The Student Coalition Against Labor Exploitation

...is a student organization dedicated to pushing the university one step closer toward resolving its sweatshop sourcing issues. To do so, we are endeavoring to convince the administration to join the Worker Rights Consortium (WRC), an independent monitor, to supplement USC's current and ineffective factory monitor, the Fair Labor Association (FLA). In doing so, we will pressure the administration toward agreeing to only do business with factories that have good human rights records as well as those factories that pay their workers living wages. USC students should not have to be subjected to wearing clothes that oppress millions of workers at home and abroad.

WE CANNOT MAKE THIS HAPPEN UNLESS WE CAN SHOW THE UNIVERSITY THAT STUDENTS ARE UNITED BEHIND THIS CAMPAIGN.

NOTE: please email us at uscscale@gmail.com instead of uscscale@usc.edu for security reasons. Thanks.

Though universities have adopted anti-sweatshop policies, the reality is that university apparel is still made under sweatshop conditions in factories around the world.

• Sweatshop conditions and poverty wages: Workers making university apparel face abusive treatment, excessive working hours, dangerous conditions, and wages that are inadequate to meet basic needs.
• Illegal repression: When workers organize and demand improvements, they are subject to threats, harassment, illegal firings, and the closure of their factories.
• The race to the bottom: As multinational brands scan the globe for the cheapest products, supplier factories face tremendous pressure to keep costs to a bare minimum. In this reality, workers and their unions have little hope of winning the wages and conditions they need.

Take a look at this global supply chain.

• Join the WORKER RIGHTS CONSORTIUM (WRC)
• WRC is an independent factory monitor that works with local nongovernmental organizations (NGOs) and unions to remedy working conditions in collegiate apparel factories
• WRC is constantly in dialogue with collegiate brands such as Nike, Reebok, Russell Athletics, and Steve and Barry’s so that they can better support worker organizing and improve factory conditions
• WRC does not cooperate with large corporations when monitoring, but appropriately utilizes them in the remediation process.
• More than 150 colleges and universities have already affiliated with WRC, including the entire UC system, as well as the city of San Francisco and Los Angeles
• We are currently a member of the Fair Labor Association (FLA)
• On it’s board of directors, 6 out of 16 members are corporate representatives for brands such as Nike, Puma, and Reebok, creating a conflict of interest in monitoring practices
• The WRC board of directors has no corporate representatives
• The FLA employs Western based, for-profit monitors with bad records
• WRC is a coalition of international allies that are constantly in dialogue with workers themselves
• For more information on the downfalls of the FLA, see: www.flawatch.org
• For a comparison of WRC vs. FLA, see: here
• Adopt the DESIGNATED SUPPLIERS PROGRAM (DSP)
• Have the university put pressure on brands to source exclusively from factories that:
• Demonstrate full compliance with internationally recognized labor standards, as embodied in university codes of conduct
• Have employees represented by a legitimate, representative labor union or other representative employee body
• Demonstrate that its employees are paid a living wage, once it is receiving prices for its products sufficient to make this feasible
• Produce primarily or exclusively for the university logo goods market, or for other buyers committed to equivalent standards (including payment of a living wage)
• For more details on the DSP, see: here
• There are 28 colleges and universities that have signed onto DSP, including Columbia, Syracuse, Indiana, and the entire UC system last spring

 

USC SCALE meets on Mondays, 7 PM IN VKC 102.

FACEBOOK: USC: University of Sweatshop Clothing?
SCALE YAHOO! GROUP

Also check out United Students Against Sweatshops for more information on the student cause.