What's the Problem?
Universities and human rights
People making products for our universities are suffering from serious human rights abuses. Why?
Universities buy from big suppliers, who in turn often outsource and subcontract out work. This means that they can deny responsibility for the factories in which our products are actually produced. Their suppliers often crush workers attempts to improve their conditions and join trade unions.
This leads to workers working in sweatshop conditions: 16 hour days, 3p per hour, physical abuse and dangerous conditions. Producers of raw materials like farmers and miners are paid unfair prices for their produce.
Multinational corporations make huge profits from universities, but how can universities know that human rights are being respected in the supply chains of the products that they buy? They can read suppliers’ codes of conduct, but companies often break their own codes of conduct as well as local laws and international labour standards.
So what can we do? The Buy Right campaign says that we need independent monitoring, a student voice in decisions and changes in university policy to support human rights.
There are lots of ways that you can get involved in making this happen, and making a big difference to the lives of factory workers and farmers around the world.
