Sweatshop-free apparel now offered

By Laura Finaldi, News Correspondent

Northeastern’s Bookstore now features clothing by Alta Gracia, a factory in the Dominican Republic where workers are paid enough money to provide for themselves and their families.

The workers at the Alta Gracia factory in Villa Altagracia, Dominican Republic are paid $3 per hour, or more than three times the local minimum wage. This allows workers to escape poverty and make better lives for themselves by being able to acquire adequate food, shelter, clothing, health care and educational opportunities for themselves and their families.

Alta Gracia products, which include sweatshirts and T-shirts, are now sold at more than 400 college bookstores in the U.S. and Canada, including Northeastern.

The bookstore features four Alta Gracia items, which are in the same price range as other brands sold at the bookstore, such as Champion and JanSport.

The Progressive Student Alliance (PSA) promoted Alta Gracia product at the Bookstore last month during Parents’ Weekend by wearing sweatsuits, dancing to music and educating customers about the company and promoting fair-wage factories.

“[Alta Gracia] definitely sets a standard for all the factories and sweatshops around the world,” PSA president Margolit Sands said.

The wages factory workers are paid were based on a study of local living costs by the Worker Rights Consortium (WRC), an independent watchdog organization on labor rights that is affiliated with 183 colleges and universities.

Theresa Haas, director of communications for the WRC, said in a conference call that the group conducted an on-the-ground marketing study to determine the living wage residents of the area in which the workers live need.

“I’m very happy to report that thus far, compliance at the factory has been exemplary,” Haas said. “There’s been no factory that has ever been monitored as intensively as we are monitoring the Alta Gracia facility.”

Haas continued: “We consider Alta Gracia to be a really crucial step forward in the effort to improve wages and working conditions for workers who make university logo apparel, by committing to pay a living wage and to take active steps to ensure that workers are able to exercise their association rights.”

PSA member Claire Lewis said she is thrilled Northeastern has taken the initiative to feature these items in the bookstore. She and Sands have been working to make all of the clothing suppliers at the bookstore fair-wage, WRC-approved companies, she said.

“I’ve been reading all of the different articles that keep coming, it’s so exciting to see this,” Lewis said. “It’s our hope that [Alta Gracia] provides an alternative to the low-rate strategy sweatshops.”

Sands said she is pleased with the work the WRC does. She said other fair-wage organizations such as the Fair Labor Association do not do their jobs.

“The people that are part of the WRC are very reliable, they know what they’re doing,” Sands said.

Joseph Bozich, CEO of Alta Gracia’s parent company Knight’s Apparel, said in a conference call that Alta Gracia is different from other clothing factories because the company cares deeply about the well-being of its workers.

“We could potentially help create the opportunity to potentially change the situation of these workers and their families, their children. We just believe it will be very rewarding personally,” Bozich said. “We believe it truly can be a pathway out of poverty and life-changing for the employees and the people that are making these garments.”

Martiza Vargas, an employee at Alta Gracia, said at her former factory jobs, she did not make enough to pay for much more than food and rent, forcing her to put necessities like health care and education for her four children on the back burner.

“Before, I lived in a very uncomfortable house,” Vargas said. “All four of my children shared one room and now, we each have our own space so we can really have our own private lives and that’s been really great for me.”

Lewis said she is excited to see what will happen with Alta Gracia in the future, and she hopes the Bookstore will affiliate with more WRC-approved companies soon.

“If Alta Gracia is successful – and I think it will be – It could potentially transform the business model of the whole garment industry,” Lewis said.