University President Dave Frohnmayer is confident the University will be able to remain actively engaged in the labor-monitoring process, despite a policy established by the State Board of Education.
The policy, approved by the board during its regular meeting Feb. 16, mandates that all institutions in the Oregon University System chose business partners in a politically impartial way, which seems to preclude schools from becoming members of labor-monitoring groups.
Melinda Grier, University general counsel, said she is still reviewing the policy and will not know its specific effects for some time.
Frohnmayer, however, said he believed the board did not adopt the policy for the specific purpose of preventing a school from dealing with labor issues. He said this leaves room for the University to maintain an active voice in preventing labor abuses in contracted factories.
“It moves the issue of a code of conduct to a state level,” he said. “There probably ought to be a universal policy for the state.”
He added the University can still work with its larger contractors to ensure conditions in factories stay at a quality level.
“No policy prevents us from talking,” he said.
The University would also continue to listen to reports from the Worker Rights Consortium and the Fair Labor Association, Frohnmayer said, even though it will likely not pursue closer relations with the two groups.
David Frank, associate professor and director of the Honors College, is heading up an ad hoc committee that has been studying labor-monitoring issues. Frank said the committee still plans to issue a report.
He said the policy has simply changed the jurisdiction where decisions on labor issues will be made, but that “doesn’t diminish the concern.”
The committee will be meeting with the Senate Executive Committee on approximately March 21 to further discuss the issue and give its final recommendation.
“We want to provide a history of what the campus wants to do,” he said.
Frank, however, also expressed his desire that the issue will soon come to rest. “I’m hopeful we’ll be moving on to other issues soon,” he said.
University Senate President James Earl has said that the WRC issue on campus is essentially dead.
Southern Oregon University has been the only other institution to deal with labor-monitoring issues in this state. Frohnmayer said he has been in touch with the acting president, Sarah Hopkins-Powell, to discuss such issues.
She said that while SOU “isn’t a big gorilla” in the labor issue, it has developed its own code of conduct that she didn’t expect to be in conflict with the OUS policy though their policy “bears a fair amount of resemblance to other codes.”