UC Workers Protest Uniforms With Fire

Unionized UC workers burned uniform labels outside Crossroads Dining Commons yesterday during a protest against what they said is the university's practice of purchasing employee uniforms made in sweatshops.

University workers lit hundreds of clothing labels from employee uniforms on fire in a barbeque.

"It's a symbolic burning of tags," said Doug Kandt, organizer of the American Federation of State, County and Municipal Employees Local 3299, a union representing more than 7,000 university workers. "The issue is that we want the university to commit to nonsweatshop labor."

Workers said the employee uniforms they wear for their work as food servers and custodians come from countries such as Vietnam and Mexico, where companies manufacture them using underpaid sweatshop laborers.

"Many of us are from countries where these sweatshops exist," Abel Salas, a groundskeeper at UC Berkeley, said in a statement. "We don't want to wear uniforms made in sweatshops."

In January 2000, UC adopted a Code of Conduct prohibiting manufacturers who use UC's logo on their products from using child labor and requiring them to maintain reasonable working hours and a safe working environment.

However, the code does not mention UC workers' uniforms.

"UC just doesn't get it," said Chris Niedt, a union supporter who spoke at the protest. "When it comes to fair wages they don't get it, when it comes to benefits they don't get it, and now when it comes to the Code of Conduct they don't get it."

UC spokesperson Noel Van Nyhuis said though the university does have an interest in prohibiting the use of clothing made by forced, convict or indentured labor, as outlined in the code, the debate over uniforms is not a part of the university's contract with unions.

"That is not a subject for bargaining and they know that," he said. "They are just trying to garner our attention."

The university and union have been in negotiations over some 40 sticking points in the union's contract, forcing the two parties to call in a third-party mediator Jan. 18 in an effort to move past an impasse in contract talks.

Van Nyhuis said the university has offered to meet with union representatives regarding the uniform issue outside of contract talks, but the union has yet to take the offer.

Still, union officials said the protest was about more than just sweatshop labor.

"This is not just a fight about clothes made in sweatshops," said Paul Worthman, chief negotiator for the union. "This is a fight about respect for workers here, in the rest of the country and in the rest of the world."

Worthman said by purchasing products made in sweatshops, the university disrespects not just the workers abroad, but UC workers as well.

"This is just the beginning of a fight for a fair contract," he said.

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