The college students who adorn a bookstore uniform to face their “penniless” customers each day enjoy a minimum wage of $7.25. This is over eight times the minimum wage in the Dominican Republic where their peers work 10 hour days to produce some of the clothing items that are sold in the bookstore.

“Having that kind of labor and work in the economy is not healthy,” said  Phillip Sears, sophomore in English. “And if we were to do that in America, it would not stand.”

Alta Gracia is an experimental brand made by Knights Apparel, the leading college apparel producer in the United States.

The New York Times reported that after Chief Operation Officer Joseph Bozich was diagnosed with multiple sclerosis in the midst of other emergencies close to home, he decided to change the way he did business and started an effort to create a sustainable impact on the company’s workers in an area where they have few options.

As of 2010, Alta Gracia is the first apparel manufacturer in the Dominican Republic that pays their employees a living wage of $2.83, which is almost three and half times the country’s minimum wage of 84 cents and is enough money to provide an individual and their family with food, clean water, shelter, the possibility of education and health insurance.

Over 450 colleges and universities in the United States have already welcomed Alta Gracia apparel. University Bookstore began carrying Alta Gracia T-shirts, long sleeve shirts and hooded sweatshirts in June of 2011, but are currently sold out.

“I think the cause behind it is great,” said Amy Delashmutt, program coordinator for the bookstore. “We are owned and operated by Iowa State, so we have a responsibility to the community to make sure those dollars are spent wisely.”

One group, Iowa State Students Against Sweatshops, is working to get Alta Gracia clothes back on the racks at University Bookstore.

The group has started a petition to ask the bookstore to purchase $250,000 worth of the sweatshop-free apparel and make a commitment to endorsing the company’s ethical labor practices.

“It is really unfortunate that we live in a society where sweatshops are either swept under the rug or people don’t really care,” said Andrew Stanzyk, senior in global resource systems and Students Against Sweatshops member. “This can change through awareness and action, and we can successfully get socially responsible clothing on our campus.”

The bookstore will meet with members of Students Against Sweatshops Friday at 3 p.m. on the ground floor of the Memorial Union to discuss the petition. University Bookstore could potentially have trouble affording and storing $250,000 worth of clothing, but the bookstore has not made any decisions in regards to the purchasing of Alta Gracia apparel at this point.

Alta Gracia believes if the fair treatment of factory workers can be proven as a good business model, others in the apparel industry might change their conventional labor standards.

Anastasia Prokos, associate professor of sociology, agrees that with world trade practices already in place, the countries must now look to apply kinds of work that will be equitable.

“The question is how do we work with these global connections to make the best possible outcome for everyone,” Prokos said.