UW takes lead role in worker rights alliance

The university will take a leadership role in organizing a meeting of colleges and universities to further discuss their participation in the Worker Rights Consortium. In addition, the university will select university representatives to the governing board as well as continue a dialogue about other issues that need to be addressed, says Melany S. Newby, vice chancellor for legal and executive affairs.

Related web site: UW-Madison and Sweatshops

The next meeting is scheduled Friday, April 28, in Chicago, Newby says. All members of WRC’s University Caucus and perhaps other institutions interested in membership will be invited, she adds.

UW–Madison’s leadership role in organizing the meeting follows the consortium’s founding conference April 7 in New York City. Newby led a four-person delegation from UW–Madison to the conference and represented Chancellor David Ward at the event.

The WRC was organized by student activists last fall as an alternative to the Fair Labor Association. Both seek to develop a workplace code of conduct and implement global monitoring of factory locations to eradicate “sweatshop” conditions.

“The conference was productive because it allowed us to begin participating in the formation of the WRC,” Newby says. “It also gave colleges and universities an opportunity to voice concerns and to start planning how to address those concerns.”

The proposed structure of the WRC governing board gives universities three of 12 seats, which Newby and other university officials say is too few. Three other seats would go to representatives of United Students Against Sweatshops, while six seats would go to members of the WRC advisory board, comprised of representatives from human rights, religious and other non-governmental organizations.

Other concerns raised by college and university officials include ensuring the WRC’s financial accountability, developing a monitoring system that is productive and includes participation by manufacturers, and developing a mechanism to identify and reward compliant companies.

Other members of the UW–Madison delegation to the conference were Tom Sharkey, a botany professor who represented the University Committee; Wilt Sanders, a senior scientist in the physics department who represented the Academic Staff Executive Committee; and Molly McGrath, who represented Associated Students of Madison.

UW–Madison joined the WRC on a conditional basis in February.