By
Sheila Bapat
Likins versus SAS: the battle has become a never-ending episode of Celebrity Death Match.
After over a year and a half of verbal and written bickering, the two parties must be ready to strangle each other. But as they struggle on, the cause for which both are fighting- fair labor conditions for foreign workers producing UA products - lingers on the sidelines.
No factories are being monitored.
Right now the UA belongs to two monitoring organizations, the Worker Rights Consortium and the Fair Labor Association. But no one is getting the job done. No matter how much SAS and Likins have struggled, foreign workers have yet to be ensured a group of monitors that will protect their rights.
If WRC monitors the factories, they will not even be allowed into the factories and will have to perform "exit poll" monitoring.
If FLA monitors, it is not likely that the monitors will do a fair job, considering they are supported by the corporations themselves.
SAS wants WRC and only WRC. Likins thinks dual membership is best.
By fighting over this, we're preserving the symbol at the expense of the substance. When issues like this become embroiled in politics, the cause finds itself on the backburner.
That's the nature of social struggles, of course; the fighting goes on for eons, and in the end nobody knows if the people getting screwed will actually stop getting screwed. It doesn't help when those fighting for the cause are divided.
Both Likins and SAS believe they were more united when the struggle began than they are today. Their approaches are clearly different, and their interests are not entirely one and the same.
Likins is guarded and calm, firm in his stance that dual membership is the best option. He is a professional university administrator who has built a national reputation of upholding workers' rights. He likes FLA because he said the UA's involvement in developing a code of conduct helped convince over 100 other universities to participate.
In the university community, he's an activist; at the UA, he's the establishment.
"If you detect frustration in my voice, it's real," he said. "I've worked so hard in the past 15 months, and now (SAS members') attitude seems to be that it's not appropriate."
SAS members are the classic activists that the mainstream world dubs as extremists, when their only interest is improving human rights and invigorating a national movement against sweatshops. They want results now, and are clearly frustrated that Likins won't adhere to their final demand.
"I don't believe we have the same goal," said SAS spokesperson Rachel Wilson. "Before we thought that deep down, Likins cared. Now, all (Likins) cares about is how he looks to other university presidents and the country at large."
If SAS chapters around the country were not standing up for the cause, then nobody would be. It's not as if a corporation would suddenly realize its social responsibilities. When Brown University had the audacity to stand up for workers' rights and join the Workers Rights Consortium last April, Nike sent the university a "warning," declaring that it would not would not adhere to a code of conduct that a crew of hippie student activists had cooked up.
And it's not as if Likins would have taken on the struggle on his own; he wasn't even aware of it until he came to the UA. Likins is like Al Gore is right now, with the unions in his face and the businesses tapping on his shoulder.
"We can't get anywhere without cooperating with the corporations," Likins said.
A true but sad statement. It all boils down to one reality: we are all pawns of the corporate world, the badasses like Nike who tell us how high to jump. If corporations took it upon themselves to treat all of their workers - American and foreign - with the class that they deserve, there would be no need for such a struggle.
And when Likins and SAS eventually step out of the ring, hopefully the workers will get a fair deal.
