Labor Licensing Policy Committee: A Recommendation to the Chancellor

Today, the committee was joined by Vince Sweeney, the Vice Chancellor for University Relations, and Scott Nova, the Executive Director of the Workers’ Rights Consortium to finalize how the committee can advise the university about adidas’ labor rights violations.

Another notable community member was Jonathan Rosenblum from the Committee on Sweatfree Purchases who was present to recruit a student representative to sit on the Committee on Sweatfree Purchases.  Turns out, Rosenblum was one of the original writers of the Collegiate Licensing Company’s Code of Conduct.

After Sweeney conveyed Chancellor Ward’s sympathy about the adidas case and stated that financial issues will not be the basis of any judgment, a long discussion on identifying who should be responsible for paying the stolen legally mandated severance pay from the Indonesian workers ensued.

Though the committee does not know the exact amount of adidas’ share of output, it is clear that adidas’ did have a large share of the factory’s production.  Out of the three main buyers, adidas has been the only one who out-rightly refused to pay any financial remediation.

These workers are still owed $1.8 million dollars.  They have been out of work for a year come January 2012.  And today, the committee unanimously voted to recommend the chancellor to give adidas ninety (90) days to remediate the the violations of our code of conduct.  If they fail within that 90 days upon the written recommendation from Chancellor Ward to make the 2,800 workers in Indonesia whole again, the committee, chancellor, and all relative parties will work closely together on identifying the proper course of action.

You can read more insight from Chancellor Ward on the University of Wisconsin-Madison’s news updates.