In the late 1990s the anti-sweatshop movement broke out into a mass movement on college campuses across the United States. Linked to labour, consumer, faith-based and other groups, the movement, now with more than 200 campus chapters, is the most significant student mobilization since the Vietnam War. There is also a growing No Sweat movement on Canadian campuses and significant mobilizations in Australia and much of Europe. Through sit-ins, rallies, teach-ins, anti-sweat fashion shows, hunger strikes, occupations, political theatre and other forms of education, publicity and protest, students have been demanding the adoption of ethical buying policies.

The most dramatic action in Canada was the occupation of the office of the president of the University of Toronto in 2000. Using web cams, students broadcast the occupation to a global audience, eliciting considerable international support. The occupation ended when university officials agreed to a purchasing policy governing apparel bearing the university's name. Today almost 300 American universities have No Sweat policies, as do 10 in Canada, including Alberta, Dalhousie, Guelph, Laurentian, McMaster, Memorial, Toronto, Trent, Waterloo and Western Ontario.

Campaigns are underway at UBC, Carleton, King's College, Montreal, Queen's, Ottawa, Simon Fraser, Winnipeg and York. Such policies are also spreading beyond universities. Three Canadian school boards have No Sweat policies and 11 municipalities have passed resolutions to adopt them. Many American school boards and some cities, including New York City, have passed No Sweat resolutions.

Some universities also have fair trade policies covering the purchase of internationally-traded commodities, particularly coffee. With global prices at historic lows, the coffee industry is in crisis. While transnational coffee roasters
and branders make huge profits, many of the world's 25 million coffee farmers are selling their coffee below their production costs. Many are starving. Buyers of "fair trade" coffee meet standards set by international certification agencies, including a minimum fair trade price that exceeds the world market price.

The goal of No Sweat policies is to ensure workers everywhere have the benefit of internationally-recognized labour standards and rights. No Sweat policies require suppliers to certify their goods are made in compliance with standards that typically include the right to organize and to bargain collectively, limits on mandatory hours of work, abolition of forced and child labour, elimination of employment discrimination, provision of certain levels of workplace health and safety, minimum wages and other basic norms.

Suppliers usually disclose the locations of plants they source from - a key precondition for monitoring workplaces. Since universities do not have this monitoring capacity, most American universities with No Sweat codes have joined the Fair Labor Association and/or the Worker Rights Consortium, two nonprofit monitoring agencies.

The main targets of these policies are sweatshops. These workplaces are often in violation of local labour laws as well as international labour standards. Over the past 20 years or so there has been a rebirth of sweatshops in Canada, the U.S. and other developed countries. A recent CBC television documentary exposed sweatshops in Toronto and Vancouver. There have been similar exposés of sweatshops in the U.S., including Los Angeles and New York City. About 60 per cent of American apparel workers work in sweatshops, according to one study. Most sweatshops, however, are in developing countries where labour abuses are pervasive.

Many sweatshop workers are young women. While global production systems create big geographic distances between producers and consumers, No Sweat campaigns bring workers, students and others together via the internet, media publicity, campus speaking tours and visits to sweatshops. Surveys report young adults are more likely than other age groups to support ethical purchasing policies, and there are many such "conscience consumers" at universities. Naomi Klein's international bestseller No Logo, is very insightful regarding the links between youth and no sweat mobilization.

No Sweat campaigns also reflect a growing public awareness of the contradiction between generally recognized ethical principles and corporate practices that connect some well-known corporate images to brutal sweatshops. A recent survey of American public opinion found 86 per cent of respondents would pay an extra dollar for a $20 garment, if they were guaranteed it wasn't made in a sweatshop. Other surveys conclude most people believe employers should abide by health and safety standards, minimum wage provisions, the freedom to organize, the right to bargain collectively and other basic labour rights and standards.

International Labour Standards

In 1995, the World Summit for Social Development defined a set of core labour rights and standards. Based
on conventions of the UN-affiliated International Labour Organization, they reflect a consensus among the ILO's business, labour and government representatives. The ILO and the World Trade Organization have reaffirmed the obligation of all member states to abide by these standards, which include:

• freedom of association,
  
• freedom to bargain collectively,
  
• abolition of forced labour,
  
• abolition of child labour, and
  
• non-discrimination in employment.
  

Despite these state obligations there continues to be a flood of revelations from around the world exposing denial of the rights to organize and to bargain collectively, including the firing, beating, blacklisting, torture, disappearance and murder of trade unionists and workers who want to form unions.

The ILO reports there are 246 million child labourers and that forced labour is widespread. The increasing entry of women into paid labour has parallelled reports of systematic gender discrimination. Discrimination based on ethnicity, religion, disability, age and HIV/AIDS status is also widespread, as are forced and excessive overtime. Corporations in the apparel and other industries typically impose tight production schedules on their subcontractors. Often there are stiff financial penalties if deadlines aren't met.

