Vanderbilt adopts anti-sweatshop position

Vanderbilt has announced steps designed to ensure that no officially licensed apparel bearing the University's name or logos is produced under conditions that violate basic workers' rights.

In announcing the University is adopting an anti-sweatshop position, Chancellor Gordon Gee said Vanderbilt will seek membership in both the Fair Labor Association and Workers Rights Consortium, two organizations that monitor and protect the rights of workers worldwide.

"With their leadership," he said, "and the University's active involvement, we will be better positioned to understand the issues and decisively act against those companies violating basic worker rights."

A vital piece of the University's stance will be a code of conduct that all manufacturers of University-branded products must follow. The code will outline a series of work standards the manufacturers must follow or risk forfeiting future orders.

To further ensure that manufacturers are complying with the code, the University will work closely with the University's official licensing agency, Licensing Resource Group, to gain information about factory locations and to incorporate the code of conduct in all licensing agreements. Gee will also establish a University committee to implement the steps and monitor the issue. The committee will report to the Chancellor through the vice chancellor for public affairs.

With the Chancellor's announcement, Vanderbilt becomes the latest university to join the global anti-sweatshop movement. On many campuses, administrative action has followed student protests. Even though "the Vanderbilt community has been somewhat sheltered from the critical debates taking place at many of our sister institutions" Gee said the University is not immune to the issues raised by such debates or the consequences if the University fails to act.

The steps Gee outlined incorporate the major recommendations of a taskforce of faculty, students and staff he appointed to examine the sweatshop issue. The taskforce, chaired by Fräncille Bergquist, associate dean of the College of Arts and Science, met regularly from January through May 2001 and provided the Chancellor with its report this summer.

Bergquist said some of the taskforce members brought with them a significant understanding of the issue; others came with interest. "By serving on the committee, all gained a great deal of knowledge." She said discussions were interactive -- "everybody participated" -- and noted that "students had just as big a voice" as the staff and faculty members.

In recommending membership in either or both the FLA and WRC, the taskforce noted that individualized monitoring and assessment of the working conditions and rights of workers at factories worldwide "would exceed the reaches and capabilities" of the University. However, membership in the FLA and WRC will enable the University to join with others to keep abreast of workers' conditions around the world.

In its report, the taskforce said the code of conduct the University adopts must outline unacceptable practices and conditions and must hold licensed manufacturers accountable for compliance. The taskforce found that codes of conduct already in place at other institutions address such issues as the right to free association, the right to organize, abolition of child and forced labor, equality of opportunity and treatment, and other conditions associated with work-related issues.

The code the University adopts must be realistic and practical, the taskforce emphasized. In reviewing positions at some other institutions, the taskforce said it found "some to be so detailed or presumptuous as to be unrealistic and unenforceable."

"It is to no one's advantage to recommend actions that cannot be realized and accounted," the taskforce said.

To view the final report, visit:

http://www.vanderbilt.edu/publicaffairs/licensing/