ASU sit-in

leads to arrests
By Caroline Monday
cmonday@mountaintimes.com

Six members of the Appalachian State University chapter of United Students Against Sweatshops were arrested for disorderly conduct and trespassing around 7:30 p.m. Friday.

The group staged a protest outside of and in the lobby of the B.B. Dougherty administrative building on campus beginning around noon on Wednesday, April 9.

According to press releases, the group had been anticipating arrests when they refused to leave.

The ASU administration granted the group permission to spend the night in the building Wednesday and Thursday nights. Friday evening, the group was asked to leave Dougherty so that it could be closed for the weekend. The six group members who refused were arrested.

As campus security loaded the six into a van and drove them away from the building, protesters chanted “What we want is justice in our factories, j-u-s, j-u-s-t-i-c-e.”

The Dougherty Building house’s the office of chancellor Kenneth Peacock, who the group hopes to persuade to sign an agreement to join the Designated Suppliers Program (DSP).

In a statement to the university the chancellor wrote, “I am very disappointed in the outcome of the United Students Against Sweatshops action in the administration building this week. Despite our many attempts to have productive dialogue and offer compromises to the students involved, our every effort was and we were forced to deal with the realities of the university resources required to allow them to continue to stay through the weekend.”

The DSP is a procurement standard proposed by the Worker Rights Consortium and USAS. Joining the program would ensure that university apparel is not made in sweatshops. The student group reports that it has been working toward this goal for about a year and a half.

Perry David, a member of USAS, said the university’s student and faculty senates have both passed recommendations supporting joining the DSP and the group has also provided a research paper proving the need for such a measure. “We felt that we’ve taken all the traditional channels,” David said.

“We’ve jumped through hoop after hoop,” USAS member Billy Schweig added.

On Tuesday, university administration presented the group with an offer to hold additional meetings about joining the DSP. David said the group rejected that offer because it did not meet the group’s expectations for real action.

Under the DSP, university licensees are required to source most university logo apparel from supplier factories that have been determined to be in compliance with certain standards.

These standards include the right to form unions and the right to be paid a living wage.

Lorin Baumhover, chief of staff for the chancellor’s office said the university already subscribes to the Fair Labor Association (FLA) that the administration feel does an adequate job of monitoring the conditions under which their apparel is produced.

The FLA is a nonprofit organization working to end sweatshop conditions in factories worldwide. Currently, more than 200 colleges and universities are affiliated with the FLA and thus require their licensees to participate in the FLA licensee program.

In his communication to the university community, Peacock wrote, “The University’s commitment to seek and follow policies and programs that are both lawful and effective in eliminating sweatshops remains steadfast and we will continue our membership in the Fair Labor Association, which has been promoting safe and healthy production and labor practices for many years.”

University attorney David Larry said that though the FLA and DSP have very similar goals, the university’s legal staff fear the DSP may violate anti trust laws.

The DSP’s Business Review Letter, a letter from the Department of Justice, verifying a program or organization’s compliance with anti-trust laws, has been revoked. He said the university supports the DSP’s basic principals but would rather take a conservative stance when there is the risk of anti-trust liability. For more information about the FLA, visit fairlabor.org.

Schweig said the group did not feel the FLA was an adequate safeguard for guaranteeing that all university apparel was made under reasonable working conditions.

Group members argued that the university is being too conservative in their legal justifications for rejecting the DSP. They claim the reason the DSP’s Business Review Letter was revoked was because of an insensitive presidential administration and corruption within the Department of Justice.

Friday evening, the group was told that they were no longer allowed to assemble for similar reasons as any building on campus.

Group member Matthew Cronheim said they interpret that to mean that they are allowed to assemble in outdoor areas and will be planning further demonstrations.