Many U.S. com­pa­nies like Amer­i­can Eagle and Fruit of the Loom have signed the safe­ty accord, but some notable brands have refused. One of the cor­po­ra­tions that won’t sign is a com­pa­ny that many Amer­i­cans are unfa­mil­iar with: VF Cor­po­ra­tion, a Greens­boro, North Car­oli­na-based cloth­ing busi­ness that owns over 30 brands. One them is cur­rent­ly the tar­get of cam­pus activism through­out the coun­try: the col­le­giate appar­el and back­pack brand JanSport.

This past April marked the anniver­sary of the Rana Plaza fac­to­ry col­lapse, a tragedy that called atten­tion to the hor­ri­ble labor con­di­tions many Bangladeshi work­ers labor under. That dis­as­ter also led to new reg­u­la­tions, most notably the Accord on Fire and Build­ing Safe­ty in Bangladesh, a five-year legal­ly bind­ing agree­ment between brands, retail­ers and trade unions to build a safe gar­ment indus­try through­out the region through an inde­pen­dent inspec­tion pro­gram which iden­ti­fies safe­ty haz­ards. The Accord’s inves­ti­ga­tions are con­duct­ed in con­junc­tion with union mem­bers and work­ers to ensure full trans­paren­cy. Addi­tion­al­ly, demo­c­ra­t­i­cal­ly elect­ed safe­ty com­mis­sions act on all health-relat­ed issues that are dis­cov­ered with­in the factories.

The company’s web­site declares, ​“Spe­cif­ic to JanS­port and with­in the con­text of sourc­ing in Bangladesh, JanS­port does not, nor has JanS­port ever, had prod­uct man­u­fac­tured in Bangladesh.” This is tech­ni­cal­ly true; how­ev­er, JanS­port is the most vis­i­ble VF Cor­po­ra­tion brand at the many cam­pus­es that sell their back­packs and school-embla­zoned cloth­ing. The JanS­port web­site also cites ​“VF Cor­po­rate Respon­si­bil­i­ty,” a PR move by VF to draw atten­tion to the fact that it has signed some­thing called the Alliance for Bangladesh Work­er Safe­ty, an ini­tia­tive designed by cor­po­ra­tions that cuts work­ers out of the process.

VF Cor­po­ra­tion has been con­nect­ed to a num­ber of dis­turb­ing inci­dents, before and after the Rana Plaza dis­as­ter. In 2010, VF was pro­duc­ing out of Bangladesh’s That’s It Sports­wear fac­to­ry when a fire killed 29 peo­ple and injured more than 100. Despite under­go­ing inspec­tions from VF, the fac­to­ry lacked the prop­er fire exits and was full of safe­ty haz­ards. Accord­ing to one report , ​“Sev­er­al work­ers appeared to have suf­fo­cat­ed, while oth­ers jumped to their deaths try­ing to escape the burn­ing build­ing or were tram­pled by their col­leagues as they rushed towards the exits.”

In Octo­ber of 2012 the Bangladesh fac­to­ry Euro­tex Knitwear Lim­it­ed, which was used by VF, expe­ri­enced a major fire. For­tu­nate­ly, because the fire occurred at night and dur­ing a local hol­i­day, no one was inside. Accord­ing to the company’s mar­ket­ing direc­tor, high-volt­age tube lights ignit­ed it.

In June 2014, over 50 peo­ple were injured after Med­lar Appar­el caught fire . Not only had the fac­to­ry been used by VF as far back as 2007, VF had just recent­ly claimed it ​“com­plet­ed 100% of inspec­tions at Bangladeshi fac­to­ries where VF prod­uct is sourced.” Accord­ing to reports , faulty elec­tri­cal work was to blame.

