Students Against Sweatshops may have earned the University a number-one ranking for activism from Mother Jones magazine, but members of the group stress that their work is far from over.
For its fall campaign, SAS is concentrating on clarifying two issues in the University's Code of Conduct: SAS members want total disclosure of factory locations involved in producing Duke merchandise and a provision ensuring workers a living wage.
In March, the administration and SAS jointly presented a Code of Conduct for makers of Duke-licensed items that was more extensive than that of any other university. The code provides for health and safety standards, collective bargaining and protections against forced labor and child labor.
The University's Code of Conduct then became the basis for the code of the Collegiate Licensing Company, a domestic licensing agent that represents 160 schools from around the country. The developing CLC code is now under review by a task force of representatives of 14 schools and should be completed later this fall.
Most schools that do business with the CLC-including Duke-are expected to ratify the final code, said Jim Wilkerson, director of stores and licensing.
If the student group has its way, two key aspects of the code will be modified. SAS members approve of the portion of the code requiring that licensees must disclose relevant information to the University, such as company name, owner, address, items manufactured and quantity of items. But the sticking point for SAS comes in terms of which information the University will then disclose to the public.
Wilkerson said the University will only disclose the name, city and country of each licensee. Any more information, he said, is considered a trade secret and could hurt the companies financially.
"Much of that information is what the companies feel is proprietary-competitive information that must be guarded," he said. "I have not talked to any licensees that are willing to have that detailed information released to the public. Our code has a more extensive disclosure provision than I have seen in any other code. In that respect, I think it is adequate for effective monitoring."
SAS contends that in order to facilitate effective monitoring, the actual addresses must also be publicized. The University can only monitor a fraction of its 700 licensees and SAS members say that if information is released to the public, outside human rights groups can help monitor companies.
"If the city is one as large as Beijing or Mexico City, then that limited degree of public disclosure won't mean much at all," said Trinity senior and SAS member Lauren Aronson. "Local human rights groups will never be able to track down the University-affiliated factory, and the code won't have the impact it could have."
Full disclosure also means that human rights groups could start monitoring immediately, while the University monitoring system-which would reach between 10 and 20 percent of factories per year-is still far away from implementation, SAS contends.
The other aspect of the Code of Conduct that SAS is working to refine is the section about workers' salaries.
The code asserts the principle that workers should be paid enough to cover "basic needs," but only requires that workers are paid the minimum or prevailing wage, whichever is higher.
Basic needs are commonly defined as clothing, shelter, food, health care and disposable income, said Wilkerson.
SAS contends that without a provision for ensuring a living wage, the code falls short of its potential effectiveness. Instead of waiting for other groups to define the term, the University should take the initiative, members said.
"If we allow women to have to work 60-hour weeks and still not be able to afford milk for their kids, we haven't ended sweatshop conditions," said Trinity senior and SAS member Alicia Overstreet. "The University needs to actually enforce the 'basic needs' principle."
The basic needs provision was included to show that the University was aware of the concept, but is not yet being applied as an additional wage standard, Wilkerson said. He believes that the term will be defined and included eventually, but is waiting for the White House Apparel Industry Partnership to resolve the issue in its own code, on which the Duke language is based.
"The specific economic impact to implement a standard to meet the basic needs of all workers is not yet quantified and will require enormous amounts of study," he said. "Many people in business and non-business, including many universities, feel that the concept is too complex and far-reaching. If there is ever the establishment of required wages that will meet basic needs, that should be a responsibility of the U.S. and other governments."
Despite the disagreements, SAS members and the administration both stress their congenial relationship. At other schools, such as the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, student organizations have come across much more resistance from the administration.
"Even if we don't agree on all parts of the code yet, it's still very encouraging that Jim Wilkerson and the Duke administration are allowing us to participate," said SAS member and Trinity senior Tico Almeida.
Get The Chronicle straight to your inbox
Signup for our weekly newsletter. Cancel at any time.