To understand better the conditions under which university-licensed apparel is manufactured, five universities, Harvard, University of Michigan, Notre Dame, Ohio State and the University of California, will be working in collaboration with Business for Social Responsibility Education Fund (BSR), the Investor Responsibility Research Center (IRRC), and Dara O'Rourke to gather information about working conditions and steps that universities can take to improve these conditions.

This project will generate, analyze, and summarize information gathered from a broad range of institutions and individuals, including stakeholders such as non-governmental organizations (NGOs) based in North America and key exporting countries, public officials, international organizations, workers, licensees, contractors, etc., to ensure that all relevant perspectives are represented.

Project deliverables will be:

Country reports, gathered from a range of stakeholders, describing issues of particular concern, as well as good and best practices concerning labor standards compliance, with focus on issues that are of particular relevance to university-licensed apparel production. These reports will also incorporate information gathered through a select number of factory monitoring visits designed to provide "on-the-ground" information.

Final project report summarizing and analyzing the information gathered, and suggesting a range of ways that universities can promote greater levels of compliance with codes, laws and internationally-agreed standards applicable to university-licensed apparel. The final report will not render judgments on individual universities, licensees, or factories, but rather seek to identify issues of particular concern, good/best practices, local conditions that may hinder or support enforcement of codes and local laws, and options universities might pursue to promote fair working conditions by enhancing the implementation of applicable standards in factories producing university-licensed apparel.

Project participants will be:

Participating Universities, which will sponsor the project and be the primary recipient of the final report. Each university will make its own conclusions from the information gathered.

Business for Social Responsibility Education Fund (BSR), a non-profit organization based in San Francisco, will coordinate the information gathering process in cooperation with the other participants.

Investor Responsibility Research Center (IRRC), a leading source of information for socially responsible investors, will participate in the outreach to local NGOs in exporting countries, provide input into the factory monitoring process, and review information gathered through the project activities.

Dara O'Rourke, an independent expert on industrial environmental and health issues with experience reviewing working conditions in developing countries and analyzing university-related issues, will focus on the factory information gathering aspects of the project.

PriceWaterhouseCoopers will serve as the primary factory monitor, and will conduct its activities based on input from other project participants.

The purpose of the project is to inform the participating universities about the political, economic and labor environment in countries where university-licensed apparel is made, and about the conditions in a sampling of factories themselves. The goal is to compile accurate, first-hand information and to present it in a way that will enable universities to make sound decisions about how best to design and enforce anti-sweatshop policies for their respective institutions.

The project will be completed in the summer of 2000. This is a pilot project, not a factory-monitoring program designed to measure compliance of individual licensees or manufacturers with a particular university's code of conduct. Each participating university will continue to examine these issues from a variety of perspectives as this project goes forward, and will decide for itself how best to proceed when the project is completed.

Country-Specific Information

Project participants will gather information about countries that are significant producers of university-licensed apparel. Seven countries from amongst the following will be the subject of information gathering: Latin America: Mexico, Dominican Republic, and either El Salvador or Honduras; Asia: China, and three from amongst the following countries: Philippines, Thailand, Indonesia, Sri Lanka, Pakistan, India or Bangladesh. These countries have been chosen because they represent a substantial portion of the university-licensed apparel business, and have been the focus of interest and concern by a variety of stakeholders.

The process for gathering the information will be as follows. Interviews will be conducted with a broad range of knowledgeable parties concerning labor practices in these countries. Such parties will include local NGOs, labor union officials, licensees, factory owners and managers, and public officials. Project and NGO consultants will conduct interviews, and review and summarize all information gathered through this process. Project participants will develop jointly the list of interviewees, and the template for information gathering. As the project proceeds, participants will provide information to interested stakeholders about the information gathering process.

Factory Information Gathering

This element of the project will include information gathering in facilities producing university-licensed apparel to identify patterns of non-compliance and good practice to augment the information gathered through the general country information gathering. The universities have selected PricewaterhouseCoopers as the primary monitor, to be accompanied by BSR, IRRC and Mr. O'Rourke in various factory visits. PWC will submit its reports to the three consultants, who will in turn assess and analyze the information in summary reports for the participating universities.

Factories to be monitored will be selected to achieve a sample representative of: countries producing high levels of university-licensed apparel; countries presenting risk of non-compliance with codes of conduct and/or local laws; and the largest licensees of university-licensed apparel for participating schools. Monitoring will be undertaken against a consensus code of conduct based on the five universities? codes, and will involve confidential interviews with a sample of factory employees; interviews of factory management; review of relevant factory records; visual factory inspection, and other techniques relevant to the site. BSR, the IRRC and Dara O'Rourke will provide input into the monitoring process and, as country-specific information becomes available, that information may be factored into the monitoring process as well. Individual licensees or factories will not be identified as part of this process.

Other Monitoring-Related Information Gathering

The project team also will explore different forms of factory monitoring. This work will be undertaken through meetings with licensees, factory workers, and review of other monitoring initiatives underway, with a particular focus on efforts related to university licensed apparel. This work will allow the consultant team to present to the Universities information and options concerning monitoring based on a broad set of examples. The elements are as follows:

Parallel Factory Information Gathering: This would involve follow-up work by Dara O'Rourke and BSR on one country visit to seek to gather information relating to factory compliance workers and others knowledgeable about conditions in one of the factories involved in PwC monitoring for this project. A comparison would be conducted reviewing the different results, if any, through these parallel information gathering efforts.

Meetings with Garment Workers: In cooperation with local organizations, project teams making country visits will endeavor to meet with workers who are producing university-licensed apparel. Second preference will be given to meeting workers employed in and around free trade zones or individual production facilities where university-licensed apparel is produced. The project team also will seek to meet with local apparel manufacturers.

Survey of Independent Monitoring Pilots: The project team will review the experience of companies, suppliers and civil society organizations involved in joint independent monitoring projects. It will identify projects to be surveyed, create a written survey instrument to provide to participants, and follow up with telephone interviews of selected participants.

Interview Participating Licensees: included in this project to survey their experiences concerning monitoring in all forms, internal, external and independent. The experiences, successes and challenges faced by key licensees will be explored assist universities in determining how they can work with their apparel licensees to contribute to improved working conditions.

Solicit Views on Monitoring: During each country visit, the project team will interview a range of stakeholders on their views about the most effective forms of monitoring.

Outreach to Other University-related Projects. To avoid duplication and work collaboratively, the project will survey participants in other university-linked initiatives to address working conditions. Current projects underway include the Collegiate Licensing Company survey, the Workers Rights Consortium, and the Collegiate Industry Initiative for Responsible Manufacturing, etc. As with the independent monitoring and licensee information gathering, this component would be conducted through written surveys and telephone interviews.

Outreach, Communication and Reporting

BSR, the IRRC and Dara O'Rourke will prepare country-by-country reports including information gathered through stakeholder interviews and factoring monitoring information. Interested stakeholders will be updated on the information gathering process, and an interim and final report will be created as well.

The final report will include the country-specific information gathered, as well as summaries of the monitoring findings, and suggested ways that universities could enhance compliance with their respective codes of conduct and other applicable standards. The final report will be produced by BSR, the IRRC and Dara O'Rourke.