newjerseynewsroom.com

BY ANASTASIA MILLICKER

NEWJERSEYNEWSROOM.COM

NEW BRUNSWICK–Party hats came off yesterday after Rutgers University President Richard L. McCormick  announced that the University will not disaffiliate from the Fair Labor Association (FLA) during a United Students Against Sweatshops (USAS) foe celebration.

More than 30 students donned party hats and blew up balloons in what they hoped to be a end of the year celebration congratulating McCormick on disaffiliating with the FLA but after being asked multiple more than four times if the University would cut ties with the FLA, McCormick repeatedly said no.

Following his response students filed out of the Red Lions Café at the Rutgers Student Center on the College Avenue campus, some with the intentions of presenting their arguments against the FLA to University administration in the upcoming week.

Beth Breslaw, Northeast Regional Organizer of USAS, said the FLA has subcontracted their inspections of their overseas factories and within those inspections, inspectors are paid for my the factories in which they are inspecting including sweatshops that create collegiate apparel. Breslaw said the FLA also receives a majority of its funding from the organizations it monitors.

The FLA Board of Directors consists of 19 members consisting of five members from apparel companies, six from universities and six from NGOs. The fact that the board has members of corporations concerns some students, McCormick said.

“It’s like having a car company  hire and pay someone to inspect its car,” said Richard Garzone, a member of the Governing Board of the Worker Rights Consortium regarding the companies’ practice.

The FLA has also been accused of unsafe working conditions in third world countries, Breslaw said.

Although the pay is not up to United States standard, the FLA has been to improve conditions within third world factories, McCormick said.

The release of the Foxconn report shows that FLA interviewed randomly selected 35,000 Foxconn workers in which they found safety risks and the FLA has issued improved standards, which Foxconn needs to be complete before July 1, 2013.

Despite the report student activists were not convinced of the FLA’s efforts especially in regards to improving working conditions in factories in the third world.

After more two years worth of actions, including a “Walk into Action” sit-in last year which resulted in a sit-in at McCormick’s office in which students brought eight demands including a request for the University to disaffiliate with the FLA. This request was not met at that time.

McCormick said he has been in contact with the FLA passing on the  students’ concerns to the association and even brought FLA CEO Auret van Heerden to campus last year to speak with students as well.

As a result, the FLA has established a Student Advisory Board, which will serve as an advisory board to the FLA Board of Directors, McCormick said.

Breslaw said the student advisory board will have little power when it comes to advising the board and would sit-in on phone conferences once a quarter, otherwise the board would have little say in terms of advising for worker’s rights.

The FLA Student Advisory Board has not yet been implemented but McCormick said he would continue to work with the FLA until one is fulfilled.

Rutgers University is currently apart of the Workers Rights Consortium (WRC) and FLA, McCormick said.

“The two are internationally active organizations in the third world and promote the values of Rutgers University,” he said.

The WRC does not accept monetary payment and does its’ own investigation of factories rather than subcontracting its investigations, said Garzon, a Rutgers University senior.

Currently there are 84 colleges and universities across the nation belong to both the FLA and WRC including Brown University, Princeton University and Ohio State University. Santa Clara University is the only university that has pulled out of the FLA.