Last Saturday afternoon, hundreds of students, organized by United Students Against Sweatshops, protested at more than thirty REI stores over the company’s complicity in sweatshop labor. In Rockville, Maryland, twenty-one activists were arrested after linking arms and blocking the store’s entrances, temporarily shutting down the business.

The students are demanding REI, an outdoor recreation cooperative, live up to its progressive reputation by cutting ties to North Face. North Face is a subsidiary of VF Corporation, the world’s largest producer of branded apparel, which has refused to sign onto the Accord on Fire and Building Safety in Bangladesh. Enforced by international contracts, the Accord is a safety standards code that local unions and international labor allies pushed garment suppliers to accept after the Rana Plaza factory collapsed, killing over 1,100 garment workers.

Thus far more than 175 apparel brands have signed onto the Accord. After numerous vigils, rallies, and sit-ins at universities across the country, USAS has pushed seventeen collegiate brands, including Adidas, Fruit of the Loom, and Knights Apparel to add their names to the agreement. Yet in the face of a nine-month long campaign, VF Corporation still has not budged, instead supporting to the Alliance for Bangladesh Worker Safety, a non-binding corporate pact supported by labor standard-bearers like Walmart and GAP.