In actions ranging from bookstore protests to 24-hour "sweat-ins," students at more than 100 campuses last week demanded that their schools leave the Fair Labor Association (FLA) and join a student-proposed alternative, the Worker Rights Consortium.
"We've had enough of the FLA's support for secrecy in the industry. Closed doors only hide sweatshops," said Yale student Jessica Champagne."
"The universities have a clear choice now," she added. "They can choose the corporate cover-up charade of the Fair Labor Association, or they can accept reasonable student demands that universities support a living wage, openness through disclosure and independent human rights verification by local groups."
The Worker Rights Consortium contains a more stringent set of requirements for combating sweatshops than the FLA. It requires that companies pay a living wage and fully disclose the locations of their plants around the world.
The first university to join the student alternative is Brown University, which last week announced that it would join the Worker Rights Consortium while remaining in the FLA. Brown student activists continue to demand that the university quit the discredited FLA.