Chancellor Wiley left for a three-week play date at a South African resort last Friday: 'With a classically inspired exterior and graceful elegance within, Cape Grace is set on its own private quay on Cape Town's Victoria & Alfred Waterfront ?? French doors in all guest rooms open to beautiful views of the international yacht marina.'
The Cape Town resort was rated the 'Best City Hotel in the World' by the United Kingdom's Tattler in 2005. Hopefully, while whiling away the time in such magnificent opulence, the Chancellor will have an opportunity to rethink his decision to guarantee that UW apparel is made in non-union sweatshops.
Possibly, while gazing in amazement at the famous penguin colony of Boulders Beach, Wiley will think of the workers who would be affected by implementation of the policy. And just maybe, while enjoying cocktails, hors d'oeuvres and a dinner buffet at the Two Oceans Aquarium, the chancellor will suddenly realize the power he alone holds to empower thousands of garment workers throughout the world.
Hours before jetting off for his trip, Chancellor Wiley distributed a letter articulating his stance on the Designated Suppliers Proposal. This new policy, which the University's Labor and Licensing Policy Committee voted unanimously to endorse, would require licensees that produce garments for UW-Madison to source a gradually increasing percentage of university apparel from factories with legitimate and democratic unions.
In a letter addressed to Associated Students of Madison, the chancellor raised several objections to the proposal. First, Wiley resurrected old chestnuts familiar to all labor advocates, invoking 'antitrust or unfair restraint of trade ?? [or] violations of existing international treaties.' A thorough legal examination of the proposal has already been completed by Columbia University legal scholar Mark Barenberg, who concluded that the policy could be legally implemented.
Wiley also questions the ability of the university's labor monitoring organization, the Worker Rights Consortium, to maintain a functioning list of union factories. In a recent study published in Politics and Society, the WRC was found to be the world's most capable labor monitoring organization. The WRC has a global network of ally unions and non-governmental organizations, a large and devoted field staff and contacts with hundreds of thousands of workers. The WRC's ability to implement the policy is beyond dispute.
Wiley also insists that 'no evidence [has been presented to his office] to support the assertion that the proposed change would lead to and/or guarantee better working conditions for workers.' The comment displays a fundamental misunderstanding of both the structure of the global garment industry and the last century-and-a-half of American history.
The garment industry is ruled by the 'race to the bottom' credo whereby factories move from country to country seeking to produce goods in the absolute cheapest environment. Only the most oppressive (and thus least expensive) factories get orders. But the Designated Suppliers Proposal, which students are pursuing at 55 other universities, would fundamentally change the way garment factories do business.
Owners will recognize unions because doing so will be a good business move'being on the designated suppliers list improves a factory's chances of getting orders. Thus, it would no longer be profitable to simply close shop when the workers show signs of organizing. Now workers who have been struggling to organize for years will be able to form unions and engage in collective bargaining, just as American workers did. In the sweatshops of early 20th century New York, the garment industry's dehumanizing conditions were only ameliorated by labor unions.
As it was in the U.S., so it will be throughout the world. Provided, of course, that Wiley acts now. Sweatshop workers from El Salvador to Kenya are confronted daily with the prospect of termination, factory closings and even death if they attempt to form a union. These workers are often trying to keep their families from the brink of starvation on as little as 20 cents per hour. This is a desperate situation with countless thousands of lives at stake, and UW-Madison must act to end this oppression.
Contrary to Chancellor Wiley's claim in the letter, 'there is more than symbolism at stake' in this decision.
