Annual Report of the Committee on Manufacturer Responsibility |
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September 18, 2012,
Volume 59, No. 04 |
The following report for the 2011-2012 academic year was sent on June 18, 2012 to President Amy Gutmann from Dr. Walter Licht, Chair of the Committee on Manufacturer Responsibility (CMR), in accordance with the Code of Workplace Conduct. As outlined in the Code, the CMR will review the Code annually; review the effectiveness of monitoring; review the state of compliance of the apparel licensees and review any alleged violations of the Code. The revised Code of Workplace Conduct for Penn Licensed Product Manufacturers is published For Comment here.
Annual Report of the Committee on Manufacturer Responsibility
I am writing to report on the deliberations of the Committee on Manufacturer Responsibility for academic year 2011-2012. As mandated by the University’s Code of Workplace Conduct for Penn Apparel Licensees, the Committee met four times this year. A list of members of the Committee is below.
This was a particularly busy and productive year for the Committee. We considered and made important decisions on the following:
First, on July 1, 2011 the University retained the Licensing Resource Group (LRG) to manage our trademark licensing program. LRG is a full- service licensing and brand management company that many of our peer institutions employ. This year, LRG collected and forwarded the licensee compliance disclosure information needed for our review of vendor compliance of our Code of Workplace Conduct. The Committee was especially interested in assessing this new outsourcing service, and by our last meeting committee members unanimously agreed that the LRG arrangement successfully facilitated the review process.
Second, the Committee decided to experiment with a new disclosure form. In the past, we have circulated a cumbersome, 16-page questionnaire that provided simple check-off answers that were often less than revealing. This year, we replaced that document with a request for information that required written statements. After our review of the responses, committee members concurred that the new reporting instrument served us well and this year’s experiment will now be established practice. Our vendors, it should be noted, were asked for feedback on the new disclosure form and the responses were all positive.
Third, after years of consideration and deliberate investigation by the current Committee, committee members unanimously voted to recommend to the administration that the Code of Workplace Conduct be extended to vendors of non-apparel items. This will finally bring us in line with our peer institutions (the monitoring agencies that we rely on, the Fair Labor Association and the Workers’ Rights Consortium, for years have been involved in investigating non-apparel vendors who supply wares to universities). The move to extend beyond apparel manufacturers, I will add, has received strong endorsement from the Undergraduate Assembly and other student organizations. Implementing the change requires adoption of a revised Code of Workplace Conduct. Basically, the word “apparel” has been removed from the original; there are now just “licensees” without reference to what goods they manufacture. We also removed a few anachronistic terms and names of organizations that no longer exist. With an extension to non-apparel companies, the number of vendors to be reviewed each year will grow by approximately 60, but the outsourcing of the sending and compiling of disclosure forms to LRG will ease the work of the Committee. We hope the Office of the President concurs with the recommendation of the Committee to extend the mandate of the University’s Code of Workplace Conduct to non-apparel licensees and that the revised Code be posted early in the fall semester in Almanac For Comment; that represents the approval process.
Fourth, in line with its basic responsibilities, the Committee reviewed the responses of all current licensees to our new disclosure form. As of our last meeting on April 17, 2012, we considered responses of 55 vendors and found all compliant with our code of conduct and the codes of our affiliated monitoring organizations, The Workers’ Rights Consortium and the Fair Labor Association. Two licensees did not file responses as of our April 27 meeting and still have not; contracts with these firms will not be renewed. A third company that did not file a disclosure form has decided not to seek renewal due to lack of sales.
Finally, late in the academic year we learned of a dispute involving one of our licensees, Adidas. The company is facing allegations that it owes severance pay to displaced workers at one of its subcontractor factories in Indonesia. Unfortunately, we do not have full information. Among the Committee’s priorities when it next convenes in the fall is to evaluate the situation in consultation with our partner monitoring organizations and make a recommendation regarding Penn’s ongoing/future relationship with Adidas.
Please let me know if you need further information or would like to discuss directly the issues noted in this report.
—Walter Licht,
Chair, Committee on Manufacturer Responsibility
Walter H. Annenberg Professor of History
Committee on Manufacturer Responsibility 2011-2012
Walter Licht, SAS, Chair |
Steven Kimbrough, Wharton |
Mark Stern, SP2 |
Taylor Berkowitz, PPSA |
Steven Hauber, WPPSA |
Kenny Puk, CHAC |
Lisa Doi, CHAC |
Erich Reimer, Undergraduate Assembly |
Madhu Srinivasan, GAPSA |
Leo Charney, Provost’s Office (Ex-Officio) |
Leah Popowich, President’s Office (Ex-Officio) |
Christopher Bradie/Ilene Wilder, Business Services (Ex-Officio) |
Pierce Buller, Office of General Counsel (Ex-Officio) |
Jackie Miraglia (Staff Support) |
Maddie Macks (Intern) |
The following response from the president of the University of Pennsylvania was sent to Dr. Walter Licht on July 12, 2012.
Response to the Chair of the Committee from President Gutmann
Thank you for your comprehensive report of the 2011-2012 work of the Committee on Manufacturer Responsibility. I applaud you and the members of the Committee for your commitment to fair employment standards by University licensees.
I appreciate your thorough and careful consideration of licensees of non-apparel items under the University’s Code of Workplace Conduct, and am pleased to accept the Committee’s recommendation to extend the Code to include all licensee compliance beyond strictly apparel. I have asked the Office of the University Secretary—consistent with that Office’s oversight of other University-wide groups in which faculty, students and staff are engaged—to work with you and the Committee on Manufacturer Responsibility, and Leslie Kruhly will reach out to you to begin the process of amending the Code early in the fall semester.
My thanks to you and the members of the Committee on Manufacturer Responsibility again for your dedication to these important topics and for your recommendations. You have my very best wishes for a restful and enjoyable summer.
—Amy Gutmann |
Related: For Comment: Code of Workplace Conduct for Penn Licensed Product Manufacturers |