As America's political pendulum slowly swings back in a progressive direction, lots of unfinished business is lately returning to the agendas of progressive activists--including and especially student activists. In particular, the student anti-sweatshop movement, which went into virtual limbo in late 2001, is lately gathering fresh new momentum on America's college campuses--including and especially the Seattle campus of the University of Washington. In recent months the UW chapter of the Student Labor Action Project (SLAP) has been campaigning to convince the UW administration to once again seriously address the unfinished business of making the UW a "sweat-free" university. SLAP's ultimate goal is to eliminate the use of sweatshop labor in the production of UW licensed apparel by convincing UW President Mark Emmert to adopt an agreement that would provide a living wage for garment workers who produce clothing bearing the Husky and UW logos.

The heart of SLAP's campaign is the Designated Suppliers Program (DSP), a licensing mechanism recently created by sweatshop watchdog group the Worker Rights Consortium (WRC). Colleges and universities that have chosen to adopt the DSP must source at least 75 percent of their officially licensed apparel from specific factories that pay employees a living wage and respect the right of workers to unionize. The DSP also rewards such factories with long-term, stable contracts with participating schools. Many of the 30 schools already participating in the DSP--such as Columbia, Cornell, Duke and the University of California system--have agreed to absorb the potential added costs of paying a living wage, which, according to SLAP, would amount to an increase in retail prices of no more than six percent (or, for example, no more than $1.50 extra for a $25 Husky sweatshirt). After three years of commitment to the DSP, participating schools would then have the opportunity to choose to source 100 percent of their apparel from these sweat-free factories.

SLAP has devoted most of the past school year to the task of generating popular support on the UW campus among students, staff, faculty and other community members to convince the UW to adopt the DSP, primarily by means of a petition drive, both online and on campus. While such popular support is growing steadily on campus as a result of SLAP's efforts--as of April 23, they've gathered almost 1,000 signatures in support of the DSP--the current UW administration, predictably and disappointingly, has so far engaged in the same sort of stalling tactics that kept the UW from becoming sweat-free when UW students first organized around the sweatshop cause during the 1999-2000 and 2000-2001 school years.

Last November, in strategic response to SLAP's campaign, the UW administration reactivated its long-dormant Licensing Advisory Committee (LAC) to evaluate adoption of the DSP. The LAC was created in the summer of 2000 after several months of intensive campaigning by Washington Students Against Sweatshops (WSAS), a group first formed in October 1999 that coalesced in early 2000 during a surge of student activism at the UW in the wake of the success of the WTO protests. Despite SLAP's many requests for weekly LAC meetings, so far the revived committee has met only twice. As things currently stand, SLAP has given the LAC a deadline of April 27 to make a non-binding recommendation to President Emmert regarding adoption of the DSP.

Along with the UW, other major universities nationwide are also lately becoming hotbeds of anti-sweatshop activism at levels unseen since 2001. Already this month, two high-profile student anti-sweatshop actions have been met with stern resistance, including arrests and threats of suspension, from school administrators--and have received national media attention as a result. At the University of Michigan on April 3, twelve members of Students Organizing for Labor and Economic Equality (SOLE) peacefully occupied the office of UM President Mary Sue Coleman to demand that UM adopt the DSP. At the end of the day these students were arrested and then released without charges--but also without a victory. (Since then, Coleman has relented somewhat and agreed to a direct meeting with SOLE to discuss the merits of the DSP, scheduled for April 20.)

A similar event occurred on April 10 at the University of Southern California, where thirteen members of the Student Coalition Against Labor Exploitation (SCALE) occupied the office of USC President Steven Sample to demand that USC at long last affiliate with the WRC and also adopt the DSP. Rather than meeting with SCALE (or even simply arresting then releasing them), the USC administration chose instead to play hardball, threatening the students who participated in the sit-in with suspension, locking their legal counsel out of the sit-in, and demanding as punishment that they move out of university housing by 9 a.m. the next morning.

Making the UW sweat-free is indeed unfinished business--and it's been so for seven long years now. Aiming towards that goal throughout the year 2000, WSAS worked dedicatedly to convince the UW to join the WRC, including staging a week-long campout in front of the UW administration building in May 2000 and drafting a pro-WRC ballot measure for the UW student government that same month, which was approved by 68 percent of voting students. While the UW eventually relented, joining the WRC in February 2001, WSAS and many of their supporters in the UW community were soon dismayed to learn that, during the very same time frame that Richard McCormick, then UW president, repeatedly assured WSAS that he recognized the anti-sweatshop mandate on campus, he and Barbara Hedges, then the UW's athletic director, were negotiating behind closed doors with the Nike Corporation to give Nike the exclusive rights to produce Husky logo apparel--thus assuring that, given Nike's noted role in the perpetuation of the global sweatshop economy, the UW's membership in the WRC would be a moot point in terms of preventing Husky apparel from being produced in sweatshops.

(The controversial deal, made public in April 2001, also allowed Nike to redesign the Husky logo with minimal input from UW students or alumni--thus explaining the current logo's uncannily "swooshy" form, still derogatorily dubbed "The Weasel" by many in the UW community.)

The current UW administration's manner of dealing with the sweatshop issue has been somewhat less frustrating for student activists than the McCormick administration's manner was back in the day. Most recently, on April 19, President Emmert sent a memo to the LAC co-chairs in which he affirmed that "[t]he University of Washington is an affiliate of the WRC and supports the principles and goals of the WRC mission" and opined that "[t]he underlying concepts of [the] DSP as proposed by [the] WRC are not ... inconsistent with these principles." Emmert thus showed rhetorical sympathy for the goal of a sweat-free UW. Nevertheless, until he backs up such rhetoric with his executive decision-making power by adopting the DSP--thus honoring a campus mandate that well precedes his presidency--the goal of a sweat-free UW remains, very profoundly, unfinished business.

In the meantime, SLAP has scheduled a rally on the UW campus for April 27, the day of their deadline for the LAC's recommendation to Emmert. That day happens to coincide with the beginning of "Washington Weekend," a self-congratulatory festival of sorts during which UW freshmen, parents and alumni will tour the UW campus. To remind the UW community on that day that there are certain things the UW should not be quite so proud of--such as its continuing complicity in sweatshop labor--SLAP will be joining a barbeque the UW administration has planned as part of Washington Weekend, where none other than Mark Emmert will reportedly be flipping hamburgers, allegedly to demonstrate "worker appreciation."

Whether or not the hamburgers will be as delicious as the irony involved in such a show of "worker appreciation" remains to be seen. Progressive UW community members are hereby encouraged to attend SLAP's rally to find out for themselves.

To learn more about UW SLAP and to sign their online petition in support of a sweat-free UW, visit http://students.washington.edu/uwslap/.