In a 8-1 vote, University President Mary Sue Coleman's Advisory Committee on Labor Standards and Human Rights voted against recommending the Designated Suppliers Program yesterday.

The vote was a defeat for Students Organizing for Labor and Equality's Sweatfree campaign, which is advocating for the adoption of the program. SOLE says the program is necessary to police the labor practices of makers of University apparel.

The committee - composed of faculty, students and staff - is responsible for reviewing the University's system for monitoring licensed apparel suppliers and the University's Vendor Code of Conduct. The committee also voted down the program last year, then by a vote of 7-2.

The committee's vote is not binding. Chair Laurence Root will present the recommendations to Coleman later this week, and Coleman will have the final decision of whether to accept the recommendations.

Last year Coleman accepted all the committee's recommendations.

A meeting between Coleman, committee members and students to discuss the recommendations is scheduled for Friday in Anderson Room D of the Michigan Union at 3:30 p.m. It is open to the public.

SOLE member Aria Everts cast the lone vote in favor of the program.

Before the vote, Everts gave a presentation rebutting the committee's previous concerns about the program.

Since the committee last voted on the program last April, it was revised to make its implementation more feasible.

Under the revised program, designated factories would still be required to pay their workers a living wage, as in the first version of the program. But instead of requiring union representation, factories will now be in compliance if workers have free choice of representation.

Under the revised program, collegiate products must make up at least 50 percent of the factories' total business, rather than the two-thirds under the original proposal.

Everts told the committee that the changes were sufficient for the University to adopt the program on a trial basis.

RC junior Jason Bates said he was unsure about how the committee would vote because of changes to the DSP in the fall that addressed some of the committee's previous concerns.

"I was disappointed in (the committee's lack of vision)," Bates said in an interview after the meeting. "I think the DSP could be a revolutionary change."

Other SOLE members were less optimistic about the vote.

LSA sophomore Blase Kearney said he anticipated that the committee would not reverse its decision because some committee members have strong reservations about the program.

Several committee members expressed doubts about whether the Workers' Rights Consortium, a small Washington-based group, could effectively enforce the program.

The requirement that collegiate apparel make up half of a factory's business was also a sticking point with a committee.

Everts contended that the University would have more concentrated influence over designated suppliers, while Public Policy Prof. Katherine Terrell and others argued that it was better to keep the University's influence spread broadly over more suppliers. Collegiate apparel typically makes up between 2 and 10 percent of clothing produced in factories licensed with the University, Root said.

"If we can influence a lot of factories, we can influence a lot more people," Terrell said.

The committee unanimously passed a recommendation to change the University's licensing procedures to require that licensees document how they monitor the Vendor Code of Conduct as a condition for renewal or a new licensing agreement. The committee added that this would be a step toward third-party monitoring.

What type of documentation would be required and what type of monitoring system would be used would still need to be determined, Root said.

The committee also agreed to recommend that the University begin enforcing the Vendor Code of Conduct through a set of questions developed by the Fair Labor Association.

If Coleman accepts the recommendation, the University will sign on to a summer pilot program that would use a series of yes or no questions to sort the suppliers into categories and monitor their compliance with labor standards.