Yesterday, student groups affiliated with United Students against Sweatshops (USAS) at 40 schools, including Grand Valley State University (GVSU), held a series of coordinated actions to announce USAS’s new “sweat-free campus” campaign. Students at GVSU hosted a “sweatshop fashion show” and delivered a letter to President Mark Murray’s personal assistant in advance of a meeting that they will have with the administration in the future. Students at other schools held a variety of actions including a mock sweatshop at University of Michigan and a march at Colombia.

USAS launched the “sweat-free” campaign in response to the continuing production of university apparel in sweatshops. While 144 universities (including GVSU) signed on to the Worker Rights Consortium (WRC) over the past five years in order to provide basic codes of conduct for suppliers, students contend that the code needs to be strengthened. Students are demanding that universities source apparel from “sweat-free” factories that allow workers to organize and pay workers a living wage. If universities agree to the demands a list of “sweat-free” factories would be provided to universities by the WRC and universities would be expected to gradually shift towards having 100% of university licensed apparel produced in “sweat-free” factories.

Later that night at GVSU, Amnesty International and Students against Sweatshops GVSU (SAS-GVSU), hosted Jim Keady and Leslie Kretzu of Educating for Justice who gave a lecture titled “Behind the Swoosh” on Nike’s use of sweatshops. Following the lecture SAS-GVSU gave a brief presentation on the new campaign and explained how people can get involved.