Some campuses have adopted content regulations, requiring clothing retailers to describe in detail where the clothing is made. The organization's success has made him a popular speaker on the college circuit. The anti-sweatshop movement also has spread to high schools. He recently spoke in Vermont to high school students from several Eastern states. Despite NLC's success, Kernaghan says it would be easier to raise money if the organization promoted environmental issues.
Worker rights are controversial because it involves major corporations.
Kernaghan says NLC's goal is to improve the sweatshop laborers' working conditions and get the companies to pay the workers a livable wage. We don't want to shut down the factories. We accompany the workers in their struggle to regain their fundamental human rights and fair wages. The Gifford incident served as the turning point for the NLC, but his own personal watershed occurred years earlier at Loyola. He enrolled in Loyola to live closer to his brother, who was a Jesuit novitiate at Loyola.