5 arrested at UNC-CH sit-in

Panel rejects suppliers program Moeser calls 'idealistic'

CHAPEL HILL -- Hours before five students were arrested in his office, Chancellor James Moeser said the university needs more time to figure out the best way to improve conditions for workers making clothing bearing its name.

Moeser has reservations about the Designated Suppliers Program, which the students say would guarantee workers a living wage and collective bargaining.

"It's idealistic," he said. "It's equivalent to trying to bail out the Pacific Ocean with a teaspoon."

On Friday, the UNC-CH Labor Code Advisory Committee voted 7-5 not to join the DSP. Opponents said it had not been adequately discussed and remained skeptical of its usefulness.

Chairman Don Hornstein, who led the meeting, said the DSP is not the only option for improving labor conditions.

"The DSP has been elevated to a principle, but it is not," member Dwayne Pinkney said. "It is a mechanism."

Trademark licensing revenue generated $2.83 million in fiscal 2007 to support need- and merit-based scholarships, according to the university.

Both UNC-CH and the student protesters say the university has been a leader in the sales of products bearing its name. UNC-CH belongs to two national labor monitoring organizations: the Fair Labor Association and the Worker Rights Consortium.

But students have pushed for the DSP because, among other provisions, it would require license holders to buy goods from certified factories that pay a living wage and allow workers to unionize. As of Thursday, students said, 44 colleges and universities, including Duke, have adopted the program.

For the past three weeks, a small group of students has staged a sit-in outside Moeser's office in South Building. After Friday's vote, 10 students moved the protest into chancellor's office.

Linda Khaled Gomaa, Thomas Robert Mattera, Tim Stallmann, Sarah Hirsch and Salma Mirza were arrested and charged with failure to disperse.

Mirza, the only undergraduate member of the advisory committee, also was charged with resisting an officer when she "went limp" in a chair following the arrest. Campus police slowly wheeled the chair out of Moeser's office and carried it down the outside stairs to a campus police van.

"I was prepared to be surprised either way," student Charles Soeder said about the committee's decision. "It's sad that it had to come to this."

According to Mirza and other members of UNC-CH's Student Action with Workers, the issue came to a protest only after Moeser did not respond to letters and e-mail messages and steered away from discussing the DSP in meetings.

"It's no accident that the [advisory committee] meeting was put off until finals week," Mirza said.

Students were warned during the sit-in not to disrupt university business or occupy any offices, and Moeser defended the arrests.

"We showed tremendous forbearance in a 16-day sit-in that was, until today, peaceful," he said in a statement Friday night.