Wage disclosure moves forward for licensees

UW–Madison will begin exploring methods to collect detailed worker wage information from the university’s 450 official licensees.

LaMarr Billups, special assistant to Chancellor John D. Wiley, made the announcement Jan. 23 during a meeting of the Labor Licensing Policy Committee, in response to a recommendation from committee and student activists.

“We believe this information should be available, and we’re going to figure out a way to get it,” Billups says, noting that licensees who decline to cooperate could have their licenses terminated. “We don’t want this issue to get cold.”

Billups says the university will ask the Workers’ Rights Consortium, a labor advocacy and monitoring group to which the university belongs, to develop a plan by which licensees will provide timely and accurate information about workers’ wages.

A timetable for wage disclosure has not been set, but Billups says he hopes the system could begin by the end of the semester, barring complications. More than 3,300 factories in 47 countries produce products with UW–Madison logos.

UW–Madison already requires licensees to pay employees at least the minimum wage required by local law or the prevailing wage, whichever is higher, as well as legally mandated benefits. The university receives approximately $1 million in annual revenue from officially licensed products.