Student Labor Action Coalition members approached UW-Madison Chancellor John Wiley's office Monday intending to demand that he agree to the original version of an anti-sweatshop program that has been in the works since December 2005.
However Wiley was not there. The group went downstairs where Special Assistant to the Chancellor LaMarr Billups listened to the group's concerns over the Designated Suppliers Program, a commitment now adopted by 158 universities nationwide to purchase at least 25 percent of university apparel from unionized licensees and pay a living wage for apparel factory workers.
SLAC's main concern about the present DSP is that apparel licensees must commit to a three-year working relationship with the designated suppliers. After this work cycle, SLAC said they fear licensees will terminate the relationships, ""thus intensifying the cycle of ‘cut and run' the Designated Suppliers Program was meant to end,"" according to the Oct. 8 SLAC contract distributed to Wiley and Billups Thursday.
The original DSP, according to SLAC member and UW-Madison senior Joel Feingold, would require brands to maintain business with unionized designated suppliers after three years.
""We're simply asking for a provision that was debated and dismissed at the last [UW-Madison Labor Licensing Committee] meeting,"" Feingold told Billups.
Billups said UW-Madison was the first university in the nation to join the DSP and the SLAC contract was poorly worded. He said UW-Madison is not ""preparing to renege on the program's central provision"" that 75 percent of university apparel must be made by union workers, as the contract states, but that the current version of the DSP is part of a longer negotiation process.
""At the end of three years, we'll have massive job loss,"" Feingold said.
""We haven't even started the damn thing,"" Billups replied.
According to the contract, SLAC demands the university publicly endorse the original DSP by Oct. 16.
