LAUSD Adopts Anti-Sweatshop Code
By Nancy Cleeland
Times Staff Writer
March 25, 2004
complete story at http://www.latimes.com/business/la-fi-sweat25mar25,1,1769406.story

The Los Angeles Unified School District has adopted one of the nation's most sweeping anti-sweatshop measures, requiring suppliers of everything from desks to scissors to disclose where and how those products were made and guarantee that workers making them earn a "non-poverty" wage.

The LAUSD code, which comes as the budget-strapped district gears up for a major school expansion, is far broader than those adopted by universities and municipalities in recent years.

Most such policies apply only to school-branded clothing, items sold in school bookstores or police and fire uniforms.

The district spends about $500 million on procurement each year for general services and supplies such as pencils, and all of it will fall under the code approved unanimously by the district board Tuesday night.

"At least on paper, it's more far-reaching than anything I've seen from any institution," said school board member David Tokofsky, who first proposed the measure more than a year ago. "We're buying dozens of buses, thousands of forks, soccer balls, furniture and flags. Who knows where all this stuff comes from and what circumstances it's made under?"

The measure requires the district's thousands of vendors to provide detailed information in bid documents on the source of goods, including the manufacturing site.

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