To: President Lee Pelton, President of Emerson college and Jay Philips, Associate Vice President for Facilities and Campus Services
Emerson College: END DEATHTRAPS
Victory! The creator of this petition declared the campaign a success. You can still sign the petition to show support.
I support Emerson College's END DEATHTRAPS campaign, urging President Pelton and the administration to require Emerson's apparel licensees, including Jansport, to sign the Accord on Fire and Building Safety in Bangladesh.
Why is this important?
Since September 2013, eleven universities – Duke University, University of Pennsylvania, New York University, Temple University, Columbia University, Cornell University, Georgetown University, Brown University, Penn State University, University of Wisconsin and Syracuse University – have formally required their brands producing collegiate apparel in Bangladesh to sign the Accord, as a condition of producing university apparel. This is a broad group of universities, representing Big Ten sports schools, Ivy League schools, and public schools. These universities’ actions have shown that there is nothing preventing universities like ours from taking a stand for workers rights. The time is now for Emerson College to follow the lead of these other universities and require its brands to sign the Accord.
The actions of these universities are already making an impact on the behavior of brands in the collegiate market. In response to this growing university pressure, eight college-logo apparel brands – Fruit of the Loom, Adidas, Knights Apparel, Top of the World, New Agenda, Cutter & Buck, Ahead LLC and Zephyr Headwear – have signed the Accord since our campaign began. Fruit of the Loom's signing of the Accord is significant not only because it is the first company affiliated with the corporate-controlled, non-binding Gap/Walmart "Alliance" to also join the Accord, but also because it is the tenth U.S. company to join the Accord. Nevertheless, at the date of writing, several major licensees in Bangladesh, including Columbia Sportswear and VF Corporation, have refused to sign the Accord. This indicates a dire need for more universities to issue a formal requirement for their brands to sign.
We would also like to clarify that, as part of the university requiring its brands to sign the Accord, we expect the university to terminate its licensing relationship with Jansport and VF Imagewear, unless their parent company VF Corporation signs the Accord. As you know, the WRC officially recommended to its affiliates in October 2013 that “colleges and universities add, to their existing labor rights requirements for licensees, a requirement that licensees that sourced, produced or purchased collegiate apparel in Bangladesh as of January 1, 2013, or do so at any point thereafter, become signatories to the Accord on Fire and Building Safety in Bangladesh."
VF Corporation, parent company of Jansport, VF Imagewear, North Face, Timberland, and Vans, contracts with a factory called Optimum Fashions in Bangladesh to produce collegiate VF Imagewear apparel. In August, the Worker Rights Consortium conducted a safety assessment of Optimum Fashion. After VF attempted to prevent the WRC from accessing the factory, the WRC’s inspection uncovered a number of very serious safety hazards, all of which constitute violations of university code of conduct provisions requiring licensees to maintain safe workplaces and any of which could result in injury or death to workers. These violations “included inadequate means for workers to escape the factory in the event of a fire and structural flaws that would facilitate the rapid and widespread propagation of deadly smoke throughout the factory building.” (http://www.workersrights.org/Freports/WRC%20Fire%20Safety%20Assessment%20re%20Optimum%20Fashion%20Wear%20Ltd%20%28Bangladesh%29%2012.5.13.pdf)
Given that VF Imagewear and Jansport both belong to the same parent company, and given that it is the decision of the parent company, not the subsidiary, to sign or not sign the Accord, the university should cut ties with all VF Corporation brands, including Jansport, unless VF Corporation signs the Accord. To not do so would be a logically and morally inconsistent position for the university to take.
Please let us know as soon as possible if the university will be applying the requirement to sign the Accord to all VF Corporation subsidiaries, including Jansport.
The actions of these universities are already making an impact on the behavior of brands in the collegiate market. In response to this growing university pressure, eight college-logo apparel brands – Fruit of the Loom, Adidas, Knights Apparel, Top of the World, New Agenda, Cutter & Buck, Ahead LLC and Zephyr Headwear – have signed the Accord since our campaign began. Fruit of the Loom's signing of the Accord is significant not only because it is the first company affiliated with the corporate-controlled, non-binding Gap/Walmart "Alliance" to also join the Accord, but also because it is the tenth U.S. company to join the Accord. Nevertheless, at the date of writing, several major licensees in Bangladesh, including Columbia Sportswear and VF Corporation, have refused to sign the Accord. This indicates a dire need for more universities to issue a formal requirement for their brands to sign.
We would also like to clarify that, as part of the university requiring its brands to sign the Accord, we expect the university to terminate its licensing relationship with Jansport and VF Imagewear, unless their parent company VF Corporation signs the Accord. As you know, the WRC officially recommended to its affiliates in October 2013 that “colleges and universities add, to their existing labor rights requirements for licensees, a requirement that licensees that sourced, produced or purchased collegiate apparel in Bangladesh as of January 1, 2013, or do so at any point thereafter, become signatories to the Accord on Fire and Building Safety in Bangladesh."
VF Corporation, parent company of Jansport, VF Imagewear, North Face, Timberland, and Vans, contracts with a factory called Optimum Fashions in Bangladesh to produce collegiate VF Imagewear apparel. In August, the Worker Rights Consortium conducted a safety assessment of Optimum Fashion. After VF attempted to prevent the WRC from accessing the factory, the WRC’s inspection uncovered a number of very serious safety hazards, all of which constitute violations of university code of conduct provisions requiring licensees to maintain safe workplaces and any of which could result in injury or death to workers. These violations “included inadequate means for workers to escape the factory in the event of a fire and structural flaws that would facilitate the rapid and widespread propagation of deadly smoke throughout the factory building.” (http://www.workersrights.org/Freports/WRC%20Fire%20Safety%20Assessment%20re%20Optimum%20Fashion%20Wear%20Ltd%20%28Bangladesh%29%2012.5.13.pdf)
Given that VF Imagewear and Jansport both belong to the same parent company, and given that it is the decision of the parent company, not the subsidiary, to sign or not sign the Accord, the university should cut ties with all VF Corporation brands, including Jansport, unless VF Corporation signs the Accord. To not do so would be a logically and morally inconsistent position for the university to take.
Please let us know as soon as possible if the university will be applying the requirement to sign the Accord to all VF Corporation subsidiaries, including Jansport.