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The Sweat-Free Campus Campaign is a multi-faceted, extremely successful program in which students organize anti-sweatshop campaigns on their campuses, mandating that the clothes bearing their collegiate logos be manufactured under fair and ethical conditions. Through our work first on collegiate codes of conduct and obtaining factory disclosure information, to our ongoing work to affiliate schools with the Worker Rights Consortium (an independent monitoring agency charged with investigating factory conditions in collegiate apparel producing facilities), we are able to exert continuous pressure on administrations and corporations, resulting in significant and concrete victories supporting the mainly young women of color who are fighting for fair working conditions around the world. The Sweat-Free Campus Campaign has recently taken on a new challenge, seeking to require the brands producing university goods to source from factories that either have democratic unions, or have made a concrete commitment to ensuring neutrality in the face of organizing drives, and pay a living wage. In addition, students are now requiring that, instead of making empty promises concerning a respect for the rights of workers, that these brands pay enough for their goods that it is actually possible for workers to bargain for living wages and humane working conditions. In 2005, USAS launched an ambitious new campaign called the Designated Suppliers Program that will vastly strengthen the power of the campus anti-sweatshop movement. Under the new proposal, university apparel companies will be forced to produce garments in truly sweat-free factories where workers have a voice on the job and the power to win livable wages. As of now, 45 major universities have already signed on to this proposal, with many more to come. If you would like to get involved in this exciting campaign to support the organizing of workers on the ground then please send an email to
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The Problem? Though universities have adopted anti-sweatshop policies, the reality is that university apparel is still made under sweatshop conditions in factories around the world.
- Sweatshop conditions and poverty wages: Workers making university apparel face abusive treatment, excessive working hours, dangerous conditions, and wages that are inadequate to meet basic needs.
- Illegal repression: When workers organize and demand improvements, they are subject to threats, harassment, illegal firings, and the closure of their factories.
- The race to the bottom: As multinational brands scan the globe for the cheapest products, supplier factories face tremendous pressure to keep costs to a bare minimum. In this reality, workers and their unions have little hope of winning the wages and conditions they need.
The Solution! University apparel should be made in designated sweat-free factories, where workers have a voice on the job to stop sweatshop abuses and earn a living wage.
- A voice on the job: The best way to eliminate sweatshops is for workers to have the power to advocate for their interests on a daily basis through the collective voice of a union. University products must be made in factories where workers have this voice to eliminate sweatshop abuses.
- A living wage: The prices paid by U.S. clothing companies are simply too low for factories to pay workers enough to meet their basic needs. In order for workers to earn the income they need, we must require brands to pay the designated factories prices high enough to enable living wages.
- An alternative to the Wal-Mart model: Currently, most university apparel is produced in the same factories that produce for big box retailers like Wal-Mart, and under the sweatshop conditions that Wal-Mart has established as norms for the industry. We must create an alternative model -- a race to the top -- in which university apparel is produced in factories that demonstrate respect for worker rights (not just low prices) and in which worker victories are sustained and protected.
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About the Campaign 
