It’s an unfortunate truth that few people stop to think about how clothes they’re wearing are made, or what a tag saying, “Made in Thailand” actually means. Most of us, myself included, swipe our debit cards without considering the labor and exploitation behind the shirts, shoes and hats we buy.
If someone pictures a sweatshop in their mind at all, it’s likely a vague factory overseas, far removed from our daily lives. The unavoidable truth, however, is that sweatshops are rampant throughout the fast-fashion industry, producing much of the clothing we wear and take for granted. As these factories churn out clothes at breakneck speed, they exploit workers through long hours and poverty wages, often at the expense of individuals’ health and lives.
After reading this, you may wonder: “Sure, sweatshops are inhumane, but what are we able to do about it here in America?” The truth is, there is nowhere better to fight against sweatshop abuses than right here in the United States, where massive corporations such as Nike sell us clothing made in inhumane conditions.
Nike is no stranger to controversy regarding sweatshop labor. The company faced massive backlash in the 1990s, causing controversy that brought the issue of sweatshops into the public eye. Since then, Nike has tried to clean up its public image but has denied factory workers hundreds of thousands of dollars in back pay. For example, workers at Hong Seng Knitting Co. in Bangkok, Thailand are still owed more than $900,000 in stolen wages.
Up until this year, Grand Valley State University was a member of the Worker Rights Consortium, an organization dedicated to ensuring relatively fair labor standards within factories producing collegiate apparel and merchandise. In January, GVSU officially ended its membership with the WRC, becoming the first school to leave the group in 15 years. The public learned of this decision just months after the University chose to sell Nike products in the Laker Store.
To be clear, I am not accusing GVSU of ending its WRC membership to sell Nike products, but it does show a troubling preference. The University appears more willing to align itself with Nike than with an organization that holds corporations accountable for exploiting workers. Administrators including Doug Wentworth, director of Auxiliary Services, have said the reason for leaving WRC was rising membership costs. Yet, it’s hard to believe this money couldn’t be found elsewhere, especially considering the ever-rising cost of tuition.
This leads to a familiar question many students ask each year: If tuition continues to rise, yet food insecurity at GVSU persists, parking continues to be a nightmare and administrators says they can’t afford membership in a labor-rights organization, then where is all our tuition money going?
