Right now, students need your help campaigning against a contract that brings clothes made in a sweatshop straight to the NYU Bookstore. Students for International Labor Solidarity — a national organization that aims to weaponize students’ voices to support garment workers across the world — is actively working on their longest standing campaign against Nike.
The case aims to cease labor abuse at the Hong Seng factory in Bangkok, Thailand, which works closely with Nike and sells NYU-branded merchandise. Because of NYU’s affiliation with the Worker Rights Consortium — an independent labor rights organization which conducts investigations into labor conditions and publishes investigations to pressure abusive companies — the university legally should not have contracts with companies that extort their workers.
SILS’ national chapter most recently won a campaign nicknamed “Listen up. Lululemon!” As a direct result of the type of global activism that SILS advocates for, Lululemon and factory managers were prompted to meet the union demands, increasing pay, vacation and sick leave as well as reinstating prolific union leader Alan Esponga as a direct result of global activism on the case.
The group has been taking on the Nike case for the past two years, pressuring NYU to cut their contract with the brand as it does not abide by the WRC regulations on fair labor. These rules have been overlooked and unenforced for too long, and garment workers’ suffering is only worsened by the university’s inaction.
Hong Seng Knitting factory has a history of violations according to the WRCs’ completed investigation, namely when they threatened to fire three Burmese workers on account of being pregnant in 2013. Now, the Hong Seng knitting workers continue to fight violations made in 2020, where over 3,000 workers were suspended without severance pay due to COVID-19, being owed a culminated amount of $900,000.
The workers were forced, in the presence of supervisors, to sign papers stating that they wanted to take voluntary unpaid leave so that the factory and Nike could avoid compensation for their redundancy. When some workers resisted the scheme, management threatened to retaliate against them, including one incident where an outspoken worker had to flee the country after getting reported to the police and receiving death threats.
SILS has also released a new campaign centered on pushing for manufacturing transparency from NYU-affiliated brands, with the goal to enforce the disclosure of all factories involved in garment and textiles production.
Due to NYU’s membership with the WRC, all partnering brands are required to disclose the details of every factory used in the production of their garments. This does not just apply to the first tier — the factory in which the branding is applied to the garment, but to the second and third tiers, such as the fabric mills, cotton farms and dye factories. Although it is stipulated that brands will provide this information, NYU has made no effort to enforce it, resulting in the continuous unidentifiable exploitation of second and third-tier textile workers.
SILS students hope to pressure the NYU Collegiate Licensing Company into enforcing the disclosures of all garment factory tiers. The organization also plans to put pressure on NYU to cut its contracts with Nike, something which you can directly help with by joining the momentum. Moreover, placing targeted pressure helps force NYU into complying with its own brand licensing agreement. There is power in numbers, and direct action requires support — sending letters and emails, participating in boycotts, offering NYU students an easy, comprehensive opportunity to make global change rooted in the university community.
WSN’s Opinion desk strives to publish ideas worth discussing. The views presented in the Opinion desk are solely the views of the writer.
Contact Lyra Dean at [email protected].