The ISU cap or T-shirt many students sport this time of year is probably made in a factory with poor working conditions. That is the consensus of the national organizers with United Students Against Sweatshops.

“The fact of the matter is, there is no decent apparel factory in the world,” said Ben McKean, one of the national organizers for the group.

About 15 people gathered at noon Tuesday in the Campanile Room of the Memorial Union to hear about the dangers of sweatshops and other workplace injustices around the globe. The forum was sponsored by the ISU Fair Trade Organization and the ISU Student Union Board and Anthropology Club.

Jennifer Riggs, president of the ISU Fair Trade Organization, said the purpose of the forum was to raise awareness of fair trade issues and encourage students to get involved.

“I started the ISU Fair Trade Organization this semester to encourage the campus to start using fair trade coffee,” said Riggs, junior in anthropology.

Fair trade is a system allowing producers and farmers to get a fair wage for the work they do, she said.

Most universities have their collegiate apparel made in factories with unsafe and unjust working conditions, said Lenore Palladino, national co-organizer of United Students Against Sweatshops. The collegiate apparel business is a $3 billion industry, McKean said.

“Working conditions are getting worse and worse — women are being sexually harassed and forced to take birth-control pills,” Palladino said. “If you want to affect what a company is doing, you have to hit them in the pocketbook.”

United Students Against Sweatshops has put together a four-pronged approach to help reach the goal of better working conditions across the globe. These tools are used to influence universities to make better choices when they contract out the making of their collegiate apparel, McKean said.

“The first tool we developed was a code of conduct, which is a standard companies have to meet, such as paying a living wage,” he said.

Universities are held accountable for whether the companies’ policies include paying a living wage.

“Second, we have a full disclosure of factory locations policy,” McKean said. More than 120 schools have this policy in effect, he said.

“Third, we’ve put together a workers’ rights consortium,” McKean said, “And fourth, we want full disclosure of wages paid.”

He said 115 schools participate in the consortiums, where they collaborate with workers and help them in their campaigns for improved working conditions.

Universities pay 1 percent of their licensing revenues to join the consortiums, McKean said.

“It helps ensure [the universities] act responsibly,” he said.

Palladino said students have a lot of power collectively because they can help influence where universities contract out for their merchandise.

“Our universities don’t always like it,” McKean said. “It involves a lot of rallies and sit-ins … a lot of work.”

The campaign for knowing where and how collegiate apparel is made started in the Big 10 schools, said Palladino.

“We’d like to start this movement in the Big 12,” she said.