In eight day of protest, group remains defiant

Members of USAS spent the weekend in College Hall. They are planning a humger strike for today. Pushing into day eight of their highly publicized sit-in, United Students Against Sweatshops spent the weekend protesting in College Hall but has yet to reach an agreement with the administration. Approximately 20 students met with University President Judith Rodin on Friday morning to discuss the group's demand that the University withdraw from the Fair Labor Association -- which currently monitors the manufacture of Penn-logo apparel -- and join the Worker Rights Consortium. The group maintains that the FLA is ineffective and biased because it is tied to the industry it is supposed to monitor, while the WRC is more humane since it is run by human rights organizations. USAS members, who began the sit-in a week ago, said that while they thought progress had been made at the meeting, they would not leave College Hall until the University agreed to their oft repeated request to join the WRC. USAS members said they were pleased with their interaction with Rodin, who has criticized the student protest several times over the past week. "In our meeting with her she made a bunch of concessions," College junior and USAS member Nati Passow said. But he added that joining the WRC was still "her decision to make." Rodin told the students she had been reviewing materials supplied to her about the WRC and had spoken to officials from the four schools currently using the monitoring organization. But Rodin did not yet make any offers to the students, beyond noting the existence of the ad hoc committee to investigate the issue. Formed last month, the committee is scheduled to report to Rodin by February 29. The ad hoc committee met for the second time on Friday and released a statement saying it would direct its efforts toward reviewing the codes of conduct for university-logo apparel at other colleges. Chair of the ad hoc committee Howard Kunreuther, an Operations and Information Management professor, said that it was unclear whether the group would develop a proposal for a new code of conduct for Penn-logo clothing manufacturers. USAS held a rally on Friday at noon to generate support for the sit-in and their cause, attracting over 50 students to the steps of College Hall and inciting chants of "workers' rights we demand" among the crowd. The group will fast in support of their cause today. USAS will be joined in this endeavor by activists from schools and organizations across the country. With those attending the rally wearing white stickers proclaiming their support of USAS, the students who spent last week living in College Hall rallied the crowd to help pressure the University to pull out of the FLA and join the WRC. The largest cries of support seemed to come when USAS members announced the reinstatement of 30 workers fired for trying to unionize in El Salvador. According to College freshman and USAS member Anna Roberts, a human rights organization called the National Labor Committee told Liz Claiborne -- who owns the factory the workers were dismissed from -- that if the workers were not reinstated, the students conducting the sit-in at Penn would be contacted to launch a national publicity campaign against the company. "It was the sit-in at the University of Pennsylvania, and the student movement, which finally pushed this over the top and led to the breakthrough of successful negotiations," said Charlie Kernaghan, head of the NLC, in a statement. The group also reported the results of their meeting with Rodin. "She's definitely feeling the pressure," Roberts said. "I think she is taking the issue a lot more seriously." During the meeting Rodin encouraged the students to participate in the ad hoc committee, according to her director of external affairs, Jennifer Baldino. There are already three USAS members on the committee, and she offered to add more, Baldino said. "I look forward to the response of USAS to these suggestions," Rodin said in a statement. But Passow said that he disagreed with Rodin's continued statement that she would wait until the ad hoc committee provided her with a recommendation to make a final decision about withdrawing from the FLA. "I don't think it is an effective way to do this," he said. "While there are a lot of people involved, it just ends up taking time. All they can do is recommend to her." "It continues to be clear that she's the one who has the power to make a decision," Roberts added.

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