All it took were the last few minutes of a History Channel documentary featuring stories of sweatshop labor to inspire Jim Wilkerson to make a difference in the lives of apparel workers.
For the past 13 years, Wilkerson, Duke's director of trademark licensing and Duke Stores, has been a national leader in establishing labor standards and organizations to defend the rights of workers who make clothes at factories around the world -- particularly clothes bearing the logos of Duke and other universities.
Wilkerson will be recognized Friday, May 7, with the Algernon Sydney Sullivan Award, an annual honor given to one graduating senior and one member of the faculty, staff or graduate student body of Duke University and Health System for their outstanding commitment to service.
"Because of Duke's leadership and commitment to these workers, literally hundreds of thousands of lives have been improved," Wilkerson said. "From various parts of the world, I've seen first-hand the power that Duke University has to make real and lasting improvements in people's lives, and I'm extremely grateful to Duke for allowing me to play a part in all of this."
The New York Southern Society established the Algernon Sydney Sullivan Awards in 1925 in memory of Sullivan, a Southerner who became a prominent lawyer, businessman and philanthropist in New York in the late 19th century. The award seeks to perpetuate the excellence of character and humanitarian service of Algernon Sydney Sullivan by recognizing and honoring such qualities in others.
Since 1997, Wilkerson has been involved in a number of labor rights initiatives, including drafting the nation's first comprehensive code of conduct for university apparel, representing Duke as the first university member of President Bill Clinton's Apparel Industry Partnership and serving for the last seven years on the board of directors of the Worker Rights Consortium, an independent labor rights monitoring organization of which Duke is a member.
Wilkerson has traveled the world to assess factory conditions and meet with workers and their advocates, including trips to Thailand, Cambodia, El Salvador and the Dominican Republic.
"Some of the conditions in Cambodia were just shocking," said Wilkerson, who made a trip to the country three years ago. "People were forced to work at least 48 hours a week for 26 cents an hour. That's about $600 a year in Cambodia and the equivalent of about $3,000 in the United States. Just imagine trying to raise your family on $3,000. It's mind boggling."
In 2008, Russell Athletic closed a clothing factory in Honduras in apparent response to workers' efforts to press for better wages and conditions. After the company laid off 1,200 workers, more than 100 American universities discontinued business with Russell, the largest employer in Honduras.
Wilkerson said this pressure convinced Russell to reverse course and reopen the factory, as well as rehire the workers and commit to respect worker rights at all of its Honduran factories. This breakthrough for labor rights in a part of the world known for abusive working conditions was the culmination of more than a decade of work on labor standards in the university community -- work Wilkerson helped to pioneer.
"Duke University was one of the first universities to stand up for worker rights in our case and in many others," wrote Norma Mejia Castellanos, vice president of a Honduran union that represents factory workers and provided a nomination letter for Wilkerson's award. "We know that without Mr. Wilkerson's leadership, the historic progress to stop sweatshops in Honduras could not have been achieved."
Among his current projects, Wilkerson has worked with the Worker Rights Consortium and a leading maker of university clothing, Knights Apparel, to support the opening of a factory in the Dominican Republic that is paying a living wage to all its employees -- the first apparel export factory in Latin America to do so. The pay is more than three times the wage normally given to factory workers in that country.
"Duke was the first university in the country to make a commitment to order products from that factory," Wilkerson said. "I hope this will set an example to other factories in the region and around the globe."
Wilkerson added that the progress achieved in factories around the world has been the result of efforts by many different people: student activists, university leaders and labor rights monitors like the Worker Rights Consortium.
"But most importantly, it's the workers themselves," Wilkerson said. "They continue to fight with incredible courage for a better life for themselves and their families."