In Thailand, for example, workers producing children's clothing for Nike, Levi Strauss and Adidas reported having to work up to 110 hours a week, and that managers made them swallow amphetamines ("speed") so they could work up to 48 hours straight before collapsing.

Transnational corporations, which now account for an estimated two-thirds of the world trade in goods and services, are taking advantage of lower trade barriers and falling transportation and communications costs to relocate production. Many relocate to poor countries where governments, usually with enormous foreign debts, compete for this investment by providing tax and other concessions. Often this includes the violation of worker rights to enforce "disciplined," "flexible," low-wage labour. This "race to the bottom" in labour standards has become, for many, the core meaning of contemporary globalization.

McMaster's Purchasing Policies

As elsewhere, ethical purchasing at McMaster University began with students. Some were in touch with the Ethical Trading Action Group, a national coalition of labour, faith and international human rights organizations that coordinates No Sweat campaigns across Canada. On campus they organized through the Ontario Public Interest Research Group. Some also formed a Fair Trade Working Group.

It was in this context that McMaster's president set up a committee to develop an ethical purchasing policy. The committee represented constituencies across campus, including students, administration, faculty, staff, teaching assistants, the university bookstore, and athletics and recreation. The committee drafted two policies which McMaster adopted. The fair trade policy requires university coffee retailers (except those with pre-existing contracts) to provide a choice of fair trade coffee.

The anti-sweat policy applies to apparel and products bearing the university logo. It includes standards in 11 areas, including work hours, forced labour, health and safety, harassment and women's rights. Most important, it contains the key "enabling" rights of freedom of association (to form unions) and freedom to bargain collectively. Employers must pay a "dignified living wage" that provides for the basic needs of workers and their families.

However, the strongest labour standards are irrelevant if not enforced. Since fair trade coffee is certified by a reliable nonprofit agency, enforcement is largely restricted to ensuring that campus coffee sellers supply fair trade coffee. Enforcement is a bigger challenge for No Sweat goods because universities have no capacity to monitor workplaces to ensure code compliance.

McMaster requires suppliers to fill out a compliance form. The names and addresses of workplaces that supply the items become public information so that others, such as workers, local unions and community groups, can help monitor code violations.

In addition, McMaster became the first Canadian university to join the nonprofit Worker Rights Consortium. For a modest membership fee, the WRC does complaint-based monitoring of factories supplying goods to its 120 member universities. Through its web site, the WRC discloses the locations of factories that university suppliers use, and publicizes code violations.

A No Sweat Future?

Ethical buying codes have contributed to important improvements in many lives. Gains include independent unions, return to work for fired unionists, collective agreements, greater respect for workers' dignity, and better wages and working conditions.

The recent campaign at the Kukdong (now Mexmode) plant in Mexico is an important example. Workers complained that supervisors insulted and verbally and physically abused many of the young women in the plant. They also reported supervisors refused to give pregnant workers their legal maternity leave and sick leave benefits, and that wages were below the legal minimum. Some tried to form an independent union, but managers fired them.

When the WRC, the Fair Labor Association and other organizations were alerted, they organized a powerful
campaign with participation from 17 countries. The campaign pressured Nike and other firms that bought apparel from the plant to pressure Kukdong. This campaign, together with the workers' solidarity and courage, resulted
in an historical breakthrough - the first independent union of Mexico's 3,500 maquiladoras (plants that assemble for export) to get a collective agreement.

The fired workers have their jobs back, supervisors no longer physically abuse workers and wages and benefits have been improved. Recently, the union successfully negotiated a second agreement and made more gains. There have been other recent victories in the Dominican Republic, Thailand, the U.S. and the Pacific island of Saipan.

As more universities develop ethical purchasing policies, it would be logical to create an inter-university consortium as a common purchasing body built around a core no sweat policy. This would give universities more collective influence over suppliers. It would also be logical for universities to join with school boards, municipalities, unions and other institutions with similar buying policies to promote an even broader-based and more powerful consortium.

Ultimately, ethical buying policies need to help pave the way to effective international labour regulation by states and democratic unions. Fairer trade agreements are also crucial. This will require respect for the autonomy of nations and the opening up of markets to fairly traded goods and services. It will also require the ability to impose adequate sanctions on those who violate their agreements to abide by international labour standards.

Such a world of fairer trade is not politically possible at present. In the meantime, ethical purchasing codes are not only feasible first steps, they are the right thing to do.

Don Wells teaches labour studies and politics at McMaster University and helped draft McMaster's ethical purchasing policies.

The views expressed are those of the author and not necessarily those of CAUT.