"It's encouraging to have other schools succeed in these initiatives but I don't think it changed our strategy," Benko says. "We have to consider the circumstances here and the administration here and how we're going to obtain our objectives."

The Demands from Harvard

PSLM negotiators have been meeting with University lawyer Allan A. Ryan Jr. for a year, pushing five demands that have also been on the table at other schools.

The first demand was full disclosure of factory locations, to which Harvard agreed after March's Rally for Justice, which the PSLM staged along with other campus causes.

The second demand was for workers to be paid a "living wage" for the country they live in. Third was an assurance of protection for women--who activists say are more vulnerable in some factory settings.

Fourth was a call for student participation in devising a code of conduct and overseeing apparel contracts. Finally, PSLM asks for monitoring by an independent non-governmental organization.

In addition, PSLM wants Harvard to become part of an Independent University Initiative (IUI), a group of universities that are not involved with the Collegiate Licensing Corporation, a company to which many universities belong, and who must make decisions through the company.

Benko says she is satisfied because Harvard has made a commitment to full disclosure. She says that, encouraged by the gains at other schols, she hopes that during negotiations PSLM will be able to gain its other objectives.

"Fortunately there's been a real national momentum behind sweatshop initiatives," Benko says. "There's more and more national support for this kind of a movement and I think that puts pressure on the university to see that this isn't just an isolated group on campus, but that we're part of a national network that's devoted to getting universities to implement codes of conduct."

A Deadlock Approaching?

The only other prominent school where student activists chose to negotiate first was the University of Michigan, where students began negotiating with the school's general counsel after presenting their demands.

The outcome was similar to PSLM's progress so far--full disclosure was agreed on, but the two sides deadlocked on further demands, including women's rights and a living wage.

"The university agreed to study that and think about it but they wouldn't commit, so we decided to increase the pressure," says Andrew R. Cornell, a Michigan student. The Michigan antisweatshop group then organized a 350-person rally, followed by the sit-in the next week.

PSLM member Aron R. Fischer '99-'00 says that the Rally for Justice in March was aggressive enough to bring change.

"I think basically our tactic has been a combination of action and negotiation and I think that's actually worked pretty well so far," he says. "We certainly have made loud demands, particularly at the rally for justice in March, and that more aggressive tactic worked.