Stu­dent cam­paigns have forced 16 uni­ver­si­ties (includ­ing NYU , Cor­nell , and Emer­son ) to sev­er ties with JanS­port and fur­ther efforts con­tin­ue through­out the coun­try. In April, stu­dents at the Uni­ver­si­ty of Wis­con­sin-Madi­son held a ral­ly to protest their school’s appar­el con­tract with JanS­port. Nine pro­test­ers were arrest­ed for tres­pass­ing and released on site. They face poten­tial pun­ish­ment from the university.

In a let­ter to the edi­tor of a local paper, UW-Madi­son pro­fes­sors Joe Rogers and Erik Olin Wright com­mend­ed the stu­dents for orga­niz­ing and con­demned the uni­ver­si­ty for fail­ing to act. ​“We believe the UW-Madi­son and broad­er Madi­son com­mu­ni­ty should thank the stu­dents for their moral clar­i­ty and courage, not pun­ish them,” the let­ter reads, ​“and that we should join them in urg­ing the uni­ver­si­ty to end its con­tract with JanS­port. UW-Madi­son, long a social jus­tice leader, should not sud­den­ly become a lag­gard. It should get back on the right side of his­to­ry and jus­tice for all.”

In addi­tion to the JanS­port vic­to­ries, these tac­tics have net­ted impres­sive results for Unit­ed Stu­dents Against Sweat­shops. In recent years, they have forced a num­ber of col­leges to cut ties with Rus­sell Ath­let­ic after it was revealed that the com­pa­ny had vio­lat­ed work­ers rights at a Hon­duran facil­i­ty. In 2012, they pres­sured Cor­nell Uni­ver­si­ty to ter­mi­nate its con­tract with Adi­das after the sport­ing appar­el busi­ness refused to give Indone­sian work­ers sev­er­ance pay.

Dean­na Nagle is a Penn State stu­dent involved in a suc­cess­ful cam­paign to remove all VF prod­ucts from the cam­pus. She says that while stu­dents had orga­nized around the issue of gar­ment work­er safe­ty for quite some time, the Rana Plaza tragedy increased those efforts.

“It became even more pub­lic that the cloth­ing many brands pro­duce are being made in dead­ly work­ing con­di­tions,” Nagle says. ​“Specif­i­cal­ly as stu­dents, we have been focus­ing on our own uni­ver­si­ties and the sweat­shop brands they do busi­ness with. We aren’t okay with our uni­ver­si­ties con­tract­ing with brands whose their work­ers are dying while mak­ing their clothing.”

When asked about JanSport’s con­tention that they’re not con­nect­ed to sweat­shop labor because none of their prod­ucts are made in Bangladesh, Nagle says that ​“although Jans­port does­n’t specif­i­cal­ly pro­duce in Bangladesh, they are a part of VF Cor­po­ra­tion. Try­ing to sep­a­rate the two from one anoth­er isn’t going to change the fact that they still refuse to take seri­ous steps towards improv­ing their work­ers safety.”

The cam­pus activism on this issue devel­ops in direct con­junc­tion with Bangladesh’s labor move­ment. USAS works close­ly with activists like Aleya Akter, a gar­ment work­er and the Gen­er­al Sec­re­tary of the Bangladesh Gar­ment and Indus­tri­al Work­ers Fed­er­a­tion. Akter says that the Accord, which VF refus­es to sign, has already helped shut down 24 unsafe fac­to­ries in Bangladesh. But the Alliance for Bangladesh Work­er Safe­ty, which VF claims is suf­fi­cient to pro­tect gar­ment work­ers, ​“has not reached out to union mem­bers when con­duct­ing audits, and work­ers have no under­stand­ing of how accu­rate the Alliance’s inspec­tions are because they are not pub­lished in full online or released back to workers.”

VF’s refusal to sign the accord will like­ly spark fur­ther cam­pus protest in the com­ing months. ​“As stu­dents, we use the lever­age we have to pres­sure our schools to only work with eth­i­cal brands that take actu­al action in pro­tect­ing their work­ers,” Nagle says. “[Our] goal is to get brands to recon­sid­er their treat­ment of their work­ers and make real changes in their factories.”