The Worker Rights Consortium, a sweatshop-condition oversight group, has had its first successful factory intervention since Northwestern joined the organization in the spring, said Scott Nova, WRC executive director.
Earlier this week the WRC helped workers at a Mexican collegiate-apparel factory establish the country’s first independent union for factory workers.
“This a great starting point for the (WRC),” said Mischa Gaus, a Medill senior and member of Northwestern Students Against Sweatshops. “It certainly was a clear victory for the workers in Mexico and the WRC.”
NU joined the WRC in May after more than a year of student lobbying. At first, administrators hesitated because of the WRC’s living wage requirement, which would force factories to pay high enough wages for workers to support their families, but administrators said the requirement was too vague. When the WRC dropped the requirement, NU joined.
“When we joined the WRC, we did so with the perception and the understanding that they would do good things in the area of human rights,” said Eugene Sunshine, vice president for business and finance. The agreement in Mexico “is a positive start, a positive sign and a positive result.”
The WRC, which now has 86 university affiliates, monitors working conditions in factories producing clothes and other products for colleges. Workers at the Mexican factory MexMode, which makes the sweatshirts that Nike supplies to universities, complained of poor working conditions.
The workers contacted the WRC through nongovernmental organizations, Nova said, and the WRC sent a team of experts to Puebla, Mexico, to investigate the situation.
But it was a collaborative effort between the WRC, plant workers, universities and student activists, as well as Nike and Reebok that led to success, Nova said.
“What we’ve done at MexMode is what we’re designed to do,” he said. “It will encourage colleges and universities to participate even more actively.”
The WRC depends on universities to establish codes of conduct protecting the rights of workers who manufacture products bearing the names of universities. The WRC then investigates factory conditions and compliance with these codes of conduct.
“The burning question on many American campuses for the past several years has been, ‘Can pressure from colleges and universities really make a difference in working conditions in overseas factories?'” Nova said. “We now know the answer is yes.”
While this incident is only the first test for the WRC, Gaus said it proves that the group is effective at protecting workers’ rights.
“(The MexMode investigation) shows that the monitoring model the WRC has established works,” Gaus said. “(But) university involvement is crucial to the success of the WRC model.”
Although the success in Mexico is a step in the right direction, Weinberg senior and NSAS member Neel Ahuja said it is just the beginning.
“I’m of course really happy that they helped establish the independent union, but it shows that there is more work to be done,” Ahuja said. “Students and universities need to stay involved.”
Although NU didn’t immediately join the WRC, Sunshine said the university is committed to being involved in the consortium.
“You take one step forward and you hope not to take any steps back,” Sunshine said. “You’ve got to stick with these issues.”
