ASMSU joined part of an ongoing battle between students and administration officials Thursday when it passed a bill calling for MSU to join the Worker Rights Consortium, a nonprofit international group that monitors labor practices.

MSU's undergraduate student government requested the MSU Board of Trustees to allocate one percent of its profit from licensed apparel, up to $50,000, which is required to join the consortium.

The WRC would report on factory conditions overseas where some MSU apparel is manufactured to ensure fair labor practices.

Nine of the 11 Big Ten universities belong to the WRC, including 120 other colleges and universities across the country.

Lauren Olson, a representative for the College of Natural Science, introduced the bill to Student Assembly and said petitioning ASMSU to join the WRC was one of the major reasons she became a representative.

"We should be perpetuating the idea of fair labor as we go into the real world," she said. "This is to make sure our products are made fairly and not by slave laborers."

Students for Economic Justice, a group that supports fair labor practices and human rights, has been trying for almost five years to make administration officials join the WRC, said Maggie Ryan, a political theory senior and SEJ member.

Ryan said the group is currently working with other universities to learn how to influence MSU's administration to change its stance.

"It's very frustrating because it seems like right now there's no way to move forward," she said. "Basically it's like our administration is saying that they agree with sweatshops."

But MSU spokesman Terry Denbow said the university has never ruled out the possibility of joining the WRC and will continue to evaluate its options.

"We continue to evaluate and look on at a possibility to join with the WRC," he said. "We have decided that we would work towards reform results, and we thought that this was best approach to go."

Derek Wallbank, a representative for the Council for Students with Disabilities, and proponent of the bill, said if the university joined the WRC it would get a guarantee against unfair labor that is worth the money to join the WRC.

"This is not necessarily a new issue, but it's certainly one whose time has long since arrived," Wallbank said. "If the school to the south of us, that we don't like to talk about much, has joined this, why shouldn't we?"