U. stays in Fair Labor Association

By Amy Rowe / Acting News Editor

The Rutgers United Students Against Sweatshops’ disaffiliation party ended early Friday when University President Richard L. McCormick announced he would not withdraw from the Fair Labor Association.

RUSAS has worked to build a case for disaffiliation over the past two years, presenting McCormick with research on the various human rights abuses workers are subject to in factories the FLA monitors, said Anna Barcy, a RUSAS member.

“We’ve been working so hard, it has been our life for the past two years,” said Barcy, a School of Arts and Sciences first-year student, before McCormick arrived at the meeting. “It seems completely obvious to us that he plans to disaffiliate. It’s obvious because of the blatant human rights abuses [allowed by the FLA].”

But when McCormick said he would not disaffiliate the University from the FLA, a look of concern crept across every student’s face at the Red Lion Café in the Rutgers Student Center on the College Avenue campus.

Without letting McCormick explain, the students from RUSAS and the more than 30 other campus organizations at the meeting took off their paper party hats and packed up their celebratory balloons and cookie cake.

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