Word: wrc
(lookup in dictionary)
(lookup stats)
Dates: all
Sort By: most recent first
(reverse)
That some Harvard factories could possibly operate as sweatshops is alarming and abhorrent. Membership in the WRC would go far in eliminating the human and worker rights violations that characterize the production of Harvard apparel now. Rather than continuing to profit off of rights abuses, Harvard should immediately join the WRC...
...Harvard joined, the WRC would monitor the factories that produce Harvard insignia clothing to ensure that they are in compliance with Harvard’s code of conduct, which prohibits sweatshop conditions including excessive hours, forced overtime, health and safety violations, child labor abuse, poverty wages, discrimination, sexual harassment and efforts to prevent unionization. Factories would be under constant threat of investigation and loss of University contracts if they violated the code; and if such a threat did not deter abuse, the WRC would—as it has done reliably in the past—respond to worker complaints...
Harvard is already a member of the Fair Labor Association (FLA), an alternative sweatshop-monitoring group, but FLA membership has never been a fair substitute for membership in the WRC. As HSAS has persistently argued to Harvard, the FLA is intimately tied to the corporations it monitors, and many of those companies have powerful seats on the FLA’s board—allowing them to prevent and delay investigations and follow-up. The actual monitors often have business ties to the companies they are supposed to investigate objectively. The FLA also frequently relies on so-called...
...past few years, the WRC—representing schools other than Harvard that produce at some of the same factories—has taken action to resolve several cases of severe worker mistreatment. The WRC has a strong record of identifying abuses, promptly performing thorough investigations and resolving the problems. An independent group, not subject to the control of the companies it oversees, the WRC can credibly threaten to cut University contracts with companies that do not improve, generating proactive change when others, including...
...factory in Buffalo, N.Y., the WRC investigated and confirmed reports that workers were fired for trying to unionize. After negotiations with the factory management failed, WRC member schools threatened to cut their contracts if conditions at the factory didn’t improve. The FLA, which had done its own investigation only after the WRC started theirs, stalled on threatening to cut contracts until after the WRC had taken action. The dispute was eventually resolved—workers kept their jobs, the brands kept production where it was and the union was recognized—because the WRC took...