Glimpses of the Anti-Sweatshop Movement

Implications for Articles
The neoliberal restructuring of the global economy in general and the rise of outsourcing in the apparel industry in particular have major implications for activists--the ease with which they can gain access to different social arenas, what forms of leverage and standing they have, what grievances and demands are seen as legitimate, the degree to which their frames are considered credible. With the rise of neoliberalism, many elite actors have become openly hostile to labor unions and other economic justice advocates.

Even mainstream left-of-center parties, while maintaining their ties with the labor movement, have embraced neoliberal policies that actively erode unions’ power.

In general, economic justice activists have the sense that they have less access io the major social arenas where decisions about global governance are made. Anti- sweatshop activists have thus tried to develop strategies that bypass government enforcement. According to Jessica Rutter (interview, 2007), a USAS organizer from Duke University:
1 would say a lot the anti-sweatshop stuff that has been done has been because of a lack of government regulation or any kind of framework to look at labor standards in terms of free trade stuff. (. . .] Generally the governments. both the US government and national governments of places where a lot of this stuff is being produced. were actually pretty much working against improved labor standards. So this was definitely a campaign that looked at companies as the decision-makers and was done because we thought it would be easier than using government as a target in terms of legislation. especially because it was so global. I would say the campaign itself really didn't address any kind of government regulation and did that on purpose because of the ineffectiveness of government to regulate this kind of stuff.
Most of the anti-sweatshop activists 1 spoke with would like io see governments take a more pro-labor stance in their regulations, whether at the national level or through multilateral agreements. They have concluded, however, that, given the dominance of
neoliberal strategies on the part of governments, such regulation will not come about any time soon. They have also concluded that they actually have more leverage over private, for-profit corporations than they do over nominally democratic governments—a striking sign of the shallowness of democracy under neoliberalism.
Which decision-making arenas have access io and/or leverage over is important, because not all decision-making arenas are created equal. Just as sites of production may be core, semiperipheral or peripheral, so may discursive or decision-making arenas. The major brand-name firms are core decision-making arenas, while their contractors are ai best semiperipheral, if not peripheral decision-making arenas. Thus, activists have to find ways not only to influence decision-makers’ choices, but the choices of those decision-makers who occupy core arenas. Sweatshop workers and consumers are incorporated into the commodity chain at very different locations; while the workers are a peripheral population, consumers, depending on which marker nice they represent, may be a semiperipheral or core population. The workers are at the bottom of this social stricture, interacting with their employers, contractors who themselves have relatively little power in the larger picture. Both the workers and contractors are, essentially, disposable--the core firms can always turd others io do their work. Consumers, on the other hand, have some potential leverage over the brand-name firms; the profits of these corporations depend on their reputation with consumers. And some groups of consumers, such as college students, are particularly valued. Given this, the brands worry far more about the attitudes and actions of students and other consumers than they do workers, giving students leverage that workers do not have.


This structure in turn has consequences for both workers’ and students’ ability to form independent organizations, i.e. in how much organizing space they have. Workers in third-world sweatshops typically have very little space io organize, facing repression-- ranging from the firing of leaders to death squads--when they try to do so (Armbruster- Sandoval 2005 J. As already noted, the contractors who employ the workers are not really in a position to collectively bargain with the workers even if they wanted io. Thus, contractors, due to their structural location, have many incentives to repress unions and few to tolerate them. US activists are far freer io organize without fear of unpleasant consequences, even in the case of students, who are subject to school administrations that are highly anti-democratic in their organization. Student activists may be arrested, even threatened with expulsion (though this is rare), but they do not need to fear for their lives or livelihoods. United Students Against Sweatshops has used this relative freedom io act in solidarity with workers, bringing pressure on companies io recognize workers’ independent unions--thereby altering the political opportunity system, creating greater organizing space for workers, something I will explore in more depth in chapters twelve through fourteen.