Representatives of two of the nation's major sweatshop monitoring organizations debated the merits of full public disclosure and independent monitoring in a panel discussion at the Yenching Auditorium.

Sam W. Brown Jr., executive director of the Fair Labor Association (FLA), and Jeff D. Ballinger, a member of the advisory board of the Workers Rights Consortium (WRC), represented their groups on the panel.

Harvard is currently a member of the FLA, but student activists say the University should withdraw from the organization, which they say is too beholden to corporate interests, and join the fledgling WRC.

Dara O'Rourke, an international labor policy expert and a professor of urban and environmental studies at MIT, opened the discussion by calling for a greater amount of public information in the monitoring process.

"There needs to be greater transparency and public disclosure," he said. "It's central to advancing debate."

Both he and Ballinger urged the FLA to adopt a policy of full disclosure--which would include information such as monitoring reports and factory locations--and hire only independent monitors who are not paid or approved by the apparel industry.

But Brown said the FLA could not commit to such a policy.

He said the organization is constrained by agreements it had made with its member corporations, apparel manufacturers who hold six of 13 seats on the governing board.