LABOUR-US: Sweatshop Campaign Heats Up

By Jim Lobe Reprint | | Print |

Jim Lobe

WASHINGTON, Jul 26 1999 (IPS) - The sweatshop monitoring group created eight months ago by a White House task force of human rights organisations and clothing and footwear companies is gaining momentum.

Recently the apparel giants Adidas-Salomon AG and Levi Strauss joined the group – the Free Labour Association (FLA) – which requires corporate members to enforce a code of conduct in all their foreign factories and permit FLA-certified monitors to review their compliance.

At least two other big retailers, Eddie Bauer and the GAP, may join in the near future, according to trade sources.

Critics of the scheme, however, maintain that the FLA is a public-relations ploy by corporations to lull consumers into thinking their products are not made under sweatshop conditions.

They are demanding that the Association should either toughen its code or disband. “It’s really just a corporate whitewash,” says Erik Brakken, a recent graduate of the University of Wisconsin and a staff member of United Students Against Sweatshops (USAS).

The movement has been angered by the fact that 100 universities also have joined the FLA.

Universities have come to play a key role in the anti-sweatshop movement because they earn about 2.5 billion dollars a year in sales of clothing which bear the university name or logo. The competition among companies like Nike and Reebok for the license to produce those goods is keen.

In a highly effective two-year campaign that included sit-ins and other protests USAS – which is backed by the largest US textile union, the Union of Needletrades, Industrial and Textile Employees (UNITE) – has forced campus administrators around the country to agree to impose tougher anti-sweatshop conditions on licensee companies than those included in the FLA code.

By signing up with the FLA, say the students, many universities are trying to backtrack on their previous commitments and take the steam out of what has been described as the most effective student movement in the last 20 years.

“Universities aren’t joining the FLA to end sweatshops; they are trying to seek cover from criticisms,” according to Marion Traub-Werner, a USAS activist at the University of North Carolina. “By participating in the FLA, they are lending their legitimacy to prop up a corrupt institution.”

The addition of two new corporate members to the FLA is a major shot in the arm for the Association. Levi Strauss is one of the oldest and best-known US apparel companies, while Adidas-Salomon, which has been a major target of Europe’s Clean Clothes Campaign, extends the FLA’s clout across the Atlantic.

North America and Europe together account for more than 40 percent of global apparel consumption.

Until this month, the FLA had failed to attract any new companies besides its initial eight corporate members – among them Liz Claiborne, Nike and Reebok.

They were among a group of 18 companies, labour, consumer and human rights groups which spent two years negotiating over a code of conduct and monitoring system that was acceptable to as many participants as possible.

The final, 33-page agreement established the FLA whose mandate is to accredit independent firms to inspect labour conditions in overseas plants of participating companies and certify their compliance with the FLA’s code of conduct.

If certified, companies would earn special recognition -possibly a “no sweat” tag – assuring consumers that their goods were made under humane working conditions.

Under the code, factories used by member companies must pay the local minimum wage or the prevailing industry wage, whichever is higher. The code also bars the use of forced or child labour or forcing employees to work more than 60 hours a week.

Key points of contention in the negotiations included the composition of the FLA’s board of directors; whether the code should require companies and their foreign contractors to pay workers a “living wage”; the independence and scope of the inspection system; and how much companies would be required to disclose about their foreign operations and contractors in such a highly competitive global industry.

In most cases, negotiators agreed to compromise.

The FLA founders agreed that the companies and independent groups should have equal representation on the board. On the wage issue, they authorised a Department of Labour study to determine the feasibility of a living-wage requirement.

They also agreed that 30 percent of the companies’ foreign facilities would have to be inspected by FLA-certified monitors over a period of two to three years, before the Association will give its stamp of approval, and 10 percent per year thereafter.

The FLA executive director, who has yet to be named, will be empowered to decide which facilities were subject to inspection based on confidential submissions by the member companies and by information collected from other sources, such as local human- rights monitors.

Member companies themselves, however, are to finance the entire scheme, including the inspections.

Not all of the FLA negotiators accepted the accord. Several companies dropped out because they considered the code and monitoring conditions too tough, while, among NGOs which took part, UNITE and the Interfaith Center for Corporate Responsibility (ICCR) opted out because they saw it as too favourable to corporate interests.

UNITE and USAS have been the FLA’s most vociferous foes, arguing that companies have been given too much power on the board and should at least commit themselves to paying a living wage in countries where the minimum wage is often far below subsistence.

They also worry that the FLA will accredit monitors, such as big global auditing firms, that are pre-disposed toward the companies.

While the living wage issue is likely to be the most contentious, for now students are concentrating their fire on public disclosure.

At last week’s meeting with President Bill Clinton’s top economic aide, Gene Sperling, they challenged the administration to endorse demands that the FLA publish all inspection reports in full and require companies to disclose the location of all their plants so non-FLA groups can conduct their own investigations.

“Without full public disclosure we cannot know whether a monitoring system actually improves working conditions,” says Traub-Werner. “What do these companies have to hide?”

Administration sources say they may indeed put out a statement stressing the importance of public disclosure and transparency for the FLA to succeed, but, under the FLA’s rules, a majority of the board – meaning at least one company – will have to go along.

“I join them in recognising the need for as much public disclosure as we can get,” says Pharis Harvey, head of the International Labour Rights Fund (ILRF), one of five independent groups which also includes the Lawyers Committee for Human Rights, the Robert F. Kennedy Memorial Center for Human Rights, and the National Consumers League, which serve on the board.

Despite the students’ fears of a whitewash, Harvey is confident that the board, including the universities’ representative, will move in their direction. “The need for public confidence will drive the process toward greater levels of transparency and accountability,” he predicts.

At the same time, Harvey commends the students’ efforts. “I hope they continue to grow, because they help us (the independent members of the board) push the levels of performance required by the FLA higher.”

To do so, however, the students must broaden their campaign. “By themselves, students don’t wield enough consumer clout. They have to grow to become a consumers’ movement, beyond a university student movement,” Harvey says.