Word: laborer
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Dates: during 1990-1999
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Robert Rubin's been a lame duck for only one day -- could the economy be overheating already? Well, Thursday's round of economic reports from Washington certainly raised a few red flags. The Labor Department's Producer Price Index (PPI) rose 0.5 percent in April, up from March's rise of just 0.2 percent. And though retail sales for April rose only 0.1 percent, inflation hawks would have much preferred a drop -- considering that April was the ninth straight month that America's drunken-sailor consumers spent more than the month before. TIME senior economics reporter Bernard Baumohl says...
Since student groups such as the Progressive Students Labor Movement (PSLM) began protesting the University's possible links to companies which used sweatshop labor, there have been two major demands. The first was met two months ago, when the "Rally For Justice" produced a statement from the administration advocating full disclosure of the locations of factories that manufacture Harvard apparel...
...other demand, for an independent monitor to oversee clothing factories around the world, is more difficult. At first, the administration, along with those of other Ivy League schools, joined the Fair Labor Association (FLA), a group of universities organized by the White House to keep an eye on the companies they hired. However, the FLA does not go into effect until 2000, and student demands have become more strident since then. The PSLM has claimed that the FLA is structurally weak for giving too much authority to the companies it was trying to inspect...
Again, the administration responded, this time by announcing last week that it, along with Note Dame, Ohio State and the University of California system, would hire an independent monitor to oversee its links to companies with questionable labor practices overseas. The new agreement was the best one yet, allowing for the pooling of resources among the universities and the employment of an outside company, Price-Waterhouse-Coopers, to evaluate its production methods...
However, there are still problems with the policy. Price-Waterhouse has an extensive list of clients, including companies infamous for their overseas sweatshop labor and poor pay, such as Nike, Reebok and Liz Claiborne. These connections could lead to an awkward situation among the partner schools and their monitor and perhaps even result in an immobilizing conflict of interest. PSLM continues to protest the move, submitting its own suggestions for companies which should be hired to do the monitoring...