Archives West Finding Aid

The interviews on this project document key negotiations. Other material relates to what caused Russell Athletic Brand (2007) to significantly change its labor practices in Central America. Material consists of public documents, media reports, private correspondence and internal memos. Interviews with key participants including the Worker's Rights Consortium (WRC) and the Fair Labor Association (FLA), the United Students Against Sweatshops (USAS), trade mark and licensing staff and their advisory committees at numerous US universities, the corporate social responsibility officers of Nike and the other relevant corporations, and representatives of important NGOs (e.g, Maquila Solidarity and COVERCO) and workers' representatives (e.g., the CGT). The interviews (full list available upon request) will provide crucial insight into strategies that improve the well being of the workers in Brand supply chain factories. The digital archive at the University of Washington Library will serve as a crucial scholarly resource for future research in the increasingly important areas of globalized social justice activism, labor relations, and corporate social responsibility. The collection will serve as a rich source of material for both social scientists and legal scholars who are interested in understanding the politics of legal and contractual obligations in complex domestic and international settings. Interviews with University of Washington President Mark Emmert (a key figure in the Nike-CGT negotiation process), UW political science professor Margaret Levi, Co-Chair of the University of Washington's ACTL Committee, and 18 other UW individuals involved in the Nike settlement in different stages and aspects of the negotiations. Research materials are included on the Nike, Estofel and Russell Athletic cases. Interviews were conducted in 2011 with former factory employees, other local participants in the negotiations.