Editorial: SAS sit-in a week later: Sorting substance from chaff
One week ago today, the Students Against Sweatshops began their sit-in at the university Administration Building. Now it is time for Students Against Sweatshops, President Peter Likins and the community to assess the results of the sit-in.
The early days of the SAS incursion were met with a response counterintuitive at most universities: The president actually appeared to be listening.
The initial demands of the students seem to have been substantially met. Likins has agreed to support the essence of four provisions the SAS group demanded: Factory location disclosure, "living wage" negotiations, unannounced monitoring of labor standards, and ensuring the safety and equality of women workers. Progress was made additionally in establishing a deadline date for university action if the FLA refuses to adopt the four provisions.
There are outstanding issues of contention. Protesters say that without a specific negotiated course of action for the university to take if the FLA fails to bring about change, an agreement is without meaning. Additionally, SAS has asked for the creation of a "democratic" local group to oversee the implementation of FLA. As of publication, the demand has not been met.
A "democratic" committee with essential control over university policy is far more radical than SAS apparently realizes. The UA is not a democracy. Peter Likins is inevitably the chief executive of university policy and he is responsible to the Arizona Board of Regents and the state government and no one else. Thus, to require him to surrender executive decision-making to an outside group is a demand that cannot be met.
SAS communicades have suggested that Likins has not demonstrated the required commitment to labor issues to continue to represent the university on issues such as apparel factory conditions. "In light of Likins' history of the issue his stance is particularly distressing," an SAS memo read.
The record, however, shows Likins has committed himself to labor issues, becoming a national figure in the debate over international labor standards. Yes, there has been a lot of what SAS condemns as "nothing but talk," but that talking is of fundamental importance to the SAS cause. It stands in stark contrast to policies of previous UA presidents who largely ignored student protests over issues like the Mt. Graham telescope project.
The very fact that Likins has invited the protesters to stay is a reversal of previous policy and indication of his commitment. Previous sit-ins have been broken up and met with arrests, an execution of UA presidential prerogative, University of Arizona Police Department Chief Harry Hueston told the Arizona Daily Wildcat.
"The reactions and what has happened in the past...are based on the views of the president at that time," Hueston said. Thus the SAS position on Likins personally does not stand to reason and suggests personal animus that runs contrary to the group's overall goal.
Over the past two years, SAS has been one of the most oft-covered campus groups and previously the group members have demonstrated their reasonableness in seeking to raise campus awareness on the issues. Certainly the group has held previously unheard-of sway with UA policy and Likins has worked to meet them more than half way. He has again met SAS more than half way.
The leadership of SAS in adopting such a confrontational tone in the face of so much negotiating success is no longer driving a hard bargain, but rather failing to realize it's largely because of Likins' good will that their statements have practical meaning.
Likins has demonstrated himself to be a man of many words, yes, but a man who means to be good to them. If the work of SAS is to continue, the protesters must give him a chance to show himself to be such.
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