Brown 'U' passes code of conduct protecting laborers

PROVIDENCE, R.I. - After several months of negotiations with the Student Labor Alliance, Brown University passed a code of conduct yesterday guaranteeing that all Brown apparel sold in the Brown Bookstore will be produced under safe labor conditions.

Members of the SLA hailed the Brown initiative as the first code of its kind to institute greater protections for women workers, union organization, greater environmental preservation and the creation of a more encompassing system of wages and benefits for workers.

Brown is also expected to hire an independent monitoring agency that will investigate the working conditions of all factories manufacturing Brown apparel. Brown will shoulder the costs for the monitoring team with other universities.

"We are very pleased," said Daniel Massey, a member of SLA. "It is a great first step towards improving conditions around the world. However, we have to remember that it is just a first step."

Brown's announcement yesterday could not have come at a better time, Massey said. The passage of the code came in the wake of a New York Times' op-ed piece by columnist Bob Herbert claiming that Champion employees received pitiable wages for their work in a baseball cap factory in the Dominican Republic. Two of the women claimed they earned barely 8 cents to make a $20 dollar cap that is then sold at some of the nation's major universities, including Brown.

The issue of sweatshop labor has received national media attention lately, with revelations about poor labor conditions in factories producing clothing for talk-show host Kathie Lee Gifford's K-Mart line and headlines exposing a substandard working environment at sneaker giant Nike's overseas factories.

Two other universities, Duke and Notre Dame, major players in the collegiate athletic apparel industry, recently passed codes of conduct similar to Brown's.

Two workers cited in the New York Times, Kenia Rodriguez and Roselio Reyes, both employed in the Dominican factory, are slated to speak at Brown today about their brutal working environments at a rally. The rally is intended to show support for the two women and universally safe labor conditions.

"It was really important for another school to raise the bar after the Duke code was passed," Massey said. "After the New York Times article, I couldn't see the administration just sitting by.

Today "will be a celebration of the code. Even though it is not exactly what we wanted, it is good," Massey said.

The SLA's initial proposed code of conduct called for a stipulation requiring all manufacturers of Brown paraphernalia to comply with a living wage. This provision would have mandated manufacturers to provide a compensatory sum in addition to minimum wage - an initiative absent from the final version.

But the new code of conduct will preclude companies from firing pregnant employees and forcing women to submit to mandatory pregnancy tests. It

04-15-98