WORKERS RIGHTS CONSORTIUM

SOURCE: Workers Rights Consortium Website - http://www.workersrights.org/

What is the Workers Rights Consortium (WRC)?
The Workers Rights Consortium’s mission is to assist colleges and universities with the effective enforcement of their manufacturing codes of conduct. WRC affiliate schools receive accurate, thorough, timely and impartial assessments of conditions in factories that produce collegiate apparel, with specific reference to whether factories are in compliance with universities' codes of conduct. WRC factory reports are more detailed and more thorough than the information presently being produced by any other factory monitoring organization. Where problems are identified, the WRC works with licensees, factory managers, workers and worker advocates to eliminate violations and move the factory toward compliance. Often, this occurs without any need for direct engagement by universities, though such participation is always welcome and universities can use the detailed information contained in WRC reports as a basis for communicating concerns to licensees. The WRC also provides a means for colleges and universities that so desire to work together with other schools to address problems with a particular licensee or factory. Affiliate colleges and universities also have the opportunity to help shape WRC policies and practices through participation in the organization's governing bodies.

The WRC serves as an information and education resource on issues and trends in the global apparel industry. The WRC has extensive information on economic and legal issues in apparel producing countries which is available to be shared with affiliate schools and universities can consult with the WRC staff and the organization's international network of advisors on any issues of interest or concern. The WRC can also help arrange internships abroad for students with an interest in human rights work in a particular country.
More broadly, through participating in the WRC a university sends a strong message to all concerned parties – students, faculty, licensees and others – that the university is committed to effective code enforcement and to ensuring that the university's licensing operations have a positive impact in the factories where logo goods are produced.

More information about the WRC can be found at: http://www.workersrights.org/

When did John Carroll University become an affiliate of the WRC?
In Fall 2006, students from the student organization JUSTICE initiated meetings with officials from JCU’s business office to discuss becoming an affiliate of the WRC.  The group also sent a direct appeal to JCU President, Fr. Robert Niehoff, S.J., who was quick to act calling for the university’s immediate affiliation with the WRC.

What is required of JCU as an affiliate of the WRC?
Affiliates are required to:

• Adopt a manufacturing code of conduct and work toward the incorporation of this code into applicable contracts with licensees.
• Ask licensees to provide the WRC with a list, updated regularly, of names and locations of all factories involved in the production of their logo goods.
• Pay annual affiliations fees, which are either $1,500 or 1% of gross licensing revenues, whichever is greater.

How do schools obtain lists of factory information? Is it difficult for schools without licensing programs to find this information?
Affiliate schools require that their licensees or apparel vendors provide them with lists of factories where their logo goods are produced. These lists are updated and reported to the WRC on a quarterly basis. Universities that work through either the Collegiate Licensing Company (CLC) or Licensing Resource Group (LRG) generally authorize these organizations to report the relevant factory disclosure directly to the WRC, which simplifies the process for both the schools and the WRC. Schools that license independently provide the data directly, after collecting it from licensees. Licensees that do any significant amount of collegiate business and that have licenses or vendor relationships with more than a few schools are in most cases already collecting and supply this data because they are working with one or more schools that are already members of the WRC or the Fair Labor Association (FLA). Thus, for the great majority of licensees, and for many vendors, the decision of a college or university business partner to ask for disclosure does not generate a significant additional burden.
Some smaller colleges and universities that do not license their logos have found it burdensome to collect the necessary information from their individual vendors. The WRC has offered to work with smaller schools to provide assistance in collecting disclosure data. In practice, the resulting gaps in information do not affect the WRC's ability to help enforce the Codes of these smaller schools because of the significant, if not complete overlap between the companies that produce logo goods for small and large institutions. In other words, disclosure by a significant number of larger universities, combined with a good faith effort on the part of smaller schools to provide updated vendor information, generates a practically complete list of factories where university logo goods are manufactured for all schools.

How can JCU work with the WRC now that they are an affiliate?
There are four primary ways affiliate schools participate in the work of the WRC:

• Taking an active role in working with licensees to correct code of conduct violations when they are identified.
  • Serving on the WRC Governing Board. The University Administrative Caucus – a body comprised of representatives of the administrations of every WRC affiliate school – appoints five representatives to the WRC Board.
  • Getting involved in the University Caucus. The Caucus enables university administrations to work collectively to ensure that their views are reflected in WRC policy.
  • Consulting informally with the WRC staff and board. The WRC very much welcomes ongoing dialogue with college and university affiliates. School officials are invited to contact the Executive Director and/or members of the board regularly to make suggestions, raise concerns, discuss issues, etc.