One MSU student who’s worked tirelessly to rally for better working conditions at factories where MSU apparel is produced will now get to see firsthand what he has put his energy toward.
Along with 14 other people from across the country, Adam Szlachetka, a political economy senior, will leave today for Metepec, Mexico, to speak with striking workers who produce clothing for Nike, Inc. for several universities - including MSU.
“We’re going to try to make all the anti-sweatshop work we do more relevant to the workers,” he said. “I’m hoping mainly to make sure the work we are doing is actually accomplishing something.”
Szlachetka is a member of Students for Economic Justice, a student-led movement against unfair labor conditions and university involvement with companies tied with sweatshop involvement.
The campus group is a chapter of United Students Against Sweatshops, a national organization sponsoring the students’ trip.
The national group decided a month ago to sponsor a trip and sent out applications.
So Szlachetka applied.
“When we get there, we will talk about what we do, get more input and ideas,” he said.
“It will open up lines of communication.”
Workers producing collegiate apparel for Nike at the Kukdong Factory struck in January over a fight for an independent union.
Eric Brakken, the national organizer for United Students Against Sweatshops, said the traveling delegation will attend meetings with workers and visit with Kukdong Factory workers at their homes.
“I hope that two things come out of this trip,” Brakken said. “First, there will be time to be able to sit down and strategize the efforts to form an independent union. Second, it will allow us to take a step back and analyze how successful our solidarity efforts have been.”
Funding for the trip came from individual student fund-raising dollars, and from the United Students Against Sweatshops, Brakken said.
The sweatshop issue has become a hot topic at MSU during the past year, as SEJ has been pressuring the administration to cut affiliation with the university’s current labor-monitoring organization.
SEJ members say the Fair Labor Association is unfair, appointing factory workers to monitor factory conditions.
MSU President M. Peter McPherson has said he has some problems with the association - namely its lack of university input - but said he has no plans to withdraw MSU.
The association has also been accused of not disclosing factory locations, but MSU officials insist the Fair Labor Association does disclose location.
SEJ suggests the university join the Worker Rights Consortium, a newer labor-monitoring organization which appoints independent monitors to examine conditions at factories where apparel is produced.
McPherson has said he doesn’t believe factory officials should be excluded from labor-monitoring.
The five-day long trip will include students from universities all over the country, including University of Arizona and San Jose State University.
Dale Weaver, a San Jose State graduate student, is among those attending.
“I think it’s important for student activists doing this type of work to make connections with the workers on the ground,” Weaver said. “It’s really going to help contextualize the entire problem being able to speak to the workers that make the clothes - the faces behind the labels.”
Weaver has been an activist for more than two years, and said there has been enormous progress helping people become aware of the issue.
“People are becoming aware of the fact that for every shirt on a sale rack there is a human cost connected to that,” he said.
Rachel Wright can be reached at wrightr9@msu.edu.
