H -°, L 7° | Tomorrow: 
H 17°, L 4°The University of Wisconsin Student Labor Action Coalition distributed its “report card” Monday to Chancellor Biddy Martin, based on observations of how she has been handling the Honduras-Nike labor issue.
The report card varied as far as satisfaction was concerned, but did show gratitude from SLAC members for Martin’s work in attempting to resolve the issue.
Martin recently wrote a stern letter to Nike, giving the company four months to rectify labor violations.
SLAC member Jan Van Tol said the report card was organized into four categories: swiftness, results, transparency and effort.
“We actually delivered a final exam (to Martin) with the hopes of assessing her position on the issues and we wanted to follow up with a report card to let students know how she did,” Van Tol said.
In terms of grades, the chancellor earned an F in the area of swiftness, incomplete in the results category, C in the area of transparency, and a grade of B in terms of efforts, according to Van Tol.
Martin’s failing grade in the area of swiftness stemmed from the length of time she allowed Nike to pay the allotted amount to the workers, which was four months, Van Tol said.
“Swiftness was the most obvious because something we saw over and over was that [faculty] will drag these things out because they know they can outlast students due to graduation and breaks,” Van Tol said.
He said Martin’s transparency grade of C resulted from her lack of openness as far as negotiations relating to the case, adding many of Martin’s negotiations have been over the phone and unavailable to the public.
Van Tol said her highest grade, B, in the area of effort is due to her commitment to the issue, although SLAC would like to see more results.
Martin’s final grade of incomplete came in the results area from her unavailability to complete the final exam that SLAC distributed to her last week.
According to Dawn Crim, special assistant to the Chancellor, Martin was unable to complete last week’s final due to the inclement weather and problems around campus, but added she and SLAC are working toward the same outcome.
“The work that Biddy is doing shows her commitment to the issue and really [Martin and SLAC] are on the same page and want the same issues resolved, but their tactics are different,” Crim said.
The final exam included multiple choice, true or false, and short answer questions to determine Martin’s knowledge on the labor issues.
One of the multiple-choice questions included on the exam was: How much does Nike owe the former workers of these two factories? The choices given were: a semester of UW tuition, a pair of Air Jordans, $2,176,265.36, or an apology.
“It is finals season for students and we thought it would be nice to share with [Martin] some of the things we were going through and also show her that this sweat shop issue will not go away,” Van Tol said.
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Badger Herald: you keep reporting stupid shit that isn’t news from SLAC. Get your head out of your ass.
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SLAC sucks. this is why the US is going down the drain, we’re more worried about pointless things in other countries and supporting them rather than our own economy.
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SLAC: Even when she does what we want, talks to us more than Wiley ever did, and addresses Nike quicker than any other vendor before, we shit all over Biddy anyway.
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Hey, in response to anoymous on dec 15 at 2.25, You might be new to this, but the world is globalizing (and i do encourage critical analysis of globalization as it is now, im no supporter either). It might be nice to dream of the days when we manufactured everything we wanted here and and you could be certain your children lived better than you and all that stuff our parents grandparents talk about, but the fact is, if we want good jobs here, we need to have good jobs over their. And how do you get good jobs (no, its not be born into a wealthy business owning family, though, i must concede, that works) we get good jobs by supporting unions and workers rights. Thats the goal of slac, if we want to fix the economy here, which you say you do, then we have to try and fix it over “there” as well.
PS. I am in Slac
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Our economy doesn’t create good jobs through unions. Unions decrease productivity of the entire economy because the only thing unions try to do is get paid more for doing less. What do the US steel, automotive, and airline industries have in common? They’re always going bankrupt and employ high percentages of union members. Go read an economics book idiot.
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This is not news. It wasn’t the first 15 times it was written about either. In fact, everytime I see another SLAC story, I am going to go buy something from Nike. It just sucks that someone in SLAC writes for the herald, so we have to read about this dribble over and over. Maybe you could tell the story about how SLAC had cake with the Chancellor again….editor’s note:Chancellor was not there. That one was great.
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Actually, no one in SLAC writes for the Herald. We just send out press releases and letters to the editor. Also SLAC is student group that works within and outside of the University campus in an effort to solve labor problems that affect the UW. How is that not news in a student newspaper? And I’m glad to hear that you care more about hating us than you do about workers’ rights.
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Our economy creates good jobs through unions, they raise wages, increase benefits, and depending on how authoritarian the union is, ensure a voice for workers in their workplace. I agree with you that the uaw and the like are partly responsible for the predicament that companies such as ford are in but that’s the fault of a conservative union taking conservative stances, instead of keeping pressure on capital, the uaw and unions like it (see: afl-cio) take a fatalist view that the goal of the economic system will always be production and production alone, if workers had a real say in what those unions/companies did then they would have been able to look long term and pushed for radical changes such as a move to “greener” cars ect, of course, i think i can hardly blame the uaw bureaucrats for only focusing on securing a few more crumbs for the workers when the general trend in the last 50 years has been increasing inequality between workers and and the elites. You also say the “only thing unions try to do is get paid more for doing less” umm, yea? the goal of a union is supposed to be better conditions for producers and more money for the work they do, thats why unions fight for things like higher wages (more) and 40 hour works weeks (less).
last and most important in my opinion, is you say read an economics textbook, but you dont seem to understand that economics is not just the right-wing neo-liberal stuff taught here, economics is this “the branch of social science that deals with the production and distribution and consumption of goods and services and their management” wordnetweb.princeton.edu/perl/webwn if you notice, that definition does not say capitalism, or the study of capitalism, while i am comfortable in my understanding of capitalism, one way of managing production and distribution , there are many different economic systems that could be in an “economics book” perhaps you should not assume we are all self-interested humans, i for one care about others. in short, your insult is terrible, idiot!
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What is the issue? What violations? What do they amount to?
Does Nike really own money? I’m not sure this is true.
Some facts would be helpful.
“Martin�s failing grade in the area of swiftness stemmed from the length of time she allowed Nike to pay the allotted amount to the workers, which was four month”
What does this even mean? What allotted amount? Who allotted it? What’s wrong with paying workers the “allotted amount?”
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the allotted amount is 2.1 million. and its allotted by nike to the workers, and the problem is she is giving them too long to pay up, they haven’t payed, the only money workers have received is from the seizure of the factory
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Allotted by who? Who seized the factory?
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http://www.jconline.com/assets/PDF/BY146086115.PDF
this has all the info you could possibly need ha. And the last one was me btw too, forgot to put my name in.
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Thank you. That helps.
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USAS is unstoppable!!!
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Wish i had four hands so i could give yeh FOUR THUMBS DOwn