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SAS calls justified

To The editor,

Although we appreciate Lora Mackel's occasional praise of us in her editorial on Feb. 18, it also contains several factual errors that I would like to correct here. She criticizes Students Against Sweatshops request that President Likins withdraw from the FLA and join the WRC because "how is SAS supposed to bring about change in corporations, when they refuse to work with them?" Working with corporations to improve their labor practices is a good idea but in fact we have tried to work with representatives from corporations such asNike on many occasions. A good example of corporations not communicating well

with SAS is the FLA, a monitoring system which still does not contain provisions for factory disclosure, one of the first demands of our sit-in.

The WRC, in contrast, is a monitoring program that includes provisions calling for all information to be made public and not kept within the corporations as the FLA allows.

I also feel Mackel's characterization of us as childish for not eschewing corporate monitoring programs such as the FLA is unfair. We are not criticizing the FLA for "involving" corporations as Mackel states but rather because it is run by corporations: two of the major human rights groups withdrew from the FLA a year ago because they were given no input.

The WRC, through the power of human and labor rights groups, pushes corporations to change their labor practices in order to comply with basic human and labor rights standards. Which seems like a more effective way to produce change?

So while we are always happy to receive praise from the Wildcat editors, it seems only fair that they contact us too in order to make sure the facts from both sides are completely and fairly represented.

Arne Ekstrom

PhD Student, Neuroscience