President Steven Sample of USC has agreed to meet with members of USC’s Student Coalition Against Labor Exploitation. The meeting is to take place on Thursday, April 26, at 10 am, in the Bovard Administration building on campus. The meeting is closed to the public, the media, and the administration has retained sole power of invitation–3 students from SCALE will be present, along with representatives of USC undergraduate and graduate student councils (USG and GPSS, respectively). President Sample, alongside Vice President of Student Affairs Michael L. Jackson and General Counsel Todd Dickey, will be representing USC’s administration.
This meeting is the first direct meeting between Steven Sample and members of SCALE since SCALE began its campaign 8 years ago demanding independent monitoring of factories that produce USC’s apparel. Only after years of SCALE’s public actions and demonstrations, culminating in a sit-in on April 10th, and a 100-signature faculty petition did President Sample agree to such a meeting.
Students not participating in the closed meeting will be engaging in silent demonstration outside of the meeting’s location to support its representatives and SCALE’s campaign. These students will be joined by supportive faculty, who, despite a request by faculty and SCALE, were not allowed to participate in the meeting.
We are asking to demonstrate your support for SCALE and more importantly SCALE’s ongoing campaign for workers’ rights and independent monitoring! Join our silent protest–to show that we and the workers we fight alongside may be silenced by university-corporate interests but we will not go away and to remind USC that its community expects more of them!
