Africa, and then only after strenuous protests and alumni refusals to donate. It is hard to have faith that Harvard will do the right thing in the case of sweatshops without serious prodding from students, faculty and alums.

Harvard released its report to the community three weeks ago. Now the ball is in our court. If having our consumer goods manufactured under decent conditions is important to us, we must let the University know we consider joining the WRC a priority. This means signing petitions, calling our deans and asking our friends to do the same. By owning a Harvard T-shirt, a pair of sweats or even a Harvard keychain, we are all implicated in the abuse and underpayment of workers. And as long as we allow Harvard to do nothing, we are condoning its policies.

Madeleine S. Elfenbein is a first-year living in Pennypacker.