There's a new social movement on campus, and it's not KONY 2012. The Brown Student Labor Alliance has been applying pressure on University officials to cut their contract with Adidas, circulating a petition that has garnered 380 signatures. This protest comes in the wake of the closure of PT Kizone, one of Adidas' suppliers, which shuttered its factory in April 2011 after declaring bankruptcy, leaving about 2,800 workers unemployed. While other clients of PT Kizone, like Nike, paid the severance wages owed to the stranded employees, Adidas has repeatedly denied requests to pay the legally owed $1.8 million in severance fees.
Adidas has a history of exploiting its outsourced labor, having failed to pay severance in at least three cases in Indonesia alone. Its biggest supplier, Gildan Activewear, has shown a blatant disregard for labor rights, refusing to meet with union leaders and supporting fake unions to attack workers' rights. In response to Adidas' actions, Cornell and Oberlin College have terminated their business contracts with Adidas, and the Brown: Cut Adidas campaign is advocating that the administration at Brown do the same. The Herald's editorial page board unequivocally supports this stance.
Not only have Adidas' actions violated Brown's Vendor Code of Conduct, as the Cut Adidas campaign points out on its website, but continuing to support the company in light of its labor abuse is a betrayal of the University's founding principles. Our mission is to "serve the community, the nation and the world," and an important part of this should be cultivating partnerships with companies and organizations that uphold the same ideals we aspire to. Not only is continuing to work with a company proven to violate this ethic hypocritical, but it undermines the members of the Brown community who work toward equity and social justice.
Realistically, Brown would lose very little from cutting its contract with Adidas and switching over to any of the other dozens of high-quality brands that dominate the sports market. Several other similar brands, like North Face or REI, have demonstrated a commitment to sustainability and fair labor. Aside from the initial cost of changing the logo on retail available to students, Brown would be unaffected by the switch. By remaining in a partnership with Adidas, we are complicit in its violation of labor laws and human rights. Joining other universities in applying pressure to Adidas would be a striking move in showing that both we and the Corporation are willing to act on the principles that underpin our institution.
We encourage students to both support this new movement and consider other aspects of our lives in which we may be unwittingly supporting similar violations. With such an array of causes around campus, it is easy to become inoculated against the realities of the situations they present. But complacency on our part when we can potentially engender a significant change in this situation will only lead to further willingness to accept these violations. After all, many of us are still avid users of Macs, despite proven sweatshop conditions for Apple workers in Asia, or shop at Urban Outfitters, despite its president and founder's support of anti-gay marriage campaigns.
We call for Brown students to reflect on how complacent we are willing to be for material comforts. Enacting change will always be difficult, but there's an easy and important step that we can take this semester. Cut Brown's contract, and let Adidas know that its denial of basic labor rights will not be supported by our community.
Editorials are written by The Herald's editorial page board: its editors, Daniel Jeon and Annika Lichtenbaum, and its members, Georgia Angell, Sam Choi and Rachel Occhiogrosso. Send comments to editorials@browndailyherald.com.
ADVERTISEMENT
