A lone bill proposing a ballot initiative for the University of Missouri to re-enter the Workers Rights Consortium (WRC) was passed with no opposition on Tuesday at the Missouri Student Association’s full Senate meeting.
The WRC conducts investigations into allegations of labor rights abuses for over 150 universities and colleges in the garment manufacturing industry.
“I’m hoping that with this ballot initiative, should it pass, that student voices will be amplified through it,” MSA Speaker of the Senate Maggie Funston said. “… I think there’s a lot of power to having that general consensus from the populace and making sure that we’re doing right by them, and supporting one issue over the other.”
College of Engineering Sen. Justin Sills brought to the floor Senate Bill No. 65-17, a resolution that would display the student body’s opinion regarding reconciliation with the WRC via a vote on the spring MSA ballot to the Mizzou administration. The legislation passed with 27 in favor and five abstentions.
“This bill, it serves two purposes. It’s to gather the opinion of the student body as well as to raise even more awareness over it,” Sills said. “I believe it affects everyone on campus and people who aren’t on campus, right? Parents and the supporters of Mizzou Tigers.”
According to an email from Travis Zimpfer, Mizzou News Bureau Deputy spokesperson, the university cut its membership with the WRC while budgeting for FY26. Zimpfer emphasized that the university desired membership that has vendor oversight qualifications and adherence to ethical standards.
Mizzou is currently operating under the purview of the Collegiate Licensing Company (CLC). This means the CLC handles all licensing for official Mizzou merchandise.
According to the CLC’s website, it “is committed to supporting the efforts of our partner institutions and licensees to source goods and manufacture collegiate licensed merchandise in an ethical fashion with an emphasis on the workers and communities involved.”
SB 65-17 acknowledges that the CLC conducts investigations into violations of workers’ rights. However, unlike the WRC, which conducts inquiries with transparency to the public, the CLC has no publicly held information regarding the frequency, methodology or transparency of inspections.
A 2020 WRC investigation into Nike discovered nearly $600,000 of wages were stolen from workers. Nike is an official sideline partner of Mizzou Athletics.
“I brought up a resolution last semester covering this exact same issue, and within that process was another larger campaign to raise awareness about this,” Sills said. “But that then ended up being ignored by (the) administration. From what I understand, they just shrugged their shoulders at it.”
A WRC membership would require a fee of 1% of licensing revenues (minimum of $1,500 and up to $50,000). According to Zimpfer, Mizzou paid WRC $18,000 to remain in the consortium during the university’s final year as a member.
