“We do not want to be in the sweatshop product business as a bookstore. None of us want to be in this business of promoting sweatshops or selling sweatshop materials.”
– Linda Hausladen, licensing manager for the UWM Bookstore

Several universities across the nation have recently been found to sell logo apparel made in sweatshops, but the University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee is not on that list.

Among the schools carrying such apparel are Duke University, the University of Michigan, Penn State, Bowling Green State University, the University of California-Berkley, Indiana University and Oregon State University.

Some of the officially licensed apparel sold in campus stores and bearing the university logo of these institutions has been manufactured in garment factories with inhumane and unfair working conditions.

Linda Hausladen, licensing manager for the UWM Bookstore, said that UWM is definitely not among those on that list.

Hausladen said that UWM is a member of both the Fair Labor Association and the Worker’s Rights Consortium, both of which are non-profit organizations dedicated to investigating and ending illegal and inhumane working conditions in the garment industry.

The association and the consortium employ both announced and unannounced inspections of garment factories to help expose and prevent abusive working conditions.

Hausladen said the university has joined these organizations in order to comply with UWM policy, and also because many bookstore officials have strong personal convictions about sweatshop labor.

“We do not want to be in the sweatshop product business as a bookstore,” Hausladen said. “None of us want to be in this business of promoting sweatshops or selling sweatshop materials.”

UWM is also a client of a company called the Licensing Resource Group. Hausladen said that the licensing group makes sure the apparel being sold at the UWM Bookstore, Panther Bookstore or any other area retailers has been properly licensed and is sweatshop free.

Hausladen said that to become licensed, a company must pay royalties for the use of the UWM logo and they must also disclose the locations of their garment factories, which opens them up to policing.

“When a person applies to be a licensed vendor through LRG and therefore possibly a licensed vendor for us, they have to disclose where all of their product comes from, actually, what shop makes it,” she said. “That’s part of the application process, and if you don’t do that, you can’t get a license.”

Even though many pieces of clothing currently sold in the UWM Bookstore are made in many foreign countries often associated with sweatshop labor, Hausladen said she remains confident that the garments are sweatshop free.

“(LRG comes) into our store at least twice or three times a year and literally goes through and look at the labels,” Hausladen said.

However the system isn’t perfect. Hausladen said four years ago articles of licensed UWM apparel produced in sweatshops were found on the shelves of the UWM Bookstore.

“We did find some stuff that was not sweatshop free,” Hausladen said. “We no longer do business with those vendors. Basically, if we find a vendor who is not playing the rules properly, we no longer buy from them. That’s what the rules are.”

Hausladen said the focus must be put on fixing these inherent flaws.

“Could there be holes in the system? It’s very possible,” Hausladen said. “There are holes in almost every system there is, but the important thing is to look for them and plug them up.”

Hausladen said the issue of sweatshop labor is one that concerns college store officials at universities across the nation.

“The college store industry has done a lot of things to try to police itself, and we have supported that,” she said.

Many other schools are members of the association and the consortium, as can be seen on their respective lists of affiliate schools posted on each organization’s Web site. However many other UW institutions were absent from these lists. UWM is joined in the association by only UW-Oshkosh.

UW-La Crosse, UW-Madison and UW-Stevens Point are the only UW schools affiliated with the consortium. That makes UWM the only UW school to be a member of both organizations.

Hausladen said she thinks it takes more than organizations and licensing companies to fight sweatshop labor.

“I think we need to always be vigilant,” Hausladen said. “I think the whole issue of where our products come from, as consumers and as members of the largest consumer (society) in the global economy, I think every individual needs to always be vigilant, and that includes every institution and every manufacturer.”

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