We are writing to express our support of the school-wide campaign for affiliation with the Worker Rights Consortium, an influential worker’s rights monitoring organization. Wooster apparel is an expression of the pride that we take in our school.
However, the apparel industry has little transparency regarding the rights and working conditions of the workers who produce this clothing, and a socially conscious student body should not have to choose between ethical consumption and school pride. Affiliation with the Worker Rights Consortium would make the Wooster student body more informed consumers, and would exemplify this schoolís belief in social justice and global solidarity.
According to their mission statement, the Worker Rights Consortium (WRC) is ìan independent labor rights monitoring organization, conducting investigations of working conditions in factories around the globe. Our purpose is to combat sweatshops and protect the rights of workers who sew apparel and make other products sold in the United States.” The WRC primarily works with colleges and universities to ensure that the factories that make the schoolsí licensed apparel are ethical in their labor practices, by performing investigations on factories in which college-licensed apparel is produced. In our case, this would mean that every factory that produces apparel with the Wooster name would be held to a code of conduct for their working conditions. This includes provisions against discrimination regarding gender, ethnicity, and marital status, ensures that workers are paid legally and fairly and that working conditions meet health and safety standards.
The WRC could be interpreted as a code for a sweatshop-labor-free bookstore, but instead of passively rejecting companies that use sweatshop labor, the WRC actively fights against it by working to better these conditions and the lives of the workers. Buyers of Wooster apparel, and especially the student body and administration of the College, would be able to take an active role in this process.
We feel that it is necessary to work with the WRC for many reasons. As a school, we function with an honor code for all students, the Wooster Ethic. This code informs our interactions both personally and inside the classroom. While all members of the Wooster community are bound by this code, products licensed by our school have no such governance. Many of the products that the College sells may be produced in sweatshops. As a school that prides itself on intentionality and global citizenship (as discussed in the 2009 Convocation speech), it is both immoral and hypocritical for us to be supporting the unjust labor practices of sweatshops.
Affiliation with the WRC will require endorsement by President Cornwell and the board of trustees, a $1,500 yearly fee, an administration liaison and student involvement for determining how to respond to violations. At this point in our campaign, our main priority is garnering support from the student body and faculty to attain the support of the administration.
Following this and the subsequent meetings with the Board of Trustees, we would like to work with the campus community to write a letter of affiliation and plan the affiliation process. Currently, the Wooster Democratic Socialists and Peace by Peace are leading this effort, but it is vital that the campaign for WRC affiliation be a school-wide effort.
If you, or an organization that you are a part of, are interested in being part of this campaign, please contact us at the email address provided below. It is our moral obligation to ensure that the Wooster name and logo only appear on ethically produced products. For this reason, it is imperative that we begin work with the WRC as soon as possible.