“As an interconnected global institution, Stanford University believes that we have the responsibility to make sure that products affiliated to our name are manufactured in working conditions up to the standard that we embraced,” President John Hennessy said in his opening speech to last night’s panel discussion on “Global Competitiveness: Economics, Ethics, and the Global Labor Force” held at the Bishop Auditorium in the Graduate School of Business (GSB).

The discussion — moderated by Joshua Cohen, director of the Program on Global Justice at the Freeman Spogli Institute (FSI) for International Studies and professor of political science, philosophy and law — focused on the global push to improve the working environment, mainly in the textile industry. The panel discussed the implication of such efforts for Stanford, which gives out licenses to manufacture its branded apparel.

Political Science Prof. David Brady, who is also a senior fellow at the Hoover Institution, FSI and the Stanford Institute for Economic Policy Research (SIEPR), started the discussion with an introduction to the setbacks that anti-sweat shop movements have faced since their conception.

“Without a legal framework, it is very difficult for NGOs [non-governmental organizations] to enforce the appropriate standard,” he said. “And because of poverty, workers in these countries are forced to accept the job that has no safety measures.”

Despite these difficulties, anti-sweat shop movements have made significant progress in their pursuit. Brandy said that international surveys have shown that companies like Nike and Adidas have implemented measures to improve the working conditions in their subcontracting factories.

“What matters is not the size of all the protests but the size of the media coverage of these protests,” said GSB Prof. Hayagreeva Rao. “The consumers react to what is on the news, and the next day not only will there be a boycott of the products but also the stock market will be hit.”

Rao added that the activists have managed to use these tactics and transform this social moral issue into a risk issue to the companies. This offers an incentive to companies like Nike, Adidas and Gap to improve their workers’ working conditions.

But Ethics in Society Prof. Debra Satz warned the audience to think hard about the potential conflict between the good intention and the negative consequences that these movements may pose to the workers in developing countries, especially the loss of jobs.

However, she concluded that these problems should not deter people from pushing for what they believe in.

“We don’t know enough about the world to determine what works and what does not work,” she said. “Sometimes what the economists think cannot work may in fact become the very thing that changes the world.”

Scott Nova, executive director of Workers Rights Consortium — an organization that involves 175 colleges and universities (including Stanford) across the U.S. — said the University has a lot of power over the manufacturers of its branded apparel.

“One of the things that the University can do,” he said, “is to put down in the licensing agreements with the manufacturers the standard of working conditions that it wants the manufacturers to embrace.”

Among the attendees at last night’s panel were members of the Sweat-Free Stanford Coalition.

They had a very interesting point on how consumers can be a factor in the anti-sweat shop movement,” said Theresa Zhen’ 09, a member of the coalition. “We will go back and rethink our strategy to influence more on the demand side, instead of directing [our efforts] at the economic market which we cannot really control.”