Sweatshop activists make statement at Beinecke

Beinecke Plaza, located smack in the center of the Yale campus, looks like a shanty-town these days. That's because Students Against Sweatshops (SAS) has parked itself and its "monument" outside of Yale President Richard Levin's, GRD '74, office in Woodbridge Hall. They refuse to leave there until, according to Ari Holtzblatt, BK '00, "Levin sits down and listens to students and we come up with a lasting solution for how the University deals with labor conditions in the factories that make Yale apparel."

Since a 250-person rally was held at noon on Mon., Apr. 3, the sweatshop protesters have been guarding "the monument"—which is essentially three seven-foot boards leaning up against one another. Taped to the boards is information about SAS, about working conditions in factories, and brightly-colored pieces of paper with the names of the other universities that have joined the Workers' Rights Consortium (WRC), a new monitoring group that SAS would like Yale to join. Twenty to 30 SAS members have even been sleeping by the monument every night.

CAYTE PUSHKAREVA/YH The protests of Students Against Sweatshops have finally earned the attention of University President Richard Levin, GRD '74.

The point of camping out by the monument, a pseudo sit-in, is to get Yale to join the WRC—a non-governmental and non-corporate monitoring system whose founding conference is taking place this weekend—and to dissociate itself from the Fair Labor Association (FLA), which Yale currently belongs to. "There are good reasons to doubt that [the FLA] will be effective unless several key reforms are made, including greater transparency and a monitoring system more independent of manufacturer influence," SAS wrote on a handout distributed at the rally.

But why not hold a real sit-in as students at the University of Pennsylvania did in February? Well, according to SAS member Stephen Osserman, DC '02, "When the sit-in at UPenn occurred, Levin immediately issued a statement saying that he would arrest Yalies if we did the same thing." Osserman added, "Arrests are useful for getting publicity, but that's not what we need at this point. We want to discuss the issues. If we get arrested, we are forced to leave, and then the focus is on our arrest and not on how to improve sweatshop conditions or how to create a long-term strategy for dealing with the issue."

SAS believes that making itself a persistent fixture in Beinecke is working well. "We're not only educating the campus by being here and answering questions, we're also getting more attention from Levin than we've ever gotten before," Osserman said. Levin, who did not respond to repeated phone calls and emails wrote SAS a letter on Tues., Apr. 4, in which he invited the entire Yale community to an open meeting on Wed., Apr. 12. He also suggested "the University send a representative to the founding meeting of the WRC." But SAS member Ty Hudson, BK '01, said that the suggestion is impossible, because it's a "working meeting to set up the principles of the organization and not an informational meeting." He also emphasized that the WRC and SAS are two separate organizations and SAS has no power to change the rules of the conference.

On Thurs., Apr. 6, after SAS dropped over 400 cards into his office that read, "Meet with Us," Levin did, indeed, step outside to greet SAS, according to Osserman. "But he was only willing to talk to us for about two minutes at that point, and those were not the proper conditions for a rational discussion to occur," Osserman said. "It's really important for Levin and us to understand one another through a deliberative process. It was impossible for that to occur when we only had two minutes for each side to present an oversimplified view of its beliefs." Levin did, however, agree to meet with SAS on Fri., Apr. 7 at 9 a.m, Osserman said.

Assuming that this meeting does, in fact, occur, SAS plans to discuss three main issues. These are: the WRC, the FLA, and the establishment of a committee that would allow student and faculty voices to be heard in future discussions about Yale's sweatshop policy.

Despite Levin's statement in his letter that "no single group should occupy a public space indefinitely," SAS is going to keep camping out until they're sure that Levin is seriously listening to their voices. SAS member Katie Kline, BK '03, said, "We're here to make our point and will remain a presence. We were here when it was raining and cold. We'll be here when it's sunny."

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