Alta Gracia: Developments and the Future

One of my favorite quotes comes from Ralph Waldo Emerson, the American transcendentalist and writer. He said, “Life is a journey, not a destination,” and that is certainly what this project has been. As we near the one year anniversary of the February protests on the capital, I have come to a new and well invigorated state of mind and approach to the labor rights movement. This has been reinforced by my research, personal interactions and experiences as I try to promote and support Alta Gracia. For this concluding paper of the semester I plan to discuss my achievements, setbacks, developments and the outlook for the future in a relaxed and informal manner as to convey a true sense of human accomplishment instead of a dry and stuffy case study.

For those just dropping in, Alta Gracia is a fair-labor factory in the Dominican Republic that pays their employees a living wage while they make officially-licensed collegiate apparel. They are paid more than three times the average wage so that employees are able to pay for healthcare, education, clean water, plenty of food and even start financial planning with savings and discretionary spending. Work conditions in the factory are fair and safe, miles above and beyond the sweatshops around the world, and this is guaranteed by a private, independent watchdog organization called the Workers Rights Consortium. Every week the Workers Rights Consortium goes to the factory to talk with workers and employers making sure that the work ethic and relationships are safe and productive. These relationships are also monitored to ensure that the workers maintain their right to organize and form unions to collectively bargain for their own rights and needs. This empowers the laborers by putting the decisive power in their hands, proving that it is not abused by the factory owner. And the Alta Gracia factory is the only one of its kind in the entire world.

Where I fall into this revolutionary opportunity is through my student organization, the Student Labor Action Coalition. The Student Labor Action Coalition has always been a powerful force for labor rights, including being a key supporter of the termination of the University of Wisconsin-Madison/Nike contract in 2009 due to their contracting of factories that denied severance pay to their workers when they closed the factory doors overnight. When I attended the first meeting of the semester for the Student Labor Action Coalition and they discussed their work with Alta Gracia, I immediately jumped on board. I felt I had to, being a Spanish major and labor rights activist!

So what have the Student Labor Action Coalition and I been doing since that first meeting? How has Alta Gracia changed as a presence on the University of Wisconsin-Madison campus and what are the plans for Alta Gracia in the future? The University Bookstore already carried Alta Gracia products, but we are really determined to make the brand more well-known around campus. I bet not even one of my readers had heard about it before I brought it to Contemporary Life Sciences this semester, which although some may find discouraging, I find it an even more compelling reason to spread the word of Alta Gracia and that’s what the Student Labor Action Coalition and I did. We wrote a letter to be distributed to local businesses, such as Name of the Game, The Pipefitter, Ragstock and many other retailers. It advertised the benefits of Alta Gracia and tried to get companies really excited about the product because of the impact it has on the global garment industry, and we wanted to show each of these businesses that they could make a conscious change for the better in one of the most labor-exploiting markets around the world. We were well received, and in the spring semester we will be returning to the businesses we contacted to see how they are feeling about purchasing Alta Gracia product and working with those who want to make it happen.

We have also been tabling in excessive amounts. Tabling is the name for those little tables and booths with pieces of paper and some sort of attention grabber (be it a game, or food, etc.) to make people interested in what it is your trying to tell them. Think of the Student Organization Fair – everyone has a poster, maybe some candy, but their goal is to get you interested quickly and efficiently in what they are passionate about. Some of the University of Wisconsin-Madison students that read this paper may have seen us in Holt Commons, Gordon Commons, East Campus Mall and handing out fliers around residence halls. The president of the University Book Store created coupons for us that were worth twenty percent off of an Alta Gracia product. We handed these out with a quick flyer explaining what Alta Gracia does and why people should be as passionate as the Student Labor Action Coalition and I are.

Tabling was an interesting experience. The majority of the students would politely say, “no thank you” and continue on their way. Those who were interested seemed really excited about it and thought it was a really cool movement – I still am mostly convinced that they didn’t realize that it was a fair-labor, living-wage product, but that they were pleased they could save money on a product they were most likely looking to buy. What college student at the University of Wisconsin-Madison doesn’t want to save money while buying Badger apparel? One woman, after listening to my quick speech, said “That’s great and all, but where is this factory again?” I was blindsided. I knew exactly what she was alluding to – the factory is foreign, not American. I went on to explain to her that it doesn’t matter where the company is if the workers are treated poorly. Just because a factory lies on American soil, the worker can still be forced into fifty-three hour work weeks with unsafe working conditions like the garment factory in New York from the introduction to this project. I asked her if she would rather have people being treated poorly and paid non-living wages or if she would want an article of clothing to be made within her own country. With a polite shrug and smile she said “very informative”, and took the coupons as she walked away.

The biggest action that the Student Labor Action Coalition has taken was certainly our meeting with the the president of the University Bookstore, Patrick McGowan. Mr. McGowan is a very polite and courteous gentleman that has been working with the Student Labor Action Coalition through the entire process of Alta Gracia since he first started carrying the product in his store. When we met with him, we brought him a formal proposal in the form of a letter with the names of campus staff, employees and organizations who support the Alta Gracia merchandise. Our request – that Mr. McGowan place and order of $250,000 for his fall purchase. Smaller universities such as Duke place orders at a minimum of this cost, and have been extremely successful in turning over and moving the product. Hoping that Mr. McGowan was as enthusiastic as we were, we thought that he would be more than happy to compete with other schools for Alta Gracia while supporting them. Unfortunately, he thought that the number was too steep and too much of an investment for him to commit to without having more investigation. He did commit to talk to the retailers at other universities to find out how they are so confident in Alta Gracia and how he can do the same to be another flagship university that carries the product, and to include the Student Labor Action Coalition along the way. Of course we were disappointed that Mr. McGowan did not meet our demands, but as a businessman his approach is logical. It is hard to justify investing so much money of an organization (such as the University Bookstore) into a newly-founded company like Alta Gracia who has limited product to offer in comparison to the brand names like Jansport, and who also has limited service such as ability to quickly send product or always have a representative in the area with whom Mr. McGowan can work. But without businesses who are willing to make that investment and who support labor rights, things like product and service in a start up company will only change slowly. Sometimes a potential risk is necessary for the outcome – by Alta Gracia growing and obtaining more market power, they will create a new standard of competition. Workers will want to be employed by a living-wage company and will leave sweatshop conditions, forcing poor work-quality factories to change their standards. If Mr. McGowan does decide to invest a serious amount into Alta Gracia it has the potential to revolutionize a global industry in the future and provide an archetype for future businesses.

Those are the most significant events that have happened since I decided to take on Alta Gracia as my project for Contemporary Life Sciences, and they certainly won’t be the last. The Student Labor Action Coalition is also putting Adidas in the limelight for labor abuses, and one of our members is going to the Dominican Republic to tour the factory herself. Once we have that irst-hand knowledge and talk more with area businesses and Mr. McGowan, I feel that the potential for change will be immense and Alta Gracia will seriously start to become an important force not only on the University of Wisconsin-Madison campus, but also as a paragon of labor rights that sets a new standard for workers rights in the international garment industry.