Friday, Oct. 18, members of the Political Latinx Union for Movement and Action in Society delivered a petition to College of William and Mary President Katherine A. Rowe requesting the College to terminate its licensing contract with Nike, citing inhumane working conditions in a factory in Bangkok, Thailand, called “Hong Seng Knitting.”
In an email to the organizers, Rowe later stated that the College carefully reviewed their inventory and found that the school’s licensed Nike products do not come from this plant.
The Students for International Labor Solidarity — a group consisting of students from various colleges in America interested in advocating for unjust global labor conditions — reached out to Angie Téllez-Sandoval ’25 and Isabela Ortiz Caso ’25 about the specific situation in Bangkok.
“A Worker Rights Consortium (WRC) investigation has identified violations of worker rights and universities’ labor standards at Hong Seng Knitting Co., Ltd. (‘Hong Seng’), including wage theft, coercion of workers to facilitate that theft, and retaliation against workers who resisted,” stated a 2021 Worker Rights Consortium assessment on the Hong Seng Knitting Co., Ltd. in Bangkok that sparked the efforts of Tellez-Sandoval and Ortiz Caso.
In a petition sent out to the student body on social media on Oct. 17, PLUMAS reiterated these worker violations as reasons for their request for the College to end its agreement with Nike.
“We respectfully urge the university to terminate its licensing contract with Nike and demand accountability for these labor rights violations. Doing so will demonstrate William & Mary’s commitment to ethical practices and ensure that our apparel is produced in conditions that align with our values of fairness, respect, and human dignity,” the letter read.
For Téllez-Sandoval, she saw hope in the College’s termination of its contract with Nike since it was a smaller commitment and profit compared to other schools’ agreements with the company.
“We have a licensing contract with Nike. Compared to other schools like UT schools and the University of Michigan — they don’t have licensing contracts, they’re full on sponsored. We’re sponsored by Under Armor. So that’s a whole different company. But our licensing contract essentially allows Nike to have the ability to print William Mary stuff, like we make cups, t-shirts, all that things. So it’s a lesser contract, so I also knew that it was something that we could put pressure on the administration and they’d be more willing to budge because, you know, Nike isn’t giving them billions of dollars to wear their merch. They simply have a smaller contract with us,” she said.
The College has no contractual licensing relationship with Nike but sells licensed products that Rowe states do not come from this specific plant.
When delivering the petition to Rowe, the two strategically gave her a “boo basket” as well.
“Protesting for workers rights or anything like literally anything else is like performative arts, and using that as a way to have that shock factor of like, ‘Oh my God, what is this? Like, what am I being handed? I really need to look into it.’ That was kind of the whole point of it, particularly with Halloween time and getting the value of what’s important,” Ortiz Caso said.
Téllez-Sandoval reiterated the significance of the basket.
“When I first thought of the idea, it was like a play on when you give someone a boo basket and usually it’s given as a form of affection. It’s supposed to show them that you care. We too have a relationship with our college, and a relationship with our president. So this is kind of representative of that relationship that we have with them. Like we want to alert them like, ‘Hey, you should really pay attention,’” Téllez-Sandoval said.
Inside the basket, the organizers put pamphlets from all around campus criticizing the College’s hypocrisy, as well as a teddy bear without an arm to represent the inhumane working conditions.
“The teddy bear had an arm sown out, but that’s also to symbolize inhumane working conditions and also particularly with this petition, it has to do a lot with like workers under Nike in one of their like manufacturing companies in Thailand and not just like unsafe working conditions, but also it has to do a lot with like immigration as well, because they just refuse to pay for another like a bunch of workers who don’t live in Thailand, but of course, like aren’t immigrating to be able to work and provide for their families, too. So that’s a huge disadvantage,” Ortiz Caso said.
In delivering the petition to Rowe, Téllez-Sandoval expressed that she hoped for a productive conversation with the administration understanding the rationale behind the petition.
“I hope the administration sees this as this isn’t like bashing William and Mary completely. Right? This isn’t about, like we hate the administration. We want ethical clothing. We want to know that when we wear William and Mary, that even the clothing and the history of our clothing isn’t embedded in labor violations and literally histories of colonialism and things like that. We want to know that at the very least, knowing that already the history we have, at the very least, our clothing can be held to a standard of our code of conduct,” she said.
Additionally, Téllez-Sandoval saw how the College being a member of the Workers Rights Consortium to be further evidence for fighting against the labor conditions in Thailand.
“It’s also just the fact that William Mary is already signed on to a workers’ rights consortium that alerts them when these violations occur. So William and Mary is already alerted, and they have just chosen to ignore it or else just paid it now mind. So just like hold yourselves accountable and show them that this is what we should stand for,” she said.
In an email to The Flat Hat, Suzanne Clavet, Director of Media Relations, relayed the response Rowe sent to the students who reached out with the petition following her office’s research into the matter.
“I am reaching out to respond to the petition delivered to my office on October 18,” Rowe wrote. “This is a matter that William & Mary takes very seriously, as a member of the Worker Rights Consortium for nearly two decades. I can confirm that William & Mary licensed products are not produced at Hong Seng Knitting. Upon receiving your letter, my office reached out to our Trademark Licensing Administration to investigate the facts of this matter. On a subject as important as this, we always want to provide complete and accurate information; thank you for your patience while we conducted our review. Here are the relevant facts: W&M has no direct relationship with Nike; very few licensed Nike products are sold through our relationships with authorized retailers; the manufacturers of these products are required to disclose all production facilities. They have confirmed that they do not source items from Hong Seng Knitting. I am writing to you personally because it is important that you have accurate information. I hope that you will share these facts with those who signed the petition.”
For Ortiz Caso, PLUMAS plans to continue on petitioning to end the College’s contract with Nike, given the 2021 report; they intend to send another letter Wednesday, Nov. 6. She hopes for administration to be more open to student voices and pay more attention to what the community needs.
“Like Angie said, the administration is already alerted. So it’s not something that they aren’t aware of. It’s just a matter of choosing to ignore what they think isn’t important. But also, as a community we should be advocating and at least trying to represent our school and our students in a way that is not using exploitive labor,” Ortiz Caso said.
Téllez-Sandoval sees a trend with the College administration’s stance on recent controversial or political issues; however, she sees optimism with the student activism on campus.
“I think one thing that’s so interesting is that a president can change, a chancellor can change, but the way they stay silent never changes,” Téllez-Sandoval said. “But one thing I will say is that student activism is always present, too. I think William and Mary has a history of people who will continuously speak up, who continuously try to hold their admin accountable, who continuously show up for these committees, and that’s never going to die.”
CORRECTION (11/08/2024): Article was updated by the Standards & Practices Editor to clarify that the College does not have a contractual licensing relationship with Nike.
