Protest asks UB to join workers' rights group

Hoping to increase student awareness of President John Simpson's coming decision to affiliate UB with a workers rights group, student activists carried signs, delivered speeches and chained themselves to sewing machines in front of Capen Hall Thursday afternoon.

"The goal of this rally is to try and get UB affiliated with the Worker Rights Consortium," said Students Against Sweatshop member Kelly Miller, freshman environmental engineering major.

The Worker Rights Consortium is an independent monitoring board that investigates labor conditions for over 130 colleges and universities that sell clothing products.

Since the start of the school year, Students Against Sweatshops members have lobbied for UB administrators to sign with the Worker Rights Consortium rather than the Fair Labor Association, which group members say is not as effective as the WRC.

Dennis Black, vice president for Student Affairs, will be making his recommendation on the issue to President Simpson sometime next week.

According to Black, Simpson has shown an interest in affiliating with a labor group, but "UB had made no decision."

Over 30 people gathered for the half-hour rally, where patches were distributed to show their support for joining the Worker Rights Consortium. An informational table was also set up, and group members hosted a teach-in Thursday night in Baldy Hall to discuss specifics of the campaign and to educate the student body.

Colin O'Malley, a junior international studies major and Students Against Sweatshops member, said educating students about the issue at hand is one of the group's major goals.

"The teaching is what is important to us," O'Malley said.

Students Against Sweatshops has been active at UB for three years, and the group has tried to make students aware that UB merchandise and apparel is made at sweatshops where there are no methods of enforcing a code of conduct for workers.

"What we want is UB to affiliate with Worker Rights Consortium," said Maura Pellettieri, another group member and freshman English major. "This has been going on for three years now. It is pivotal that Dennis Black is making a recommendation to affiliate with the Worker Rights Consortium. The decision is ultimately Simpson's, but Black has pull."

Protesters said they are optimistic about the decision, but if Simpson doesn't choose the Worker Rights Consortium, they will keep rallying until a change is made.

"I feel that if they try hard enough they will make a point," said rally onlooker Cory Mosgeller, junior finance major. "But personally I have no opinion on it."

O'Malley said he feels Students Against Sweatshops has been successful with its platform.

"In the past two years we have managed to force the university to pass a code of conduct to apply to all merchandise and apparel," O'Malley said. "We've also formed a sweatshop advisory committee with students, faculty, and advisors to deal with situations as they arise."

"Considering the weather was freezing, I think it was an excellent turnout," added Eleni Petrou, another group member and freshman biology major. "There was a lot of energy .... we will continue to escalate if we don't get with the Worker Rights Consortium."

Other students not with the protestors had mixed reactions about the rally.

"I don't think sweatshops are right," said Eileen-Ann Fisher, a freshman English major who works at Campus Tees in the Commons. "I also don't think that UB should promote the use of materials from sweatshops.

Brad Goldstein, senior linguistic and political science major, said he wasn't aware of the rally or the upcoming decision UB officials face.

"I didn't even know that there was a rally," Goldstein said. "But I guess if it makes people feel good to get their voice out, to each their own."