Statement in support of the USAS Sweat-Free Campus Campaign and the Designated Supplier Program

The Designated Supplier Program (DSP) is a radical plan, one that could greatly improve not only the conditions and benefits in the factories, but also one that will uphold workers' right to representation and collective bargaining like no other. It is clear that fundamental change is needed within the garment industry to achieve dignity and respect for the worker.

CLR's mission is to organize U.S. activists with that goal in mind, but after many years we recognize that winning a unionization campaign is not the fairy-tale ending we hope for. The reality of the garment industry is such that organized workers are then confronted with a subtle form of union-busting: the pulling of orders. Even if brands or licensees don't outright "cut and run," organized, worker-representative factories often struggle to maintain orders, or obtain enough to ensure benefits and raises for their members. The Designated Supplier Program, therefore, was designed to address this reality by re-prioritizing worker rights through institutional buying practices.

With its criticism of the DSP, the Fair Labor Association betrays that it is only interested in paying lip service to worker-defended rights. (Read the FLA's criticism and other pertinenet documents here).

Despite its name, the FLA has a long history in the anti-sweatshop movement of siding with the corporations and companies, rather than with the workers. The FLA's directing body includes representatives from the industry, meaning that its position in the face of labor rights violations has too often been skewed by the companies that are part of the multi-stakeholder initiative. In the recent cases of Eddie Bauer and Gildan Activewear, the FLA failed to expel these companies that had blatantly violated worker rights.

In the FLA's critique of the WRC Designated Supplier Program, it lauds its own practices, claiming that it follows "a collaborative strategy that includes universities, companies, factory managers, and—increasingly—worker voices," implicitly admitting, however, that the worker's voice is lacking within the FLA strategy.

Considering this, CLR finds it ironic that the FLA has accused the WRC of a "top-down" approach when it comes to worker rights. According to the FLA, the WRC, and by extension, USAS, is attempting to "impose" worker rights in the garment factories of the world. However, in a recent speaking tour, accompanied by the national organizers for USAS and CLR, it was quite clear that the organized workers, representative of various countries with garment industries, are this campaign's most dedicated promoters.

Secondly, the FLA echoes the petty excuses put forth by many companies with regard to freedom of association. Their claim is that by favoring unionized or worker represented workplaces, we are perversely undermining the workers freedom to associate... or not, with the corporate emphasis on the 'not.' The reality is, however, that workers are so rarely given the opportunity to express this freedom and organize themselves, that when they do, as in the case of many factories that both USAS and CLR have supported throughout the years, we must support them. And that support, given in solidarity by activists in the U.S., must also be financial. Hence, the Designated Supplier Program, which gives financial incentive to recognizing worker rights.

There are a myriad of reasons why the FLA's critique of the DSP is a feeble one. USAS and the WRC have sound analysis to support the DSP, and CLR continues to endorse it as an important step forward in the struggle to defend worker rights.