Glimpses of the Anti-Sweatshop Movement

exclusive contracts on campus. All of these companies have tremendous labor problems in one form or another. And they all see students as a captive audience for marketing, among whom they can build brand loyalty (Klein 1999; Kniffin 2000b). Colleges have also built such relationships with apparel corporations—and, since it is these relationships
which the anti-sweatshop movement has focused on, we will look at them in more depth

here.

Anyone who has sei foot in a college bookstore has probably noticed the

numerous items for sale, including t-shirts, baseball hats and other forms of apparel, with the school’s logo imprinted on them. The schools do not produce these goods themselves. Instead, they typically sign a contract with an apparel company to produce these goods for them, giving them a license to use the school’s logo; as with normal apparel production, the lead firms then outsource the production of the licensed goods to contractors throughout the world. Such licensed apparel constitutes a 52.5 billon market, one that is highly lucrative for both the colleges and universities and the apparel firms involved. The company pays the schools 7.5-8% of the revenue from the sales of the licensed goods, providing additional income for the schools (Ross 2004J. Some licensees are less visible companies, such as Champion and Russell, while others are high-profile brand-names, such as Adidas, Nike and Reebok (Benjamin 2000; Kniffin 2000b; Slaughter and Rhoades 2004). About 180 schools, including many of the biggest, operate

though the Collegiate Licensing Corporation (CLC), which negotiates and manages these licensing relationships for them (Ross 2004).

In total, school-licensed apparel constitutes only 1-2% of the apparel market (Ross 20tl4). Because of the advertising and branding potential of this market, however, the lead apparel companies value it highly—well beyond any revenues they may bring in—
and would be loathe to simply give it up. Having a license with a college essentially gives them a captive audience to which to advertise, an audience whose long-term brand- loyalty they hope io build up. Licenses with big-name sports schools are particularly sought after, because this gives the brands an opportunity to create synergy between their own brand and that of the school’s sports team, boosting their caché further. Additionally, when the games are broadcast, the television audience will see the brand’s logo alongside the school’s on the players’ uniforms, giving them free advertising of the most sought after sort (Slaughter and Rhoades 2004) (Dirnbach, Nova, Rutter; interviews, 2007). It is worth reiterating the critical point here that, for companies such as Nike and Reebok,
their brand is their most valuable asset, so their ability to build their brand image through relationships to schools is particularly important to them. It also gives them an opportunity to manage consumers’ preferences, something as central io their operations, if not more so, than managing their employees.
The licensed goods are not produced in specific factories; like any other product produced by contractors for apparel firms, the production of such goods is scattered over the world in numerous factories, alongside non-licensed goods, both by the same brand and by others. Given this, the anti-sweatshop movement has sought to use this licensing

relationship as a point of leverage, which they can use to pressure licensees to change the way they produced not only licensed goods, but all of their apparel. Specifically, the movement seeks io force the licensees to abide by codes of conduct when producing licensed goods, which, given the dispersed way they are produced, could potentially affect working conditions in the apparel industry beyond the narrow 1-2% over which schools have direct influence. As Jessica Rutter (interview, 2007J, a USAS organizer at Duke University, noted, “It's definitely a niche market, but it's also a market that universities have almost total control over, because they can say yes or no [to the licensing agreement]. The stuff is made or it’s not made. So that’s a very powerful relationship, one that doesn't necessarily exist in regular purchasing." As we shall explore in chapter six, colleges’ and universities’ status as institutional consumers gives them leverage far greater than that of any individual consumers, even if the latter pool their efforts into a boycott.

In addition to reshaping school’s relationships with corporations themselves, corporatization has also had a substantial impact on how schools treat their student body. Administrators have become less concerned with a broad-based education that allows students to be active citizens and more in training students to take administrative and technical jobs with large corporations. They have come to see school as a place where students can gain the skills they need to succeed in the corporate world--an attitude students facing an increasingly competitive job market easily buy into (Aronowitz 2000). to general, education is seen less as something that contributes to the common good and instead as an individual good which students as consumers purchase. Thus, it should not

be surprising that the campus culture encouraged by school administrators also socializes students into thinking of themselves as consumers, not only of education, but in general. The high profile presence of brands such as Taco Bell, Coca-Cola and Nike on campus all help reinforce the consumerism of the surrounding culture (Klein 1999; Slaughter and Rhoades 2004).

The role such major companies play on campus can have a stifling effect on activism. Students may be so invested in having brands they identify with on campus, that they may be indifferent to the labor rights violations and other abuses committed by the companies involved, whether on or off campus. Amanda Plumb (interview, 2007), recounted a story from USAS’s efforts to keep the anti-union fast-food chain Wendy’s from setting up shop on the campus of Duke University: “I remember when we were petitioning against Wendy’s being so mad when I tried to get one of the Duke basketball players, a freshman, to sign the petition and he was like, No, I want my Frosties, I care about Frosties. I said, You care about Frosties from Wendy ’s more than you care about workers rights? That’s insane.” Scott Nova (interview, 2007), the executive director of the WRC, told me,
We operate in an intellectual, moral culture where it is difficult—not for

Find it difficult to conceptualize that they’re capable of violating the law

recognize as illegal and morally offensive but are much less prone to

recognize that when it’s done by a corporation.

As we will see below though, activists have been able to turn the tables in some cases, using the emotional attachment people feel to brands against the brand-name companies. When consumers find out that a company such as Nike that likes to portray itself as socially conscious is actually complicit in sweatshop exploitation, they may feel betrayed, fueling activism against the betraying company. This, in turn, becomes an avenue for activists to more widely educate new-comers to the movement about the realities of the global economy (Klein 1999). It remains, however, an uphill battle.