Students strip over sweatshops

A rally for labor rights on College Green drew student protesters. It had all the workings of a normal fashion show: models, an announcer and a crowd eager to see the latest apparel. But this was not your usual saunter down the catwalk. In a rally on College Green yesterday, students gathered to protest conditions in sweatshop factories. A series of speakers was followed by a "reverse fashion show" in which several students, male and female alike -- wearing clothes made by companies that activists claim use sweatshops, including Nike and the Gap -- took off articles of clothing as a demonstration against the deplorable and inhuman conditions to which they say workers are subjected. A group of students gathered around the Button for the rally, and many others stopped by on their way down Locust Walk. College freshman Anna Roberts -- a member of United Students Against Sweatshops, which organized the event -- said the group hoped the rally would be entertaining yet educational. The main issue students were protesting is Penn's reluctance to force the companies that produce school-logo apparel to release the locations of their factories. Penn remains one of only three Ivy League schools which have not taken any steps to do so. "We won't stop until the administration cleans up its act," said College sophomore Harrison Blum, another organizer of the event. Blum riled up the crowd by asking them to chant: "What do we want? Justice. When do we want it? Now." While students held signs of protest that read messages such as "Living Wage for Everyone," Haryanto, a former Nike employee in Indonesia and labor rights activist, spoke of his experience in a sweatshop. "Do it justice, Nike," he told a cheering crowd. At the protest, students criticized the Fair Labor Association -- the current monitoring agency of garment and other factories -- saying it is not doing enough to protect workers. Penn's USAS chapter is part of a national network of students at over 100 colleges and universities across the country who came together in the past two years to protest labor conditions at factories where official school apparel is produced. Students at six universities last spring held sit-ins in support of full public disclosure. All the universities involved responded by pressuring the manufacturing companies to disclose their information by a certain date. Last week, after months of pressure, Nike released a partial list of its manufacturing locations to five universities. Other speakers at the rally included Penn Women's Center Director Elena DiLapi, labor union representative Charles Murphy, Hillel Director Jeremy Brochin and Lai Har Cheung, a member of Asian Americans United. DiLapi described her experience walking through a silk manufacturing plant in China where the conditions were horrifying. Chung, whose parents worked in sweatshops, urged students to be aggressive. "Don't think you have no power," she said. "You have consumer power." College freshman Aimee Derbes, who attended the rally, said she was especially moved by Chung's speech because it showed that the conditions for sweatshop labor are no better in the U.S. than they are abroad. Roberts thought the event was, above all, a success. "People got the message," she said. "There was a good diversity of speakers who reiterated the demands we wanted."