Today and tomorrow, we’re going to have an opportunity to vote on a ballot question to register the Student Body’s opinion on whether UF should affiliate with the Worker Rights Consortium, a labor rights advocacy group that works against sweatshops through factory monitoring and investigations. If UF affiliates with the WRC, it will help ensure that UF apparel isn’t made with sweatshop labor.
I’m voting “yes” in support of affiliation with the WRC, and I’m really hoping you’ll consider doing the same.
UF is already affiliated with the Fair Labor Association, a similar organization that shares many of the same goals with the WRC. But the FLA gets criticism for its connections to the apparel industry, the very industry on which it’s supposed to be keeping tabs. By the way the FLA is structured, six representatives from the industry sit on its board of directors, and according to its Web site, the FLA receives funding in part from “participating companies.”
The WRC, according to its Executive Director Scott Nova in a phone interview, is independent from the industry, both financially and in its governance.
To be completely clear, the referendum won’t take any immediate action. Even if a majority of the Student Body votes “yes” on the ballot question, UF won’t automatically affiliate with the WRC; affiliation requires the approval of UF President Bernie Machen and the board of trustees. (Which, by the way — awesome indie-pop band name.) But passing the referendum would certainly send a clear message of how UF students feel about the issue, and passing it by a sizable margin will go a long way in helping campus advocates bolster their case for affiliation to the administration.
I know, I don’t like getting my paws too dirty with Student Government stuff either, but this isn’t a blue shirt/green shirt issue. It’s not even too much of a (real-life) political issue. After all, I don’t think it’s particularly partisan or radical to say that workers deserve to be treated fairly and responsibly or that they deserve to work in conditions that are safe and humane.
And it’s important to remember that the WRC is not, by any stretch of the imagination, some fringe group. According to the list of affiliates on its Web site, 186 colleges and universities across the country are affiliated with the WRC, including four schools — University of Tennessee, University of South Carolina, Vanderbilt University and Louisiana State University — in the Southeastern Conference.
To put it bluntly, the schools that affiliate with the WRC are not just a bunch of schools that suck at sports. Of the 12schools that have played in a BCS National Championship game since 1998, five are affiliated with the WRC. Of the 15 schools that have played in a men’s basketball championship in the past decade, 11 are affiliated with the WRC. In fact, the only two schools that have won a men’s basketball championship in the past decade that weren’t affiliated are University of Kansas and UF. The WRC is entirely mainstream.
There’s no doubt that there’s ample reason to be proud of being a Gator, and the cheerful alacrity with which we don Gators apparel is a natural expression of that. And even the most school spirit-averse student has to be at least a little charmed by being a surrounded in a sea of orange and blue.
And as dorky as it sounds, I always get warm fuzzies whenever I’m not in Gainesville and a stranger with a Gators shirt spots my own and offers a knowing smile and, if I’m lucky, a zealous, “Go Gators.” I am admittedly one of the people who has always cringed at any of The Gator Nation ad campaigns, but I kind of love it when that happens.
But I’d love it more if we knew it wasn’t the product of child labor or worker exploitation. Affiliating with the WRC will go a long way in helping us know that, And voting “yes” on the ballot question is a good first step to affiliation.
Joe Dellosa is an advertising senior. His column appears on Tuesdays.
