No sweat for Alta Gracia

Located in the Dominican Republic is the small town of Alta Gracia, the new home of an unprecedented project by Knights Apparel, Inc.

The company, which is the largest supplier of collegiate apparel to 186 universities including the University of Toledo, will begin paying their factory workers $3 an hour — three times the Dominican Republic's minimum wage.

"This truly can be a pathway out of poverty and life-changing not just for the people making the apparel, but for their families," Knights Apparel CEO Joseph Bozich said. "I believe it can be life-changing because, to my knowledge, this is the first apparel brand that's compensating the people for making the product not based on upon what is required, but based on what is calculated."

Bozich said in a press conference that his company has an obligation to pay their workers a wage to live on instead of the minimum wage.

"There's been a lot of debate with the tie-in between doing good and good business," he said. "We're hoping [to show with] the Alta Gracia project that doing good is good business and it's not mutually exclusive."

The idea of paying living wages for workers started back in 2005, and he has been working closely with the Worker Rights Consortium to help establish the factory, determine how much a living wage was and to help make sure the factory is in compliance with the terms, said Bozich.

The original location of the project was supposed to be in Haiti, but due to complications, Knights Apparel looked at the Dominican Republic and "became emotionally attached to the area."

"There are many areas around the world where there is a great need. Doing something like this in any other countries where there is apparel manufacturing would be a great cause," he said. "There was a lot of collegiate manufacturing as foreign owners moved production where labor was cheaper, so we visited and saw the expertise was there, the unemployment was incredible, and we became emotionally attached to the area."

Theresa Haas, director of communications of the WRC, said the living wage was calculated based on how much money could be used to help a worker in order to help them afford to support a family of four in the Dominican Republic.

"Alta Gracia is radically different from fair trade projects because the workers are being paid living wages and it makes clear that brands can produce university apparel in union factories where workers are paid wages they can live on, they can support families on and it really defies the excuse that companies can't respect workers' rights in a global economy," said Therese Cheng, international campaigns coordinator of United Students Against Sweatshops.

Haas said the Alta Garcia factory is being monitored more closely than any other apparel factory because they have someone inspecting it at least once a week to make sure the factory stays in compliance with its promise to pay its workers higher wages.

"Most monitoring organizations will tell you quite honestly that they cannot make it to factories at a regular basis," she said. "We are not monitoring any college apparel sites in the entire world; so the level of monitoring in this factory going on is more intense."

The factory, which employs approximately 125 workers, went through a thorough hiring process, according to Knights Chief Operating Officer Donnie Hodge.

"We have a criteria and we wanted to make sure there was complete transparency and fairness in hiring," Hodge said. "We came up with an approved list of people. We have some jobs that cut and sew, some where lifting was required. Then we got an approved list and went down that list of approved people."

Jim Wilkerson, Duke University's director of trademark licensing and stores operations, said that in the week he has had sold 600 articles of clothing and has made $11,000 in revenue.

"[Alta Gracia is] being well-received," Wilkerson said. "We're really pleased and thrilled to be a part of this.

The biggest factor on the success of the project is if the students will buy the products. Cheng said the best way to raise sales is to increase awareness of the product on campus and inform students about the that lives are being affected if they purchase an Alta Gracia article of clothing.

"Once students become aware of what Alta Gracia means, then they'll buy Alta Gracia and all parts of the university community will really recognize the significance of what is a really historic breakthrough," Cheng said.