Queen’s No Sweat co-chairs Kate Whitelaw, ArtSci ’08, and Martha Winterhalt, ArtSci ’07, remain determined to get Queen’s signed on to the Designated Suppliers Program (DSP) by September, at the latest.
The Designated Suppliers Program is overseen by the Workers Rights Consortium, an independent labour rights monitoring organization based in Washington, DC.
The program would require universities to source most of their logo apparel from supplier factories that are determined by the consortium to be in compliance with ethical labour laws.
Thirty American schools have adopted the program, but no Canadian schools have.
“I think the istration knows they have to do something but they’re just stalling,” Whitelaw told the Journal.
“There has been a lot of talk from the istration, ‘We have to consider this, consider that.’ We sit on the Trademark and Licensing Board and we have people sitting on these meetings saying, ‘Let’s just do this!’ ”
Dean of Student Affairs Jason Laker said the istration was never against the idea of implementing the DSP, but that it’s not a simple solution and the University can’t sign on to it right away.
“In the public, it has been portrayed that it’s all ready to go and we’re just dragging our feet,” he said. “We want the students to know that we are not slowing it down. It is slow because it’s very complex.”
Laker said the delay is due to the lack of clear procedures that ensure the DSP’s intentions are met. If the University were to adopt the DSP today, there would be no way to execute it, he said.
“It is important to know that we’re trying and there really isn’t a silver bullet,” he said. “We need to know that if we sign on to something that it is ready to go. We are looking for ways to contribute to the DSP and make it more viable.” Debra Easter, the University’s trademark and licensing co-ordinator, agreed that the University’s current Code of Conduct isn’t effective in ensuring companies Queen’s deals with abide by ethical labour practices.
“We need to find other means of doing so, be it the DSP or another source,” she said.
However, Easter said setting precedence by being the first Canadian university to sign on to the DSP isn’t the most important factor to consider.
“I believe that it is more significant to ensure that the DSP can be implemented, istered, and sustained,” she said. “We wouldn’t gratuitously adopt a plan simply to be the first. We would adopt a plan because it appears that it would work.”
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