March Madness = Sweatshop Madness

March Madness is here. Time to fill your picks in that office pool, spend a bit more time in front of the television and show your school colors by, say, purchasing a school hoodie, T-shirt, basketball jersey or jacket. Or maybe not. If you want to take a stand against abusive labor conditions globally, you might want to think twice before you fork over $24.99 for that official logo T-shirt.

Since the mid-1990s, the anti-sweatshop movement has made university apparel one of the main targets of efforts to press suppliers to comply with international human rights and labor standards. Over the past dozen years, the movement has achieved a great deal both in terms of raising awareness of the issues among consumers as well as in developing reasonably effective methods of monitoring conditions at factories around the world.

There are several organizations that are engaged in efforts to ensure that international norms are complied with at supplier factors. Some, like the United Students Against Sweatshops (USAS) focus on pressuring school administrators to ensure that products bearing the university label are produced in fair working conditions. Others are more directly involved in monitoring conditions in factories.

There are two giants in the field of monitoring conditions at supplier factories; the Fair Labor Association (FLA) and the Worker Rights Consortium (WRC). At present, WRC and the FLA each have roughly 200 university affiliates. A number of schools are affiliates of both the WRC and the FLA.

Yet, unfortunately, a significant (but decreasing) group of schools have failed to make a commitment to either of these monitoring bodies. In practice, then, there is little assurance that the products bearing these schools’ logos is not made in factories with abusive, anti-union and even sweatshop conditions. To the extent that these schools benefit from the oversight of suppliers by the WRC and the FLA, they are free-riding.

Here’s a list of schools in the NCAA men’s tournament that are affiliated with neither the FLA nor the WRC.

Oklahoma State
Northern Iowa
Lehigh
Clemson
Wofford
Morgan State
East Tennessee
Butler
BYU
UT, El Paso
Murray State
Oakland
North Texas
Texas A&M
Richmond
Old Dominion
Siena
Sam Houston State
Robert Morris
Arkansas-Pine Bluff

As March madness heats up, go ahead and get into the rituals. Try your luck in that office pool, watch the games and buy something with the school logo — that is, if someone can vouch that your university supports the anti-sweatshop movement. If not, that is, if your school is on this list, press administrators to inform you of concrete actions they are taking to support monitoring of labor rights around the world.

OK. You’ve made it this far. You deserve a prediction: UConn…

…in the women’s tournament! (I know, not much of a prediction).

Photo credit: Wikimedia Commons

(Thank you to Matthew Parker for his research with this piece.)