DSP column showed little understanding of issues

TO THE EDITOR:

Pablo Friedmann's Sept. 11 column (""The DSP apparel debate: Part 1 of 2"") on the DSP reflects a lack on understanding on the issue.

He wrote that Student Action with Workers"" ""failed to provide any evidence"" that our University is supporting sweatshop labor. This is simply not true.

The Workers' Rights Consortium is one of two monitoring organizations that our University hired to conduct a survey that researched 1"000 factories in 12 countries that produce collegiate apparel.

 They found that 92 percent of the factories force workers to work overtime that 92 percent of factories intimidate workers with verbal abuse that 94 percent of factories violate freedom of association rights of workers and that 59 percent do not pay workers their legally mandated overtime. The list goes on.

SAW presented this information to the University through official letters and through our presence within the UNC labor licensing committee.

The University has acknowledged that our clothes are made by workers who are abused under horrific conditions but administration has continually stalled in addressing these violations.

Friedmann implied that SAW was wrong to claim that UNC's current licensing codes of conduct allow for union busting.

He must not be aware that executive directors of UNC's other monitoring organization the Fair Labor Association have admitted that the FLA tolerates virtually universal noncompliance with the expected standards of our University.

Not to mention the FLA has union busting executives from brand name companies on its board of directors. Some would call this a conflict of interest.

Friedmann suggested that a solution to these human rights violations does not need to involve UNC's administration.

This reveals a complete ignorance of the history of our University's labor codes. Our University signed onto the WRC as a result of student pressure on the administration.

The licensing committee was created through the same means. If it wasn't for our administration adopting these requests then UNC would have remained unaware of these egregious human rights violations.

Hopefully Friedmann will make an attempt to understand this issue more fully before publishing part two of his DSP columns.



Anthony Maglione

Student Action with Workers