An organization from the University of Iowa has expanded its fight against sweatshops, moving the battle from campus protests to a rally in the state Capitol building in Des Moines.

About 40 people representing and supporting the U of I chapter of Students Against Sweatshops (SAS) gathered in the Statehouse Thursday afternoon to voice their concerns over the university’s membership in an organization they claim ignores sweatshop labor.

Members also introduced a resolution to the House of Representatives, calling for the U of I to withdraw from the organization in question, the Fair Labor Association (FLA).

For the past six months, SAS has been taking steps to end the university’s membership with the FLA. Last summer, the U of I became an FLA member in an attempt to ensure that university-licensed apparel was not being made in overseas sweatshops.

However, members of SAS said the monitoring process used by the FLA is not acceptable, and they have not been shy about telling people that. The six-day, around-the-clock sit-in outside U of I President Mary Sue Coleman’s office, which resulted in the arrest of five protesters and the forced removal of many more, attracted the attention of the administration, which began to comply with student concerns.

However, not all of the SAS concerns have been addressed.

“There has been a lot of criticism for the FLA because it’s been formed for three years and, as of now, it’s done absolutely nothing,” said Susan Paulson, U of I freshman in anthropology and SAS member.

SAS member Deb Helt, U of I sophomore in global studies, said the students question the way the FLA monitors the corporations. FLA corporations must adopt a code of conduct, but protesters say the code is a front.

“Only 10 percent of a company’s factories are subject to monitoring, and they are notified beforehand and get to pick their own monitors,” she said. “They have a good conduct code with a lot of promising language. The language is strong, but in practice, it is weak.”

In addition to the monitoring process, SAS members say the FLA does not make the results of the evaluations public.

SAS members are endorsing the Worker Rights Consortium, an alternative to FLA.

“The WRC has random, unannounced monitoring, which is done by independent human rights groups,” Helt said. “Everything is made public.”

While the U of I administration has answered the SAS plea to join the WRC, there currently are no plans to end the school’s membership with FLA.

With half its battle won, SAS took its case to the Capitol. Co-founder of the U of I chapter of the SAS, Matt Killmeier, graduate student in journalism and mass communication, wrote a resolution that was introduced to the House of Representatives Thursday by Rep. Ed Fallon, D-Des Moines.

The resolution encouraged the U of I to end its membership with FLA.

“Sometimes it just takes a certain mass of people to get things moving,” Fallon told the crowd of SAS supporters. “Something’s going to change.”

SAS member David Burnett, U of I senior in political science, said most of the legislators he spoke with seemed open to the resolution.

“I talked to about half a dozen [representatives] myself, and about five of the six seemed very receptive,” he said. “I think they felt it was a decent cause.”

U of I students are not the only ones involved in the fight against the FLA. Cori Zagarella, a member of the Grinnell College SAS chapter, spoke to the group about the two months she spent in El Salvador working with sweatshop laborers.

“This is nothing new, and we all know it,” said Zagarella, senior in political science. “This is international, and I think the workers of the world see it.”

While the bitter wind kept the protest inside the Statehouse rotunda, where the group’s chants were muffled by Capitol security, SAS students said they felt they made their point.

“I think we accomplished what we came for,” Burnett said. “We’re trying to make this a statewide issue.”