Experts Debate Sweatshop Monitoring

Representatives of two of the nation's major sweatshop monitoring organizations debated the merits of full public disclosure and independent monitoring in a panel discussion at the Yenching Auditorium.

Sam W. Brown Jr., executive director of the Fair Labor Association (FLA), and Jeff D. Ballinger, a member of the advisory board of the Workers Rights Consortium (WRC), represented their groups on the panel.

Harvard is currently a member of the FLA, but student activists say the University should withdraw from the organization, which they say is too beholden to corporate interests, and join the fledgling WRC.

Dara O'Rourke, an international labor policy expert and a professor of urban and environmental studies at MIT, opened the discussion by calling for a greater amount of public information in the monitoring process.

"There needs to be greater transparency and public disclosure," he said. "It's central to advancing debate."

Both he and Ballinger urged the FLA to adopt a policy of full disclosure--which would include information such as monitoring reports and factory locations--and hire only independent monitors who are not paid or approved by the apparel industry.

But Brown said the FLA could not commit to such a policy.

He said the organization is constrained by agreements it had made with its member corporations, apparel manufacturers who hold six of 13 seats on the governing board.

Members of the anti-sweatshop campaign of the Progressive Student Labor Movement (PSLM) said they were surprised by Brown's statement.

"It's been clear that there was corporate domination [of the FLA]--I had just never heard him articulate it so blatantly," said PSLM member Anna M. Falicov '02.

But Brown said corporate involvement was necessary to produce significant change in the industry. He said he considered the decision by corporations to affiliate with the FLA's monitoring system more important than ensuring transparency to the public.

"We are convinced that the way to do this is to force the responsibility on the companies," he said.

O'Rourke, however, said companies would have no incentive to reform unless consumers were aware of the conditions under which their clothing was manufactured. He said all reports and audits should be made available to the public via the Internet.

About 35 people braved the elements to listen to the panelists. Among those in attendance was University Attorney Allan A. Ryan Jr., the administration's point person on sweatshop policy, who said he found the event informative.

"When you have three guys with different perspectives, it expands your mind a little bit," he said.

Ryan, who has been charged with the task of recommending a monitoring policy to President Neil L. Rudenstine and the Corporation, has come under fire from student activists for not committing to a specific timetable.

PSLM has held demonstrations for more than a year urging Harvard to join the WRC.

But Ryan said he must gather as much information as possible before reaching a decision, and that last night's panel would contribute to his decision.

"We're making a policy that may be in place for 20 years, so I want to take the time to do it right," he said.

Near the end of the discussion, Ballinger spoke about his personal experiences visiting factories in Indonesia and praised students for their work in helping to create the WRC, which held its opening conference earlier this month.

He said students, through their activism, had "demonstrated to administrators across the country that they were serious--serious enough to sit through endless meetings."