Word: public
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Dates: during 1990-1999
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HANOVER, N.H.--Vice President Al Gore '69 has been working hard over the past few weeks to improve his public image, to appear more spontaneous and relaxed to potential voters. The trouble is, he may be working too hard...
Last week, two roads diverged for universities interested in ending sweatshops. The national student umbrella group, United Students Against Sweatshops, released the Workers Rights Consortium (WRC), an outline of principles for university monitoring of overseas garment factories. The WRC calls for full public disclosure of locations and wage information of all factories producing college clothing. It also mandates the establishment of a small non-profit monitoring body responsible for responding to worker complaints. These principles represent a clear break from those currently held by the government and industry-sponsored Fair Labor Association (FLA), which would rely on classified, corporate audits...
...long run, however, Harvard cannot travel both roads. It must choose a policy based either on secret information compiled by corporations or on public information inspected by non-profits...
...first proposal we have seen that makes use of full disclosure. Full public disclosure of factory locations means that anybody can see for themselves whether a factory has good labor practices. Yet, as important as such openness is, Harvard cannot rely on just anybody to monitor factories; it will contract, or join an organization that contracts, professional inspection. The question then becomes whether to take advantage of the opportunities full disclosure offers...
...proposal, assuming that factory locations and information are made public, would then staff a small, independent monitoring organization that responds to complaints rather than tries to inspect every garment factory on the globe. A secret, corporate model such as the FLA, on the other hand, lacking the aid of public scrutiny, would try to do all the monitoring itself...