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17 schools charged the Fair Labor Association with checking factories. Penn joined 17 colleges and universities Monday -- including all seven other members of the Ivy League -- in announcing that it will join the Fair Labor Association, a group of apparel companies and human rights organizations designed to ensure that college-logo apparel is not produced in sweatshops. The announcement follows months of high-profile student protests on campuses across the country demanding that school administrators create codes of conduct which guarantee that school-logo products are not made in sweatshops. FLA code of conduct provisions include prohibitions against child labor, forced labor, discrimination and unsafe working conditions, but many students and human rights groups have criticized it for being a weak institution with a fallible factory monitoring system. The requirements do not include disclosure of factory locations, which has been a key demand of many student groups. The FLA intends to monitor factories in developing countries to ensure compliance with its code of conduct. It is the successor to the Apparel Industry Partnership, a group of apparel makers and labor, religious and human rights organizations formed by the White House in 1996 and will be formally established as a non-profit corporation later this year with a representative of the universities sitting on its board. But all of the labor and religious groups have withdrawn from the AIP in recent years after charging that it was not interested enough in forcefully combatting sweatshop use, leaving private companies and only four human rights groups to develop the code of conduct. The small number of involved human rights groups has sparked concerns that the private companies are making rules on their own. In joining the FLA, all universities will require their licensees to follow the FLA code of conduct at least for producing logo apparel. But some universities may not demand that their licensees stop using sweatshops to produce the companies' non-university goods. Penn's intentions remain unclear at this point. Louis Berneman, managing director of the University's Center for Technology Transfer, the office responsible for licensing Penn's logo, said the University's decision to join other schools in the FLA will give it more "leverage" in forcing clothing suppliers to follow a code of conduct. Seventeen schools "represent enough purchasing power to move our agenda," he said. And University President Judith Rodin said through a spokesperson that she was pleased with Penn's decision to join the FLA in conjunction with other colleges and universities. "Penn takes this issue very seriously and welcomes the opportunity to join the Fair Labor Association with our peer institutions," Director of External Affairs Jennifer Baldino said. National Labor Committee Executive Director Charles Kernagahn was far less enthusiastic about the Fair Labor Association and the 17 universities' decision to join it. "I think it's a terrible agreement," said Kernagahn, whose human rights and labor organization has been instrumental in allegations surrounding a number of high-profile sweatshop incidents. Kernagahn said the FLA's code of conduct doesn't include provisions for a "living wage" or universal respect for human rights, but instead includes a "weak" monitoring system and could allow for monitoring only five percent of members' factories each year. All FLA factory monitors are required to have knowledge of local conditions, speak the local language and have ongoing relations with local human rights and religious groups. They will have to be accredited every two years by the FLA. "I think it will do almost nothing to improve conditions" for workers, Kernagahn said, adding that "the factories are like prison camps," with barbed wire fences, cinder block walls and heavily armed guards to keep watch over workers. But Michael Posner, executive director of the Lawyers Committee for Human Rights -- one of the four human rights organizations in the FLA -- defended the association's efforts and goals. Trying to change every aspect of labor policy worldwide would be impossible, he said, so making some improvements is better than none. In response to charges made by student and labor groups that the FLA's factory monitoring program will be ineffective, Posner said, "I don't think there is one way that's going to be the answer for this." Kernagahn said he was concerned that auditing firms and other groups without human rights experience would be allowed to monitor factories for apparel makers. But Posner explained that while apparel companies will be able to select which monitors visit each of their factories, they will have to choose from among those accredited by the FLA. "The cost of [monitoring] is being borne substantially by the companies," he noted. Reports detailing each company's level of compliance with FLA rules will be issued annually, Posner added, and third parties can bring complaints against factories. Complaints by outside groups will be investigated and a report immediately issued to the group. Kernagahn of the NLC said students at a number of colleges and universities told him that they felt the "schools went behind their backs" by joining the FLA and that they were "pretty much blindsided" by Monday's announcement. Most student activists at Ivy universities said they were glad their administrations are taking an active role in the sweatshop issue by joining the FLA, but were quick to point out the weaknesses of the organization. The students strongly urged their universities to take the issue a step further and include provisions such as a "living wage" and stronger factory monitoring in their own codes of conduct. Penn College junior Miriam Joffe-Block, a member of the Progressive Activist Network, said she is "happy to see the administration is addressing the sweatshop issue," but stressed that there are "just so many loopholes" in the FLA's code of conduct. "Students never wanted to be part of the [FLA]," she added. And Jessica Champagne, a leader of an anti-sweatshop group at Yale University, said her organization "definitely has reservations about" Yale's decision to join the FLA. Harvard University spokesperson Alex Huppe said Harvard is "actively talking about" creating its own rules "going beyond [the FLA] agreement." Brown University spokesperson Mark Nickel called Brown's decision to join the FLA "a very significant step forward," noting that Brown is still committed to full disclosure of locations of factories where its products are made, a promise made last month by that university's president. The other colleges and universities joining the association are Florida State, Marymount, Rutgers, Smith, Tufts, Wellesley, the University of Arizona, Duke and Notre Dame.

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