UW agrees to phase out sweatshop apparel

After a year of protests, petitions and campus-wide advocacy, the UW Sweat-Free Coalition and the Student Labor Action Project reached a consensus last week with the UW administration on the production of UW logo apparel.

In a joint press release between the SFC, SLAP and President Mark Emmert's office, the organizations announced that the UW has agreed to join the Designated Suppliers Program (DSP), which, over time, will effectively end the production of UW apparel in sweatshops. The UW is one of 33 schools to adopt DSP regulations.

The announcement came just one day before simultaneous protests by anti-sweatshop advocates were to take place at the UW and Stanford University. Because no agreement was made at Stanford, the protests commenced in the president's office as planned, resulting in a five-hour sit-in and the arrest of 11 Stanford students.

"The UW has been a part of both the Worker Rights Consortium and the Fair Labor Association for seven years now," Director of Media Relations Norm Arkans said. "The WRC has come to the conclusion that they are not being effective enough, so the DSP idea was generated."

The WRC began in 1999 as a grassroots organization among students and faculty, and is now an independent monitoring agency. DSP regulations stipulate that licensees must source their apparel "from supplier factories that have been determined by universities, through independent verification, to be in compliance with their obligation to respect the rights of their employees, including the right to organize and bargain collectively and the right to be paid a living wage," according to the DSP program overview.

"I am so proud of our group," senior and SLAP member April Nishimura said. "When people say our generation is apathetic, it is results like this that point to the contrary."

President Emmert reestablished the Licensing Advisory Committee, which included SLAP members, ASUW Senate members, faculty and administration, earlier this year to negotiate the details and compromises of adopting the DSP.

"Initially, a vague letter was issued [after Emmert agreed], but then a second letter with more clarification was issued," Nishimura said. "As long as the DSP criteria are implemented, then we can say it is a victory. We trust the administration is acting in good faith."

SLAP members are already preparing their goals for next year, which Nishimura said will focus on providing living wages for garment workers.

In the meantime, however, SLAP will hold a celebration in the Quad Thursday at noon.

They will also be protesting at Niketown and Talbots Saturday in association with Seattle University and the UW Guatemala Project.

"We had a clear goal that we successfully accomplished," Nishimura said. "The college garment industry is small, but it could serve as a model. Large firms such as Nike see this as creating supply chains that have not been done before, and they feel threatened by that."

Reach reporter Garrett Troy at news@thedaily.washington.edu.