Fight Back!: What are the achievements of the sit-in?

Hirsch: It is possible that Chancellor Moeser will not adopt the Designated Suppliers Program [DSP] before he leaves his post at the end of June. We have made it clear to the incoming Chancellor that we are serious about workers’ rights at Carolina and we have shown how much public support there is in the community for the DSP. The Chancellor was forced to call an emergency meeting of the Licensing Labor Code Advisory Committee and the DSP is back on the table.

Our sit-in empowered students and strengthened our group, Student Action with Workers. We built relationships with campus workers and student groups, and made important connections with community members. Next year we will have a strong group and are in a better position than ever to act in solidarity with workers. The sit-in is over but the fight for the DSP will go on and we will continue to work for justice for all workers.

Fight Back!: Did you receive support from other groups? What impact did this have in the struggle?

Hirsch: By the end of the sit-in we had endorsements from 18 different student groups. Students from many of these groups joined our sit-in or did support work for us during the sit-in. We were endorsed by the Progressive Faculty Network, the university Employee Forum and several local unions. Our local state senator supported us and came to our rallies and many people from the community were behind us.

Support ranged anywhere from bringing us food and sending us encouraging messages to spending the weekend inside of the building. Groups at other schools around the country that are affiliated with United Students Against Sweatshops sent messages out about our sit-in and did solidarity actions at their own universities. Having four sit-ins for the DSP around the country take place within a week and a half of each other strengthened us. Having students and faculty behind the sit-in was most important to us because the administration needed to see how much support for workers rights there is at Carolina.

Fight Back!: Chancellor Moeser does not seem interested in negotiating. What are your next steps?

Hirsch: The Chancellor would rather arrest students than take a stand for human rights. Chancellor Moeser was never willing to have an honest discussion about the DSP, and consistently misrepresented the policy to the media. He did not respond to the ten-page letter we sent him during the sit-in that corrected many of the untrue things he had said and asked him to meet with us. The Chancellor’s refusal to respect basic human rights forced us into occupying South Building. He has tarnished his legacy and UNC’s reputation, but the administration has been reminded once again that students will make sacrifices to stand in solidarity with workers.

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Chapel Hill, NC – A 16-day sit-in at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill (UNC) administration building came to a dramatic close on Friday May 2, when Chancellor Moeser ordered UNC police to arrest five of the protesters. It was the longest sit-in protest in UNC’s history. Dozens of students had occupied the lobby of South Building, the administrative headquarters at UNC, in a protest against the university’s use of sweatshops for the manufacture of UNC apparel (Sit-in at administration building demands end to UNC sweatshop clothing, Fight Back!, April 2008).

The students, members of the Carolina Sweatfree Coalition, had demanded that Chancellor Moeser and the UNC Licensing Labor Code Advisory Committee sign on to the Designated Suppliers Program, which would ensure that university apparel is manufactured in factories where workers earn a living wage and have the right to organize. In contrast, most UNC apparel is currently manufactured in Central American and South Asian sweatshops, where workers are routinely harassed on the job, denied the right to organize and earn pitiful wages that fall short of what is needed to support a family.

After 16 days of sitting in, members of the Carolina Sweatfree Coalition were granted a meeting with the licensing committee and the Chancellor. Commenting on what took place at the meeting, Student Action with Workers member Salma Mirza said, “Chancellor Moeser demonstrated at that committee meeting that he had no intention of taking any moral leadership on the fact that our apparel is manufactured under sweatshop conditions.”

After the meeting, the Carolina Sweatfree Coalition held a press conference in South Building. A dozen students then entered Chancellor Moeser’s office to inform him that they would continue to occupy the administration building until he entered into a genuine dialog with the Coalition. In response, Moeser ordered the students arrested. The police arrested one student without warning, and then told the others to leave if they did not want to be arrested. Four remained and were arrested on charges of failure to disperse, while one student was charged with resisting arrest.

“We knew our arrests would join with the 46 others that have taken place across the U.S. around this campaign, and that we would be contributing to the deep history of struggle at UNC,” said Tim Stallmann, a graduate student at UNC and a member of Student Action with Workers. “This was an anti-sweatshop fight, but we were putting our bodies on the line for all workers involved at UNC: the clerical and campus workers, the student workers and the workers manufacturing UNC apparel in sweatshops around the world.”

The statement from the Coalition on the arrests said, “The Chancellor stated that he was disappointed by our actions. We cannot begin to express our disappointment in the Chancellor of a university that calls itself the ‘university of the people,’ who would prefer to arrest peaceful student protesters instead of ensuring that there is justice for the workers who make this university run.”

Members of the Coalition and Student Action with Workers, the group that led the protests, promise to continue the struggle the next year. “The campaign for justice for all workers in the Carolina community will not end with the arrests of peaceful student protesters,” explained Salma Mirza. “Though we were the ones arrested, we must ask -which is more criminal, our act of peacefully occupying an office of a public institution that our tuition pays for, or Chancellor Moeser allowing our Carolina apparel to be made under sweatshop conditions that violate international and domestic law?”

For more information, and to support the campaign, please visit: http://www.unionvoice.org/campaign/uncsitin

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