HARVARD TO JOIN INDEPENDENT SWEATSHOP MONITOR; VICTORY FOR STUDENT CAMPAIGN

After five-year student push, Harvard joins the Worker Rights Consortium to ensure an end to sweatshop abuses in Harvard apparel production

Harvard University notified Harvard Students Against Sweatshops Monday that the school will join the Worker Rights Consortium, an independent sweatshop monitoring group. Harvardıs decision, made by University President and economist Lawrence Summers, comes after a five-year student campaign to ensure that Harvard apparel is made in humane conditions.

HSAS has pushed for WRC membership to ensure that Harvard-licensed clothing is made in factories that meet basic standards of worker rights. The WRC works to empower workers by ensuring that codes of conduct are disseminated, worker complaints are heard, and code violations are investigated and mediated. As a WRC member, Harvard will be informed of and involved in negotiations with brands as those negotiations happen. Workers producing Harvard apparel will now have the WRC to turn to if their rights are violated, and the WRC will be able to serve as an even stronger advocate when violations are found.

The WRC's model consists of independence from the corporations it monitors, partnerships with local organizations in producing regions, transparency in its operations and findings, and leveraging of university licensing contracts to raise standards in the apparel production industry. This model grew out of and has the firm support of the anti-sweatshop movement in the US and abroad. The WRC has established a solid track record of responding to worker complaints and successfully negotiating to improve working conditions without companies shifting production elsewhere. Harvardıs membership adds credibility to the WRCıs model and will help to ensure its continued success.

Harvard has agreed to WRC membership in addition to already-existing membership in the Fair Labor Association, of which Harvard is a founding member. Summers' letter to HSAS states that Harvard believes the WRC and FLA can complement each other, and that the WRC can provide information and services currently unavailable through membership in the FLA. "Weıve long argued that FLA membership alone is insufficient to protect worker rights against sweatshop abuses and that the transparency and objectivity of the WRC are necessary for successful monitoring. We are glad to see Harvard acknowledge this insufficiency and the necessity of membership in the WRC," said HSAS member and Harvard senior Gabriel Katsh.