The following resolution aims to hold UCSB licensees to higher standards for worker safety; the resolution requests that these standards be implemented in sufficient time to be in effect prior to the UCSB Bookstore’s purchasing of apparel in order to meet students’ demand for safe and responsible clothing for the fall term of 2015.
Please add your signature, via the link below, to support this resolution. Deadline to sign: Thursday, April 23, 2015.
Resolution Proposed by Dr. Richard Appelbaum
A Resolution Calling on the UCSB Academic Senate to Ask that the Chancellor Require UCSB Licensees that Sourced Apparel from Bangladesh, Prior to January 1, 2013, be Required to Sign the Bangladesh Accord on Fire and Building Safety
Whereas Bangladesh is the second largest apparel producer in the world, employing over three million workers in some 3,500 factories, virtually none of which currently meet basic safety standards, and
Whereas the failure to meet basic safety standards in Bangladesh’s apparel factories has resulted in fires and building collapses that have claimed more than 2,000 workers’ lives while injuring thousands more, and
Whereas the 2013 collapse of the Rana Plaza industrial building in Dhaka, which claimed 1,137 apparel workers’ lives while injuring 2,515 others – the worst apparel factory disaster in history – resulted in an historic agreement, the Bangladesh Accord on Fire and Building Safety (hereafter “Accord”), and
Whereas the Accord, signed by more than 190 apparel brands, retailers and importers from over 20 countries in Europe, North America, Asia and Australia, as well as two global trade unions, eight Bangladesh trade unions, and four NGO witnesses, legally obligates its signatory brands to ensure that sufficient funds are available to assure that their contract factories are brought up to international safety standards, and
Whereas a much weaker agreement, the Alliance for Bangladesh Worker Safety (hereafter “Alliance”), led by Gap and Walmart and signed by 26 companies, is neither legally binding nor obligates its signatories to assure that sufficient funds are made available for factory remediation, and
Whereas the UC Committee on the Code of Conduct for Trademark Licensees (hereafter UC Trademark Licensing Committee), which in spring 2014 was comprised of licensing directors/coordinators/bookstore managers from four UC campuses (Berkeley, Davis, Los Angeles, and Santa Cruz), as well as UC students, faculty, staff, and legal counsel, having reviewed in detail arguments in favor of both the Accord and the Alliance, unanimously recommended to the UC Office of the President that all UC trademark licensees be required to sign the Accord, and
Whereas the UC Office of the President, after considering the Committee recommendation for several months, in fall 2014 gave campus licensing directors the option of requiring their licensees to sign either the Accord or the Alliance (or both, if they so chose), thereby lowering the standard set by the unanimous vote of the UC Trademark Licensing Committee, and
Whereas UC Policy on Delegation of Authority (DA0864) says “Each Chancellor is delegated, within his area of jurisdiction, authority to permit use of campus names (e.g., University of California, Davis), and/or abbreviations (e.g., UCLA), or any other name of which said designations or abbreviations are a part” (http://policy.ucop.edu/_files/da/da0864.html), and
Whereas nearly two thousand students at UC Santa Barbara have called upon the Office of the Chancellor to require all trademark licensees and their subsidiaries that were deriving any apparel from Bangladesh as of January 1, 2013, to sign the Accord,
Therefore we, the undersigned UCSB faculty, call upon the Academic Senate to call on the Chancellor to require all UCSB trademark licensees, their subsidiaries, and their parent companies who derived apparel from Bangladesh before January 1, 2013, to sign the Bangladesh Accord on Fire and Building Safety, or face termination of their UCSB business. Furthermore, we request that the aforementioned requirement be implemented in sufficient time to be in effect prior to the UCSB Bookstore’s purchasing of apparel to meet students’ demand for safe and responsible clothing for the fall term of 2015.
Click here to add your signature.
UCSB Faculty Signatories:
Janet Afary, Mellichamp Chair, Religious Studies
Kevin Anderson, Sociology
Paul Amar, Global Studies
Richard Appelbaum, Research Professor and MacArthur Chair, Global Studies and Sociology
Ralph Armbruster-Sandoval, Chicano/a Studies
Marguerite Bouraad-Nash, Global Studies
Eileen Boris, Hull Professor Chair, Feminist Studies
Allison Brysk, Mellichamp Chair, Global Studies
Julie Carlson, English
Maria Charles, Chair, Sociology
Patricia Clancy, Emeritus, Linguistics
Raymond Clemencon, Global Studies, Sociology, Bren School of Environmental Science and Management
David Cleveland, Environmental Studies
Jon Cruz, Sociology
Michael Curtain, Mellichamp Chair, Film and Media Studies
Carla D’Antonio, Environmental Studies
Eve Darian-Smith, Chair, Global Studies
Tom Dunne, Bren School of Environmental Science and Management
Hilal Elver, Fellow, Orfalea Center for Global & International Studies
Richard Falk, Fellow, Orfalea Center for Global & International Studies
Sarah Fenstermaker, Emeritus, Sociology
Richard Flacks, Research Professor, Sociology
Claudio Fogu, French and Italian Studies
Avery Gordon, Sociology
Barbara Herr Harthorn, Anthropology, PI Center for Nanotechnology in Society
Mark Juergensmeyer, Global Studies
Suzanne Jill Levine, Spanish and Portuguese
Nelson Lichtenstein, History
Patrick McCray, History
Aashish Mehta, Global Studies
Jan Nederveen Pieterse, Mellichamp Chair, Global Studies
Constance Penley, Film and Media Studies, Co-Director Carsey-Wolf Center
Fabio Rambelli, Religious Studies, East Asian Languages and Studies
Geoffrey Raymond, Sociology
Russell Rumberger, Gevirtz Graduate School of Education
Denise Segura, Sociology and Chicano/a Studies
Elena Skapoulli-Raymond, Sociology
Eric R.A.N. Smith, Political Science
Jon Snyder, French and Italian Studies
Paul Sonnino, History
Paul Spickard, History
Allan Stewart-Oaten, Emeritus, Ecology, Evolution & Marine Biology
Cynthia Stohl, Communication
Michael Stohl, Communication; Director, Orfalea Center for Global & International Studies
Janet Walker, Chair, Film and Media Studies
Elisabeth Weber, Germanic and Slavic Studies
Howard Winant, Sociology