(U-WIRE) NEW YORK-After an hour of often contentious debate, the University Senate passed Columbia’s own code of conduct for manufacturers of licensed apparel on Friday.

The decision of whether to adopt a University code against sweatshops dominated Friday’s Senate meeting, as members of the drafting subcommittee defended the proposed code against concerns raised by other senators. The issues of the “living wage” and child labor, which had been the main points of contention at December’s meeting, were again the focus of much of the debate. When the resolution was finally voted on, however, there were no dissenting voices.

Members of the Senate Executive Committee met with members of the drafting committee on Thursday to make last minute revisions to the code, most of which were aimed at making the requirements for companies producing Columbia apparel clearer.

Nevertheless, some senators expressed concerns over the feasibility of applying the code, which sets the standards that companies must follow in order to be licensed to make Columbia-logo apparel. The code replaces that of the Fair Labor Association (FLA), a national organization of universities, corporations, and non-governmental organizations of which Columbia is a member.

Despite their concerns, senators and student activists both said they were pleased by the code’s passage. History Professor Richard Bulliet, a member of the Senate Executive Committee who met with subcommittee members, called the code “a document we can live with.”

Greg Smithsimon, GSAS and a Columbia Students Against Sweatshops (CSAS) organizer who served on the subcommittee, said that he was “pleasantly surprised” by the code’s passage and said that the influence of senators, students, and faculty improved the code.

“Getting more input really strengthened the code, made it a solid realistic piece of work that I think is going to be implemented in a real way,” Smithsimon said.

Bulliet was also pleased by the code’s passage, although he did say it was not as extensive as he would have liked it to be.

“I think that it is one step short of what I want because the issue on living wage is still not clear,” Bulliet said. But he added, “the sentence that deals with `in the interim and going forward’ does give us something that is workable from a policy point of view.”

Executive Director of Business Service Bob Moskovitz, whose office will oversee the implementation of the new policy, called the code “as clear and as enforceable as possible right now.”

“Some of [the requirements] are crystal clear and some of them are future objectives,” Moskovitz said.

In what Professor of Sociology at the School of Public Health Eugene Litwak, the chair of the External Relations Committee, called the “most vigorous debate” during December’s Senate meeting, University President George Rupp objected to the proposed code’s child labor clause because it did not allow for part-time employment for children. Rupp noted that many families depend on their children’s working for additional income.

The subcommittee made an effort to address that issue by calling on companies to attempt to minimize the financial risk to families. But on Friday, Litwak said that the subcommittee had deleted that language because some senators considered it “wishy-washy.”

As for the issue of allowing for part-time employment-what he described as the “short-term cost” of the code-Liwak said that the subcommittee had been unable to write a clause that allowed for any child labor “without harming what we thought were the long term goals to reduce child labor in sweatshop conditions.”

Instead, Litwak said, the committee decided to eliminate the child labor clause and leave it for a separate document.

Smithsimon added that because the FLA already prohibits child labor, “it would be rather difficult for us to nuance the point that Columbia supports more child labor than the rest of the country.” Smithsimon added that it would be more difficult to monitor a code that allowed part-time child labor because proving that children were working only part time would require more regular monitoring than is currently offered.

Bulliet said he had supported the change in the code less for substantive reasons than for stylistic ones. Bulliet said that his goal had been to write “tight, enforceable legislation.” He said he deleted the clause for those reasons.

The aspect of the code that drew the most opposition was the clause calling for a “living wage.” The FLA requires companies to pay workers the local minimum wage,

but Litwak explained that those wages are often artificially low because of corporate influence in local governments. Columbia’s code now calls for a “living wage,” which “meets basic food, housing, medical, clothing, educational, transportation, and other essential needs.”

But the living wage requirements came under fire in December for not being more specifically defined. In a footnote added after the December meeting, the subcommittee agreed to bring to the Senate for vote a variety of specific living wage formulas. But Bulliet said that because the definition of a living wage would not only vary by country but would also change with time, it was not feasible for the Senate to be responsible for setting the definition.

Some senators objected to the living wage clause on a more fundamental level. Bulliet said that he still had concerns because “there is no consensus on what a living wage is.” Other senators, including Rupp, expressed concern over the lack of a precise definition and questioned the logic of a university defining a living wage at all.

Ginger Gentile, CC `02 and a CSAS organizer who served on the subcommittee, defended the notion of requiring a living wage. “A living wage is like pornography-you know it when you see it.”

Litwak also defended the proposed code and said that while the establishment of a living wage would require “a value judgement,” the Senate was competent enough to make that judgement. “We do that all the time.”

But Bulliet, who said that he still had concerns about the clause, defended the clause on a different basis. He pointed to its stipulation that “in the interim, and also moving forward, special consideration will be given to licensees” who show a commitment to strong wages. After the meeting, Bulliet said that the interim clause will help to make the living wage code workable.

Most of the other changes to the December version of the code drew little negative response. The issue of overtime benefits, which drew strong criticism at the December meeting, was resolved by the subcommittee’s decision to revert to the FLA’s language.

Minor changes to the sections on women’s rights, health and safety, and public disclosure were also well received.

One of the more heated exchanges at the meeting revolved around the code’s requirement for the “unrestricted use of bathrooms” for workers. Rupp questioned the phrase, which was not changed from the December version of the code, because the word bathroom “triggers the assumption that everyone in the world is like us.” Rupp said that the idea of a full-service bathroom is “almost comical to think of in many parts of the world.”

But while senators did eventually settle on the word “toilet” as an acceptable alternative, Gentile said that industry monitors had consistently found factories to have “beautiful bathroom facilities for the managers,” making the issue one of workers’ access rather than the availability of plumbing.

Rupp challenged Gentile’s assertion, however, saying, “I assure you that there are factories in significant numbers of countries that do produce goods for us in which there are not bathrooms for managers or workers.”

Apart from the discussion about the sweatshop code, senators heard a brief report from Frank Moretti, the executive director at the Center for New Media Teaching and Learning.