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UW Regents Approve $33m Nike Contract Without Meaningful Labor Protections

author: SLAP member
Nov 20, 2008 20:07

In a room filled over capacity with students and community members unified against sweatshops, the UW Board of Regents ratified a 10 year, $33 million sweatshop contract between the UW and Nike.

Over the course of years of activism and direct action, the Student Labor Action Project at the UW (an affiliate of United Students Against Sweatshops) has repeatedly asked the administration to take serious steps to prevent the production of UW apparel in sweatshop conditions. Year after year, President Mark Emmert of the UW has said that he shares these concerns and will work to ensure they are addressed. To advise him on the issue of sweatshops the UW formed the Licensing Advisory Committee, of which students were full members with faculty and staff. In 2007, the UW signed on to the adoption of the USAS-sponsored Designated Suppliers Program (DSP). More information about the program is available at  http://www.studentsagainstsweatshops.org/.

However, Emmert has consistently undermined student organizing by giving lip service to their demands and concerns and then going behind their backs and undermining the gains he promised.

In spite of UW "commitment to standards" in apparel production, he negotiated, in secret and without even notifying anyone on the LAC, a $33 million agreement with Nike. This agreement referred to a labor protections clause which was literally blank. Due to student pressure, the agreement was modified to include the standards set by the Fair Labor Association (FLA).

The FLA has been amply demonstrated to be an industry-run whitewash group. Its standards are ineffectually enforced and rely more on peek-a-boo monitoring rather than allowing workers organized into unions to defend themselves according to their own interests. It was the FLA's failures that prompted USAS to create the Designated Suppliers Program. Again, see  http://www.studentsagainstsweatshops.org/ for more information.

With these ineffectual standards, little better than those established last century, SLAP continued its opposition to the contract. The re-formation of the Sweatfree Coaltion (instrumental in the DSP campaign) resulted in over 100 students, faculty, and community members crashing the Regents meeting. In spite of our respectful, polite presentation of our concerns, the Board voted 10-1 to approve the contract without revision.

This doesn't mark the end of our struggle. Although the UW missed an important opportunity to improve conditions in apparel factories, student power at the UW will continue to grow and one day we will overcome!

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