The EIU Fair Trade For Global Justice Committee is continuing its movement to get 1,100 signatures in a petition to offer fair trade items at Eastern such as the Union Bookstore.

Lena Elmuti, a senior chemistry major and member of the committee, was handing out free coffee along with other members of the committee to passersby and talking to them about the group’s goals in the Library Quad.

“We’re trying to get 1,100 signatures so we can try to get Eastern to become an affiliate of the Worker Rights Consortium,” she said.

Currently, Eastern is affiliated with the Fair Labor Association, but many schools the same size as Eastern are affiliated with both the Worker Rights Consortium and the Fair Labor Association, she said.

“The reason why we really want WRC is because we did a lot of research, and we found out that WRC is actually better at monitoring on the ground in the developing countries to check for unfair wages and treatment of the workers,” she said.

Elmuti said the group was unable to find out what countries specifically Eastern works with to get its products, but that they did find some practices that they believed should be changed.

“We found out that they’re affiliated with FLA, and they have their business heads as part of the group, which is good because it gives them a voice,” she said.

It also means the factories have advance notice when they come through to do checks so they can do what they need to in order to prepare, she added.

“That’s not necessarily good because they could be getting away with things they shouldn’t be able to get away with,” she said.

The group started the petition in April 2012 during Fair Trade Week and has been acquiring signatures since then.

“Our goal is to have the signatures in the next two months,” Elmuti said.

Alayna Graham, a senior sociology major and a member of the committee, said she has been making extra efforts to get the signatures.

“I’ve been making presentations to classes and different RSOs,” she said. “We’ve talked to groups like the Sociology Club and the Asian American Society.”

Seong-Oea Hibner, a senior family and consumer sciences major, said she has been talking to students in her residence hall to try to get them involved too.

“People have been pretty supportive so far,” Hibner said.

President Bill Perry said there has been talk of the providers of athletic apparel in the Martin Luther King Jr. University Union Bookstore since he arrived at Eastern.

“I know a lot of (those products are produced) offshore,” he said. “There is attention paid to the working conditions, and we’re sensitive to that.”

Perry said he knows the university has both a wide variety of products coming from a wide variety of producers.

“One of the values of these kind of discussions is to bring that information forward and see what the practices are of our providers,” he said. “If someone has concerns, we definitely want to know about it.”

Robyn Dexter can be reached at 581-2812 or redexter@eiu.edu.