The University of Washington - The Daily By Kirsten Johnson - February 1, 2011
On a typical day in any lecture class, it’s easy to spot students sporting purple UW-logo hoodies. While owning one or two of these is common, some people might not think about the working conditions under which they were made.
“Something that we take for granted [is] where our clothes come from,” said sophomore Morgan Currier. “Like we don’t necessarily think about it that much.”
As a member of the UW chapter of United Students Against Sweatshops (USAS), Currier and her fellow members have been bringing attention on campus to the issue of sweatshop-made apparel, as well as promoting Alta Gracia Apparel — a brand that guarantees its factory workers benefits including health care, a living wage and unionization.
Just recently, Currier traveled alongside six other USAS college students to view the Alta Gracia factory conditions firsthand.
“It’s exactly what a factory should be,” she said. “It has fans, it has lights, emergency exits. They can get up and get water when they need, they can talk to each other, they can go on bathroom breaks.”
Currier said that she found it interesting to see the work ethic the factory workers had in performing simple tasks.
“Everyone has a part,” she said. “Someone will sew on the hood, someone will sew on the sleeve — they do this all day, every day. They make thousands of pieces of apparel every day. I don’t think the average American would be able to sit [there] all day and sew on a hood the same way they do a thousand times, every day.”
During her visit, she brought her own UW sweatshirt to show one of the workers.
“I swore he was going to cry,” she said. “It was just like, ‘Look at this thing that I have created that has your university logo, and you wear it at your school in America, but I made it here.’ He was just looking at the stitching and [was] really, really proud of his work.” Read Full Story Here
