U-Council discusses goals for improving sweatshop conditions

U-Council resource committee chair Jeffery Herbst recommended at a U-Council meeting yesterday the University continue efforts with the Fair Labor Association, rejecting anti-sweatshop student activists' requests that the University also join the more aggressive Worker Rights Consortium.

The University joined the FLA last March to improve working conditions in factories producing University-licensed clothing.

"There are few issues more important to us than how the Princeton name is used," said Herbst, who is director of the African studies program. "Princeton should continue to aggressively try to improve the Fair Labor Association."

The FLA should begin pilot monitoring by the end of this year and comprehensive monitoring at selected companies early next year, according to a resources committee report. The report called for creating by 2002 a schedule for certifying all companies producing Princeton apparel.

"By examining whether the FLA is meeting a series of recognized milestones, our future relationship with the WRC will be easier to evaluate," according to the report.

Students for Progressive Education and Action (SPEAC) member Brian White '00 said the University also should work with the WRC — a more confrontational organization with stricter labor standards and monitoring methods.

"By joining the WRC, we would give the FLA some incentive to improve," White said in an interview after the meeting. But he said anti-sweatshop activists were "very happy" with the other resource committee recommendations.

Herbst disputed White's claim that the University has not taken enough action to improve labor conditions, saying the University needs to focus on its academic mission. "There is only so much effort we should give to this effort," he said. "I would argue that we've already given a tremendous amount."

He noted that almost all University licensees have disclosed their factory locations, which the University requires.

After the presentation on the living wage and factory conditions in developing nations, the U-Council shifted its discussion to where University students work after graduation.

The investment banking firm Goldman Sachs is the largest employer of students from the Class of 1999, career services director Beverly Hamilton-Chandler said, adding that 65 percent of students employed at the time of graduation were working for investment banks and consulting companies.

Thirty-six percent of students in the class were employed at that time, with an additional 22 percent still seeking employment, she said. Nonprofit organizer Project '55 and Princeton in Asia were the most popular choices for the seven percent of students who began internships.

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Career Services is working to meet "a very, very strong interest in nonprofit careers," Hamilton-Chandler said. She said the University may hold a nonprofit career fair next spring.