Tufts Receives Labor Association Position

But members of a student group focused on workers' rights said they are worried about the level of UNC's involvement with this labor watchdog group.

The Fair Labor Association, a sweatshop-monitoring group made up of representatives from human rights organizations and apparel manufacturers, voted unanimously last week to add three new university representatives -- including Rut Tufts, UNC director of auxiliary services.

Vice presidents of Notre Dame University and Princeton University are the other new FLA board members.

Tufts said the decision is a significant step forward for UNC, which is making efforts to ensure fair labor conditions in the production of products bearing the UNC logo. "You have clout by joining with other universities and having more of a voice," Tufts said. "Then when you bring in huge companies like Nike and Reebok to the table, suddenly you can make more and more of an impact."

Implementing external labor monitoring programs and negotiating fair labor standards also is the goal of the Worker Rights Consortium, another national workers' rights group which includes Tufts as a board member.

Tufts said his work with the WRC, which does not include representatives from apparel companies, is different from his work with the FLA.

But some members of Students for Economic Justice, a campus group which has protested UNC's contracts with Nike, said they are concerned Tufts has a position on both the FLA and WRC boards. One of SEJ's main objectives is to continue pushing for the University to withdraw from the FLA and focus its attention on the WRC, which uses a different monitoring procedure.

"It definitely seems like a conflict of interest to me," said junior Courtney Sproule, a member of SEJ.

But Sproule stresses SEJ is more concerned with the FLA's association with UNC than with Tufts' appointment. "The fact that he is on the board is disturbing, but we are more disturbed by UNC's involvement with the FLA," Sproule said.

But Tufts said UNC's involvement with the FLA is important for fighting poor labor conditions. "People should understand that the bad guy is not one organization or the other, it's the poor labor conditions," Tufts said. "We're keeping our bets on both horses because we see them both as potential ways to reach the same goal."

Tufts said being a voting member of the FLA will allow him to help small businesses with UNC licensing deals monitor the labor conditions at their factories. "The biggest problem we face is that many of the (licensed) companies are so small," Tufts said. "Nike has everything they need to conduct extensive monitoring programs, but we're just as concerned with the mom-and-pop companies that may be printing shirts in their own garage and don't know where those shirts were produced."

Tufts said he would work with the other university representatives on the board to pool all small business licensees into a single group that would receive external monitoring advice from the FLA.

"University representatives will be able to clarify and advocate decisions that support these small companies," Tufts said. "Instead of having the monitor chosen by the company, the FLA is going to choose the monitor, and the FLA is going to pay for it."

Jordan Bartel contributed to this story.

The University Editor can be reached at udesk@unc.edu.