In December, UB Students Against Sweatshops held a press conference to announce they were talking to the administration about aligning the university with the Worker Rights Consortium, an independent monitoring body that investigates the business practices of companies producing merchandise bearing college and universities' logos.
At the press conference, Dan Cross, a member of UBSAS, said the organization had a meeting with Dennis Black, vice president for Student Affairs, earlier in the week to discuss steps the university was taking to ensure that products bearing the UB logo were not manufactured in sweatshops.
According to Cross, a junior history and Spanish major, the conversation with Black was successful. He said they were confident the university would adopt and hold "a code of conduct that all companies doing business with ... the University (at) Buffalo must adhere to."
In addition to creating a "code of conduct," Cross said, the administration should affiliate the university with the Consortium.
"By affiliating with the WRC, by adopting a code of conduct, we will be able to make sure that we are the guiding force of the SUNY system, to make sure that SUNY is behind us, and SUNY is doing the right thing to make sure these (sweatshop) workers have not died in vain," Cross said.
However, as of April 18, the university had not decided to become a part of the Consortium, a fact that angered members of UBSAS.
"Our mission is to tell (President William R. Greiner) that we're not going to pack our bags because they don't want to sign up," said UBSAS spokesman Creighton Randall, a freshman engineering major at UB.
Barbara Ricotta, associate vice president for Student Affairs, said UB's current sweatshop policy is sufficient.
"We're comfortable with the fact that our vendors comply with state regulations," Ricotta said, adding that UB's current policy also requires all vendors outside New York State to comply.
Although Greiner said he was willing to further discuss the issue with any student who wanted to, such willingness did not suggest he would change his mind about affiliating the Consortium.
"(UB's) main mission is not to be an enforcement agency for the Fair Labor Standards Act," Greiner said. "I am very careful in embroiling the university in what are largely political matters, and there are a lot of politics in this."
-Written by Paul Eppolito
-Reported by Paul Eppolito and Ben Cady
Photo: Courtesy of Laron Fomby
