Progressive Student Alliance
March 20, 2017
Dear President Joseph E. Aoun,
Your time is up. Last April, students demanded that Northeastern end its business relationship with Nike over the company’s blatant refusal to facilitate access for the Worker Rights Consortium (WRC) to its supplier factories. We delivered you letters on April 5 and Sept. 23, 2016, making it clear that Nike’s refusal violates our Code of Conduct which requires that the WRC have access to factories where Northeastern apparel is made. Nike has been violating our university code for over a year. You can and must cut the contract today.
In the past 14 months, you have been silent on this issue, failing even to provide a public statement condemning Nike’s actions. Students have met with administrators and encouraged them to take meaningful action, but the only response we have gotten is that your administration is “monitoring the situation closely.” If you read the WRC report, then you know that Northeastern apparel is being made under sweatshop conditions. It took 14 months for the WRC to get access, and even now, it is barred from hundreds of other Nike collegiate supplier factories. Nike wants to do away with independent monitoring, and Northeastern must be a leader in the fight to preserve it. It is time to take a principled stand against exploitation, as your administration did with Adidas in 2013. Cut this contract now.
We began this campaign with the good faith that you would recognize Nike’s egregious violations of human rights as well as our own licensing policy. We hoped you would defend the values of positive social change and global leadership that you espouse so often. When you speak about these values in vague generalities but drag your feet when it comes time to act on them, it becomes harder for us to believe that your administration truly prioritizes these values.
Because of your delay in severing ties with Nike, workers at Hansae have continued to suffer under severe sweatshop conditions. Every day you refuse to cut this contract, you allow mass faintings and firings of pregnant women to continue, and Nike becomes more emboldened to break the rules.
We look forward to a response as soon as possible, but no later than Monday, March 27, detailing how you plan to address our concerns.
Sincerely,
Northeastern University Progressive Student Alliance
United Students Against Sweatshops Local #115
Contact: [email protected]
