USAS vs. Sweatshops in LA

By Kathleen Haley, WireTap. Posted August 8, 2000.

Today the University, Tomorrow the World
United Students Against Sweatshops Fight for Better Worldwide Labor Conditions

In their endless quest for identity, young people can make or break the clothing industry. If it weren't for teenagers, brands like Tommy Hilfigger, the Gap and Levi's would be nowhere. These companies know this. In fact many of them have special advertising teams and youth-specific marketing plots aimed directly at us, and one thing they're discovering is that some youth are paying attention to a lot more than how their clothes look. Some kids care about what their clothes is made of, and spend their allowances on things like hemp because it comes from environmentally sustainable plants, others care about the quality of their clothes, and that that their jeans will live past this school year. But what you'll find almost as often these days, is youth who care about WHERE their clothes are made.

And how do we find that out? Do labels tell the truth? What exactly is a sweatshop anyway? Are there any in this country? Somewhere down the line, a few students started to ask questions like these. When enough of them heard each other questioning, they began to look for answers. Thus began United Students Against Sweatshops (USAS).
LINK: http://www.umich.edu/~sole/usas/schoolinfo/

If you think there's not much that you can do beyond shooting dirty looks at classmates who wear Nikes, think again. Students at colleges from Oregon to New York have banded together to put an end to the working conditions endured by a large percent of the planet's women, and people of color. USAS currently has more than 100 chapters at universities and colleges throughout the country. It is becoming clear that vast numbers of young people are subverting, rather than submitting to, the corporations trying to sell to them. But is sweatshop awareness just this year's environmentalism? Or are these groups making any real changes?

USAS is planning an appearance at this month's Democratic National Convention. If they make as much noise as they're planning to, they will surely inspire criticism. But if you look closely, it's hard to miss some strong potential for success. The group is working against sweatshop labor in two concrete ways. First, and most obviously, many of these students are promoting boycotts of specific brands of clothing. Secondly, they have been working to impact working conditions in factories around the world, by designing and helping implement a new code of conduct called the Worker's Rights Consortium (WRC).

Rebecca Weston, the head of the USAS at San Francisco State University, is also one of the main organizers of the USAS effort at the DNC protest, the theme of which is immigrant rights and economic justice. According to Weston, the USAS will call for general amnesty for immigrants, a living wage for garment workers, and for Vice President Al Gore to endorse the Worker's Rights Consortium. The USAS also plans to include some under-represented factory workers from factories right in Los Angeles in their Thursday protest.

New York University's chapter of the USAS will also be represented at the DNC protests. Charlie Eaton, the USAS rep at NYU, who is interning at San Francisco-based human rights group Global Exchange this summer, says, "The USAS protests the Democrats because they are part of the problem, not the solution."

Gap Sweatshirts or Gap Sweatshops?
In order to understand the kind of factory conditions that USAS students are fighting to change, it helps to know about a major lawsuit charging that popular companies such as the Gap and J.Crew are using sweatshop labor in Saipan (part of the Northern Marianas islands). Why do these companies choose Saipan? Well, it's a US commonwealth, which means that decisions about minimum wages and immigration are made locally in Saipan and are not subject to U.S. laws. But it also means that companies can put "Made in the U.S." labels on their clothing; labels that have traditionally implied "sweat-shop free." Global Exchange, an endorser of the WRC, is the plaintiff of this lawsuit, together with other human rights groups Sweatshop Watch, the Asian Law Caucus, and UNITE.

50,000 current or former Saipan garment workers are also standing up for themselves, and have filed a class-action lawsuit brought against some of the clothing companies with the largest youth markets; companies like Tommy Hilfigger, The Gap, Calvin Klein Inc., and Abercrombie & Fitch Co. These workers charge that the Saipan garment factories have required them to work in what they have deemed unsafe and inhumane conditions; in other words they are made to work 12 hours a day, seven days a week, for less than the legal minimum wage humane.

Seventeen of the companies have settled, bringing the fund to about $8 million. The money will go to the Saipan workers and will fund an independent monitoring program to ensure that labor conditions in Saipan are fair. The Gap refuses to settle and their spokespeople continue to insist that their factories do not need outside monitoring.

While many students would simply stop buying clothes from the Gap, others are taking a broader approach. Take Hal Weiss, for instance, the project leader of the anti-sweat group affiliated with USAS at Nassau Community College in Long Island, New York. He says he plans to run an entire campaign against The Gap on his campus this fall.

So what exactly is the Workers Rights Consortium and why is it so important? Until now, the way that both college campuses and companies showed their concern for worker's rights was by signing on to the Fair Labor Association, which was organized by the Clinton administration in 1998. And while the FLA did include people advocating for worker's rights, it is a coalition which also includes many of the actual clothing companies. Many anti-sweatshop activists (including the folks at Global Exchange) have vocally opposed the whole concept of the FLA, stressing that there needs to be independent monitors in every factory. According to Global Exchange, the FLA not only allows workers to be paid below poverty wages but it "does not adequately uphold the right of workers to organize independent unions." In addition, it is said to "require only 10 percent of a company's factories to be monitored yearly, [and] the companies can choose their own monitors."

In response, FLA Executive Officer Jason Wares, states that the FLA effort is "unique in that it is the first example of traditional adversaries joining together to conquer a problem they both agree must end, and, in that it is the first step in a gradually evolving process that will improve that situation of exploited laborers around the world." It makes you wonder if activists and corporations aren't traditional adversaries for a reason. Or, more concretely, why the companies who say they are "dedicated" to seeing an end to sweatshop-style labor would have decided to build factories outside their own country in the first place.

Companies with the FLA include Nike, Liz Claiborne, and Levi Strauss and Co., among others. According to the FLA website, 139 colleges and universities are signed on. USAS activists fundamentally oppose the FLA and a key part of the USAS movement is getting universities and colleges nationwide to sign onto the WRC. The WRC's requirements dictate that companies make their factory locations open to the public. Also central to the WRC approach are unannounced factory inspections, the results of which are disclosed to the university and the public. The WRC also includes a women's rights provision, which mandates that women garment workers have the right not to continue to work if they become pregnant, and the right not to experience physical or verbal abuse from their employers.

Although talking about decisions about who is monitoring what goes on in clothing factories may seem distant or unrelated to the lives of many young people here in the US, it could mark the beginning of some much larger changes. When asked about her role in pressuring her own college to follow the WRC standards, Weston says, "If we don't keep hammering at it, nothing will change."

Still wondering about the power of young people in this struggle, here's one last number for you: According to the WRC's website there are currently 57 colleges and universities signed on to the WRC, working to make sure that their clothes are being made in more humane ways. The number of non-university affiliated companies that have signed on? Zero. Look out for USAS students this fall, in their efforts to take the sweat stains out of the clothing being sold worldwide.

*Twilight Greenaway contributed to this report.

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