Glimpses of the Anti-Sweatshop Movement

A New Approach to Political Opportunity

In this dissertation 1 will build a more fleshed out model of political opportunity, that builds on the work already done by political process theorists, but takes into account the critiques raised both within that camp and by cultural constructionists. Taking into account Goodwin and Jasper’s (2004a) criticisms of the limitation of the metaphor of structure, I choose to speak not of a political opportunity structure, but of a political opportunity system (POS). This system includes both stable and dynamic elements, structural and cultural factors, and elite social actors--that is social agents, as well as social structures. Following Ferree et al. (2002), I wish to speak of arenas--but not only of the discursive arenas that they focus on, but decision-making arenas as well. 1 propose

that we think of the POS as made up of a series of interlocking, sometimes hierarchically arranged arenas, both discursive and decision-making. These arenas are social structures-
-they are certain durable patterns to the macro-level social relations that make them up, rules which social actors are expected to follow as they press their case in these arenas. (Social movements, of course, have a tendency io break these rules, especially when they rules stack the deck against weaker social actors.)
It is important to note that these arenas are not just structures, but also social
actors. For instance, an apparel corporation is a social structure, with its own relatively stable patterns of macro-social relationships, based on hierarchical chains of command, oriented towards maximizing profits; a decision-making arena, in which the leaders must
decide on which actions they wish to take in the wider world--including in response to pressures from social movements; and a social actor, as the leaders oversee their subordinates carrying out the decisions they have made. This three-fold character is true not only for major corporations, but for many other social phenomenon--a college administration or a national government is also simultaneously a social structure, a decision-making arena, and a social actor.
While it is useful to analytically distinguish between discursive and decision-

making arenas--and most arenas are principally discursive or decision-making--all arenas have both discursive and decision-making elements. In the mass media, the social actors fighting the flame battles must deal with the decisions made by journalists and editors in terms of what to cover and how; they may even lobby these decision-makers to cover certain stories in certain ways. In decision-making arenas, social actors must make their case, framing their arguments in ways that will persuade others--even if they are also bringing other pressures to bear, such as the threat of a strike or sit-in.

In conceptualizing the POS, we need to think about how different social movement actors are related to these arenas. Differences in social location give social movement actors access to different social institutions--i.e. different discursive and decision-making arenas--and thus widely varying political opportunities (Piven and Cloward 1977). Sweatshop workers and student anti-sweatshop activists, despite belonging to a common transnational movement, have very different relationships io apparel companies. The workers are at the bottom of this social structure, interacting with their employers, contractors to whom the major apparel firms have outsourced production and who consequently have relatively little power in the larger picture. Students, on the other hand, are consumers--and a particularly valued set of consumers at that, at which a great deal of marketing is targeted. The profits of the brand-name corporations depend on their reputation with consumers such as college students. Given this, the brands worry far more about the attitudes and actions of students than they do workers, giving students openings that workers do not have, a point we will explore in more depth throughout the dissertation. Therefore, we must conceive of the POS always in relation to particular social actors, never simply in generic form (although, in some cases, it is certainly possible to make generalizations).
This structure in turn has consequences for both workers’ and students’ ability to form independent organizations. There is a broad consensus among social movement theorists that, for movements to effectively exercise power they must be able io organize

(McAdam 1999; McAdam et al. 1996b; Morris 1984; Tarrow 1998). ' With the exception of Meyer (2004), there has been less attention to the fact that different social conditions create different opportunities and constraints on movements’ ability to actually form such organizations, what I am referring to as organizing space. Workers in third-world sweatshops typically have very little space to organize, facing repression--ranging from firing of leaders to death squads--when they try to do so (Armbruster-Sandoval 2005). US activists working on college campuses, by contrast, are far freer to organize without fear of unpleasant consequences. They may be arrested, even threatened with expulsion

(though this is rare), but they do not need to fear for their lives or livelihoods.

Just as workers and students must deal with different degrees of organizing space, they have different degrees and types of leverage. By leverage, I mean those points in the social structure that activists, with the proper tactical skill, can manipulate to their

advantage to bring pressure to bear on those with more power than them. While the power of elites rests on the normal routines of social institutions, because movements almost by definition lack large degrees of institutionalized power, they must exert leverage through the opposite means--finding ways to disrupt the normal functioning of social institutions (Flacks 1988; Piven and Cloward 1977; Tarrow 1998). When such disruption is sufficient that elites feel their interests are threatened, they will respond--hopefully with concessions, but also possibly with repression and counter-mobilization (see below). The anti-sweatshop movement has attempted io exert leverage both in the factory, with the workers striking ai individual sites of production, and in sires of consumption, such as college campuses.

Unfortunately, corporations have not simply responded to pressure from social movements by giving into their demands. Instead, they respond to movement pressures by developing counter-measures against movements. In the case of the anti-sweatshop movement, their first line of defense has been repression--firing and attacking workers when they attempt io unionize. As the anti-sweatshop movement has successfully exposed these labor rights violations and forced companies to recognize unions, the companies have responded by engaging in a counter-mobilization effort (Jasper and Poulsen 1993), developing their own counter-frames and organizations that ostensibly foster corporate social responsibility. These counter-mobilization efforts have been as much an obstacle to the success of the anti-sweatshop movement as the brute repression of workers.

The rest of this dissertation will analyze these matters in more depth. In the next chapter, we will take a look at the structure of the global apparel industry and how this stricture is responsible for the pervasiveness of sweatshops. We will then move on to look at the origins of the anti-sweatshop movement, looking at the historical roots of some important elements of their strategic models. From there, we will turn out attention to the movement itself. We will start with an examination of USAS and the political opportunity system it faces on college campuses. Then we will look at the origins and operations of the WRC. After this examination of our two major SMOs, we will examine how they conduct international solidarity campaigns. And we will finish by looking at the