Boise State University - Arbiter Online - February 24, 2011
The bookstore now carries a new line of apparel. Not only is it making a difference in a another country by selling this brand on campus, but it costs no more than other well-known brands.
Students can buy T-shirts, sweatshirts and hoodies on campus that will help elevate workers of Alta Gracia from poverty.
Alta Gracia provides university apparel and pays its workers living wages in the Dominican Republic.
The Worker Rights Consortium (WRC), an independent labor rights organization, has performed a market-basket analysis to establish a living wage standard for apparel workers.
The Dominican Republic legal minimum wage is less than $150 per month.
Alta Gracia pays workers the WRC’s determined living wage of $510 per month, 340 percent of the minimum wage, or more than triple the legal minimum wage.
Alta Gracia said it pays enough to make sure workers are fed, clothed, housed and can educate their families.
Students who buy Alta Gracia apparel affect each worker in more ways than just being paid above minimum wage.
The WRC verifies Alta Gracia pays its workers enough to allow them to meet basic needs, including nutritious food, drinkable water, housing and energy, health care, transportation, education, childcare and the opportunity for savings, according to Gena Madow, spokesperson for Alta Gracia.
She said the goal is to provide the people of Dominican Republic a chance to build their lives and protect themselves and their families.
The company is located in Villa Altagracia — which is where the name Alta Gracia comes from, meaning “high grace” — a small town in the Dominican Republic.
“I care about where my clothes come from. I like presenting the style of the brand I’m wearing but, also the meaning it gives,” said Arianne Sermonia, a 20-year-old theater arts major.
More than 350 colleges and university bookstores sell the apparel, according to Alta Gracia.
Sermonia said they are willing to represent workers and bring awareness.
Students interested in speaking with workers of Alta Gracia can take part in a virtual worker tour hosted by Jess Caldwell-O’Keefe, director of Women’s Center, today at 4 p.m. in Simplot C Ballroom inside the Student Union Building.
For information about the tour, contact Ethan Miller at (301) 741-6674 or Alana Meyer at (208) 426-2496.
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