Social Responsibility & Engagement

Our Commitment

We are committed to selecting licensees who agree to produce products under fair, safe, and humane working conditions and who demonstrate management processes that enable them to achieve progress toward implementation of these standards throughout their supply chain.

A Bit of History

Associated Students UCLA (ASUCLA), led by a student majority board of directors established UCLA’s trademark licensing program in 1973, making UCLA the first university or college in the country to have a formal trademark licensing program. ASUCLA’s stewardship of the licensing program for one of the pre-emanate and most popular universities in the world has been and continues to be among the highest of ASUCLA board priorities.

Since the late 1990s, UCLA and many other universities have been engaged by students, faculty, and other important stakeholders in their communities to focus on the workplaces of their licensees’ own businesses and those of their supply chain partners. Since that time, UCLA Trademarks & Licensing has prioritized, measuring the ability of both incumbent licensees as well as new licensee applicants’ performance in this area and uses this information when making decisions to award new licenses and in the retention of incumbent licensees each year at renewal. For more information, see “Apply for a License”.

In 1998, the University of California adopted a code of conduct concerning fair labor standards and practices and made it applicable to all of its trademark licensees. The UC Trademark Licensing Code of Conduct (“UC Code”) requires supply chain transparency and disclosure and addresses standards to be met in the follow areas:

  • Wages and Benefits
  • Child Labor
  • Forced Labor
  • Health & Safety
  • Nondiscrimination
  • Women’s Rights
  • Harassment and Abuse
  • Freedom of Association and Collective Bargaining

UCLA Licensee Supply Chain Disclosure

Journey Towards Improvement Videos

Links: Part 1 | Part 2 | Part 3

Additional Requirements and Resources

  • Bangladesh:

    UCLA licensees/prospective licensees who use supplier factories located in Bangladesh are obligated to become signatories to the Accord on Fire and Building Safety in Bangladesh (“Accord”) and any subsequent organization to the Accord designated by UCLA.

  • Fair Labor Association (FLA):

    UCLA (and the University of California system as a whole) is a member of the Fair Labor Association and requires all UCLA licensees to affiliate as well. The FLA is a collaborative effort of companies, colleges and universities, and civil society organizations, seeking to create lasting solutions to abusive labor practices.

  • Worker Rights Consortium (WRC):

    UCLA and the University of California system as a whole is a member of the Worker Rights Consortium. The WRC is an independent labor rights monitoring organization, conducting investigations of working conditions in factories around the globe.