Wiley: Progress, collaboration on licensing must continue

UW–Madison administrators and members of the Labor Licensing Policy Committee (LLPC) have collaborated to move the institution to the forefront of collegiate efforts to curb sweatshop abuses, Chancellor John D. Wiley reports at a media briefing today (April 7).

Wiley says he plans to meet with current and former members of the licensing committee on Wednesday, April 27 in order to discuss recent differences over communications and approach, in an effort to keep the productive relationship moving forward. On March 28, three students and one faculty member announced their resignations from the committee, citing disagreements with Wiley.

“I give a lot of credit to the students and community members who have taken the time to keep this issue front and center, especially in view of the major change impending as a result of the expiration of the Multi-Fiber Agreement,” Wiley says of a World Trade Organization agreement that placed limits, by country, on the exports of textiles.

“This is an issue that keeps returning, as it should,” he adds. “This can be an exploitative industry and it affects what we wear and sell in the university’s name.”

UW–Madison has contracts allowing more than 450 companies to make products bearing the university’s name or logos. The products are made in approximately 3,300 factories in 47 countries worldwide.

Wiley says that UW–Madison has been persistent in its leadership on the issue and developed innovative policies, modeled by other universities. Among them, the university was:

• The first to obtain direct access to the internal records of a major multi-national corporation producing goods with university logos through its new agreement with adidas-Salomon;
• Among the first to propose transparency of wage information from licensees;
• Among the first to communicate with licensees regarding implications of the expiring Multi-Fiber Agreement.

Within the past six years, UW–Madison and all other major universities adopted a code of conduct that is agreed to by all licensees. The code addresses workers’ wages, working hours, overtime compensation, child labor, forced labor, health and safety, nondiscrimination, harassment or abuse, women’s rights, freedom of association, and full public disclosure of factory locations.

When violations occur, the licensee has the opportunity to correct the problem, or have its relationship with the university terminated.

“We have achieved this leadership through the actions of both students and the university administration, and that collaboration is the only way we will continue to lead on this important issue,” Wiley says. “I’ve always respected the advice of the LLPC, even if I disagreed with it.”

In an example of how Wiley and the committee have respectfully disagreed, he cites the case of two agencies monitoring apparel factories. Wiley says he believes the university should be a member of both the Workers Rights Consortium and the Fair Labor Association, a monitoring/inspection organization organized by the industry in cooperation with human rights groups.

Though the university is a founding member of the FLA, it dropped its membership after student labor activists objected in 1999. The university has not rejoined, on the recommendation of the LLPC.

Other recent points of contention included the renewal of an agreement with adidas-Solomon and issues over a letter to licensees addressing the end of the Multi-Fiber Agreement.

With regard to the adidas-Solomon decision, Wiley says the company’s business practices did not warrant additional scrutiny from the committee, especially after the company granted access to its financial information.

A version of the Multi-Fiber Agreement letter drafted by the committee asked companies to comply with a lengthy list of requirements. Wiley says he chose to make a simpler statement, with the same intent, but different language.

“The bottom line was the same: If you move to China, and we find there are worker violations, you will lose your license,” he says. “That’s the leverage that we have.”

Wiley says that differences in approach over complicated, long-term issues such as licensing are natural. “Often, it seems that our disagreements center around my decision not to sign or say exactly what is put before me,” he says. “This is publicly labeled a refusal to dialogue, and a rejection of shared governance. But that isn’t the case.”

“We can have differences, but ultimately, we have the same goal and we’re working to get to the same place,” he says.