While much of the University’s student population is going away for the summer, the issues surrounding the Worker Rights Consortium won’t.
With the help of events such as this summer’s United Students Against Sweatshops conference and the University Senate’s review process of the WRC, student leaders and University officials said workers’ rights will not fall under the table.
“People will still be working on it,” ASUO President-elect Jay Breslow said. “Enough people care enough about this to be watching all summer.”
Breslow said the media attention the issue has received might calm down, but the issue itself will not be abandoned.
“There’s way too much energy for [that] to happen,” he said.
The University Senate will be one body working on the issue during the summer through a senate review committee, which will look at how the WRC works.
University President Dave Frohnmayer has said that since the University signed on with the WRC for one year on April 12, he has wanted a review committee to examine the issue.
University Senate President Peter Gilkey said it will be up to the new University Senate president, who will take over the office at the end of this month, to determine how often and when the review committee will meet during the summer. The committee will oversee the University’s membership in the apparel monitoring group and will be identical to the Senate Executive Committee, which typically consists of the senate president, vice president, secretary, two student senators, four faculty members and one other administrative staff person.
However, the exact composition of next year’s Executive Committee will depend on next year’s president.
Gilkey said the new president will take over the office during the Senate’s last meeting for this term on May 24, when he is also expected to introduce his Executive Committee.
“There’s realty nothing substantive for me to say until [May] 24,” Gilkey said. “The new Senate Executive Committee will be up and working on [that day].”
Gilkey said the decision to have the Executive Committee function as the WRC oversight committee came after discussions with Frohnmayer, the ASUO Student Senate and other groups that have been involved in bringing the WRC to Eugene. The committee will work closely with Duncan McDonald, the University’s vice president for public affairs and development, and will be open to comments from students, administrators, faculty, trustees, alumni, licensees and other interested community members.
Recommendations from the Senate Executive Committee will then go to the Senate and subsequent to its decision, move on to Frohnmayer.
McDonald said while he will be ready to report to the Senate if new developments should require discussion, it is not sure yet when and how often the Senate Executive Committee will meet. As far as the WRC itself goes, McDonald said he expects the new organization to be more active once its governing board is elected this summer.
“I would say that the governing board of the WRC should have a pretty busy summer, but we as individual universities don’t know yet what our roles will be,” he said.
Human Rights Alliance member Chad Sullivan, a senior double-majoring in music and history, said he expects the interest in the WRC issue to persist throughout the summer months.
He said that the conference United Students Against Sweatshops — which will be held Aug. 16 through Aug. 20 with 180/MDE, or Movement for Democracy and Education — will bring many students back to campus during the summer and help keep the issues alive.