Universities campaign
against Guess jeans
DaflyTargum
Rutgers University
New Brunswick, NJ. (U-Wire) -
The Student Action Union began a
nationwide campaign last week to
protest Guess, which the university
group claims utilizes sweatshops to
manufacture its clothing.
The group began handing out
fliers Friday alleging Guess has a his
tory of subcontracting to companies
that underpay and overwork their
employees.
Rutgers College senior Arsenia
Reilly, member of the SAU, said the
group is one of 50 nationwide that will
be asking students on their respective :
campuses to boycott Guess. Schools
that have groups advocating the boy
cott include Harvard, Cornell,
Georgetown and New York universi
ties.
“What we’re trying to do is spread
some awareness about this,” said
Reilly of the SAU, which is a member
of United Students against
Sweatshops Coalition. “We want peo
ple to know about the sweatshops
Guess had two years ago. Ever since
they got some bad press about that last
year they moved those plants to
Mexico.”
Glenn Weinman, a Guess
spokesperson, said the company nei
ther has, nor had any sweatshops.
“We never had what most people
envision as sweatshops,” he said.
«
Violators are found from time to time, but
i ..'V • •. _ ■ * -:C
they are minor violations that are
corrected immediately."
Glenn Weinman
Guess spokesman
“Guess has compliance contractor
monitoring. Violators are found from
time to time, but they are minor viola
tions that are corrected immediately.”
He said such violations are typi
cally overtime violations, not child
labor abuses or illegally low pay.
According to Guess’ Web site, the
company has had an agreement with
the Department of Labor since 1992 to
monitor the compliance of its contrac
tors with federal and state labor laws.
Weinman said to guarantee fair
labor conditions when using subcon
tractors Guess itself first does an ini
tial inspection of each work site,
which then is followed up over time by
inspections from an outside group.
The inspections check to see if the
work sites are sanitary and to see if
proper signs, which must let workers
know their rights and how to file a
complaint if those rights are violated,
are hung up.
A code of conduct also must be
signed by the contractor and hung up,
he said.
“They will typically go up in
English and at least one other lan
guage,” he said.
He said the outside inspection
team also does regularly scheduled
payroll audits and surveillance to
make sure workers are being treated
fairly.
He said that although labor laws
vary in the dozens of countries in
which Guess hires subcontractors, die
company maintains its code of con
duct internationally.
“If we find anything wrong then
we’re all over the contractor to have
the violation fixed,” he said.
Weinman said while previous
complaints have been made, including
some by Amnesty International, news
of poor working conditions actually
comes from competitors who are try
ing to ruin Guess’ image.
Partial beer ban angers many
Colorado Daily
University of Colorado
Boulder, Colo. (U-Wire) - The
decision to keep alcohol flowing at die
Flatirons Club has upset many alumni
and students.
On Thursday, the Board of Regents
voted to support the Folsom Stadium
ban on beer sales, but to still allow
alcohol in the Flatirons Club, a club
house in the stadium that seats about
900 people. Anyone who can afford a
$1,250 donation to athletic scholar
ships at CU can become a member of
the Flatirons Club.
“The alumni board overwhelming
ly considered (the regents’ decision) to
be a double standard, hypocritical,”
said Kent Zimmerman, president of the
Alumni Association, after the alumni
board met Friday. One alumnus
believed it is un-American to have a
ban that you can buy your way out of,
Zimmerman said.
Two years ago, the Alumni
Association came out against the beer
ban. At the alumni board meeting, they
supported the continued ban by a slim
majority vote of 15 to 12. But only
three out of 27 felt it was fair to allow
alcohol in the Flatirons Chib.
“There’s a fear expressed that cur
rent programming seems to focus more
and more on prohibition rather than the
original goal of teaching life-long
responsible behavior,” Zimmerman
said. “If the beer ban is for behavior,
then why is it allowed in certain areas?”
Many students also have a problem
with the beer ban.
“The beer ban in general doesn’t
bother me, but to allow (alcohol) in
certain elitist areas is beyond unfair. It’s
an act of segregation, essentially” said
CU student Kim Power.
“It seems unfair,” said student
Sharon Choi. “The beer ban at Folsom
is an easy out - a quick and dirty solu
tion to the problem.”
Student AJ. Neitenbach agreed.
“If you’re going to have it in one
place, you should have it everywhere,”
he said. “I’ll never be able to get into
that chib.”
Other students didn’t mind the ban
or the continued alcohol sales in the
Flatirons Club.
“It doesn’t bother me,” said student
Sean Belt
“I don’t really have any opinion
about it,” said student XaoYang.
Chancellor Richard Byyny com
mented through public relations
spokeswoman Bobbi Barrow.
“He says he considers health and
safety, the enjoyment of the fans and
the reputation of the university as die
most important consideration in his
decision (to ban beer at Folsom
Stadium),” said Barrow.
Barrow said that whether or not die
Flatirons Chib would still serve alco
hol wasn’t something Byyny consid
ered.
Records release concerns students
The California Aggie
University of California-Davis
Davis, Calif. (U-Wire) - When
UC Davis students learned last week
that senior Sean Michael Patrick had
been charged with five counts of rape
in September 1997 - just two months
prior to landing a job as a Cal Aggie
Host for Ae UCD Police Department
- their questions about sex offenders
and their employment rights took
police by surprise.
According to UCD Police Capt.
Michael Corkery, who said he has
never fielded so many calls about a
single case in one day, most students
are uninformed about their rights to
information about sex offenders.
Corkery said Patrick’s charges,
which were filed in Shasta County,
were not brought to die department’s
attention by an anonymous infor
mant until December. Patrick was
subsequently fired and pleaded
guilty last month to three counts of
statutory rape.
Although his reign as an Aggie
Host was short-lived and his duties
were limited to ticket-taking and
monitoring events, the fact that he
was employed in any capacity by .the
campus police puzzled some stu
dents on campus.
“Some of the callers were just
curious, but most were generally
concerned about sex offenders being
on campus,” Corkery said, ;
Part of their apprehension,
according; to Corkery, is the mistaken
assumption that any employer,
including the Cal Aggie Host pro
gram, has the resources or the capa
bility to run a full background check
on every job applicant
For die UCD Police Department,
which employs 150 students as
Aggie Hosts, complete fingerprint
checks are only feasible when hiring
supervisors and late-night campus
escorts. |
Instead the program bases its hir
ing on rigorous personal interviews
and contacts with forma: employers.
“Our questions are pretty point
ed,” Corkery said. “We’re trying to
evaluate the person’s leadership
skills and their character. The trust
level is very important”
Consequently, only half the stu
dents interviewed for jobs routinely
pass the trust test. But cases like
Patrick^ do slip through the cracks.
“Nobody routinely knows if a
student has a criminal history unless
someone brings it to their attention,”
Corkery said.
He added that the only person
who could have officially notified
the police department of Patrick's
charges was the Shasta County dis
trict attorney who prosecuted his
case. Still, Corkery added, he had no
obligation to do so.
“(Patrick) was over 18,” Coikery
said. “The DA has no responsibility
to call us and warn us that he was
charged with these crimes.
“They don’t typically look at die
bigger picture - where this guy might
end working or going to school,”
he added. ^They're looking at the
basic elements of the crime.”
Patrick’s decision to apply at the
campus police department when he
returned for his third year at UCD,
just after his 1997 rape charges,
doesn’t malm sense to Corkery.
“I can’t speak to what his motiva
tions were,” Corkery said. “He may
have felt that what happened in
Shasta County had nothing to do
with his education or his life here.”
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