While shopping for Virginia sweatshirts, T-shirts, hats, windbreakers and other Wahoo-themed apparel at the University Bookstore, students may look at the tags and notice that much of the clothing was made in developing countries like El Salvador, Mexico, Pakistan, Malaysia and Guatemala.
What the tags don't say, however, is whether people working for wages below the poverty rate made that blue and orange fleece hanging on the rack.
As third-year College student Ross Kane learned more about labor conditions in clothing factories around the world, he knew he had to do something to make sure apparel emblazoned with the University's logo was not being manufactured in sweatshops. So Kane founded a University chapter of United Students Against Sweatshops, a student group dedicated to improving labor conditions in factories that manufacture clothing for colleges and universities.
Although USAS does not know of any sweatshops that make University apparel, it asserts that some clothing comes from sweatshops. edkelly
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"With hundreds of companies involved in manufacturing apparel for the University, it's virtually guaranteed that somewhere there are labor abuses," USAS member Phil Varner said.
Right now, the University has no way to monitor the practices at factories that make Virginia apparel, but USAS hopes to change that.
Kane wants the University to do what many other colleges already have done: Adopt a code of conduct for the clothing companies to which it gives licensing rights.
USAS would like the University only to give licensing rights to companies that follow a strict code of conduct that includes a prohibition of the use of child labor and supports minimum wages compliant with the local country's wage laws.
The University has formed a committee of administrators to come up with a code of conduct for clothing companies to submit the Office of the President. In fact, the group already had begun meeting when Kane formed his chapter of USAS.
USAS also wants the University to join the Workers Rights Consortium, a non-profit monitoring organization of 66 colleges and universities created by the national body of USAS.
The WRC organizes monitoring efforts and helps check on factories that produce University clothing.
"The WRC spot-checks random factories at random times" for labor rights violations, Varner said.
The University's licensing agent, Collegiate Licensing Company, expects its companies to follow a code of conduct in their treatment of labor, but there is no monitoring organization to enforce it, and the code is not as strict as USAS would like, University Bookstore director Jonathan Kates said.
"Because the sub-contracts [of the colleges] are so diffuse, it's really hard to track down where the factories are," said Aaron With, a USAS member at Northwestern University. "They move around like crazy," With added.
With said his USAS chapter at Northwestern has worked hard for over a year to improve factory conditions at Northwestern's licensed companies. It could not find any sweatshops where Northwestern clothing was made until December.
Last year, WRC publicized the use of violence as a management tool at a South Korean-owned factory near Mexico City. The factory sometimes supplied Nike and also made some apparel for Northwestern University.
The publicizing of the factory sparked a national debate, which culminated in a presidential initiative to curb sweatshop labor.
The Northwestern USAS now is working to convince its school that it needs to adopt WRC standards to improve factory conditions.
The University chapter of USAS, headed by Kane, also wants to see the University accept more responsibility for the practices used to make the clothing it sells in the bookstore.
Because there is a long line of middle-men between the University and the factories, it is difficult to hold the University accountable for any human rights violations.
The University's relationship with the factories that make Virginia apparel is "several times removed," said USAS member Michael Freedman-Schnapp, a third year College student.
Collegiate Licensing Company chooses the companies that get licenses to make University apparel, Varner said. Then, those companies give sub-contracts to factories, which are located mostly in foreign countries.
Often, the factories are in one country but are owned by a company located in another, making it hard to dig through the layers of contracts to find out if the labor in a factory is being treated well.
Companies, such as Reebok, that produce Virginia apparel have tried to monitor factories themselves.
Last semester, Jansport, a sportswear company, discovered that some University sweatshirts were assembled in a sweatshop in Myanmar, Kates said. The company immediately pulled the shirts from the bookstore.
"Bad PR will hurt business," he said.
But USAS wants better enforcement by non-governmental, non-profit groups like WRC.
Some universities, such as Virginia Tech, have signed on with the Fair Labor Association, an organization of companies, colleges and non-governmental groups designed to portect workers' rights, but USAS members discourage the University from doing the same.
FLA members include clothing companies like Nike and Patagonia, and USAS members think the organization is more interested in profits than protecting labor rights, Freedman-Schnapp said.
"The real key to solving the problem is to adopt a system of objective monitoring ... to insure the factories are in compliance," with the University's guidelines, Kates said.
USAS members have been meeting with the ad hoc University committee, which includes Kates, University spokeswoman Louise Dudley, and Andrew Rader, associate director of sports promotions. Rader is in charge of licensing athletic department apparel.
"The University has been friendly towards our ideas," Kane said. "They want to adopt a code - it's just a matter of what's in it."
In addition to adopting a code of conduct and joining WRC, USAS has urged the University to disclose the names and locations of the companies that have University licensing rights.
"The University has been proactive and interested in finding a solution" to the sweatshop problem, Varner said.
Kates agreed and said the meetings with the students representing USAS have been constructive and cooperative.
Kane said he hopes the University will implement a code of conduct dictating which clothing companies can obtain licensing rights to the University logo by the end of the semester.
The apparel industry has become increasingly global in the past 20 years, Freedman-Schnapp said. "College apparel makes up 1 percent of total U.S. clothing sales ... Most of it is made in foreign countries," he said.
"A lot of these countries are poor, so labor is cheap," Varner said.
The factory managers do not have to treat the workers well because many countries do little to enforce labor laws. Foreign factory workers work twelve to fourteen hour days in unsafe conditions that sometimes include being locked in the factory, he said. In some countries, workers are not allowed to go the bathroom, and women are fired for becoming pregnant. In many instances, workers are not paid enough to live above the poverty line.
"They're not treated like people," Varner added.
"I believe [U.S.] manufacturers really want to do the right thing," Kates said.
Fourth-year College student and Amnesty International member Sarah Landres agreed the University has to join forces with manufacturing companies to help stop sweatshop labor.
"The problem has less to do with the countries and more with the companies," Landres said.
"We have a responsibility to be informed and aware of where [the University's] merchandise comes from," she said. "It makes the school look more responsible and morally right."
(Cavalier Daily Associate Editor Sarah Marchetti contributed to this article.)
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