Workers Rights Consortium

WRC vs. FLA

So, what's the difference?

The WRC and the FLA are two distinct organizations, with different approaches to labor rights enforcement and different scopes. Any comparison of the two must start from the recognition that their projects are fundamentally different. The WRC works with local NGOs to empower workers to report labor rights violations in order to assist colleges and universities in enforcing their codes of conduct. The FLA seeks to accredit apparel brands as in compliance with FLA standards by requiring that companies adopt monitoring programs.

(United Students Against Sweatshops, 2004, p.2)

In January 2001, Marion Traub-Werner, one of the founders of USAS approached national and international media with documented footage and strong evidence of sweatshop conditions of labor in Kuk-Dong de Atlixco in Mexico, a subcontractor of Nike. This was no news, big corporations use sweatshops. Nevertheless, the relevance of this event was that Nike, and especially that particular factory in Mexico was supposedly approved under FLA regulations.

This event allowed for students organizations to prove what they already suspected, association with the FLA did not provide a guarantee of being a Sweat-Free University. In the words of Naomi Klein:

"[Nike] says that they have a very strict code of conduct and that they are a part of the FLA [...]. ALso, it hires external control corporations that make sure that the 700 factories that produce their merchandise follow their rules[...] The students have rejected this view, because they consider that corporations cannot control themselves."

(2002, p.80)

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