From: Jesse Kirchner (jessek@u.arizona.edu)
Date: Tue Jul 02 2002 - 15:15:08 EDT
Hey everyone,
This is a review of the new book "Students Against Sweatshops," co-authored
by Liza Featherstone and USAS (which is available now from Verso).
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A model campaign
Paul Hampton reviews Students against Sweatshops by Liza Featherstone and
USAS, (Verso, 2002)
This book tells the story of United Students Against Sweatshops (USAS), the
student anti-sweatshop campaign in the USA.
For students in the US, the rise of the corporate university was pivotal
in providing the impetus for the campaign. Bookshops, student union shops
and bars, canteens, cleaning and maintenance all offer profit-making possibilities.
Clothing displaying college logos is a $2.5 billion industry. The contrast
between the profits made by Nike, Reebok and other clothing companies, and
the poor conditions of the workers who make them (and the conditions of workers
on campus), is so glaring that many young people are moved to do something
about it. The result was the creation of USAS in 1998. It now has over 200
campus affiliates, an office in Washington, with full timers and funding
from the unions. USAS is the culmination of a decade of campaigning, led
by the United Needle and Textile Workers Union (UNITE), the anti-Nike campaigners
in Indonesia and Latino campaigners in Texas and Central America.
USAS has drawn on a rich tradition of direct action in American labour history.
A wave of sit-ins swept across campuses in 1999, with occupations of administration
buildings and shops like Niketown. Other innovative methods have been used,
such as anti-fashion shows, "I'd rather go naked than wear sweatshop clothes"
parties and even a naked bike ride. Protests have raised awareness, and forced
campus authorities and manufacturers to face up to their use of sweated labour.
One important difference between USAS and other "campaigns" such as the Fair
Labor Association (which is controlled by manufacturers) is that it insists
that companies disclose factory locations, so that direct links with sweatshop
workers can be forged. USAS helped set up the Worker Rights Consortium (WRC)
in April 2000, to investigate and publicise worker complaints.
USAS has tried to connect its initiatives to wider struggles against low
pay and racism. It has listened to women, who make up 90% of workers in sweatshops,
to avoid images of "passive Asians", and to understand that most women work
in factories for the independence it brings them. Similarly, USAS does not
base its campaign on opposing child labour, because it recognises that there
are no easy answers. Girls in developing countries frequently lie about their
age to obtain factory employment, and the answer is not just to have Western
labour advocates steaming in to get them sacked.
USAS say they are not about protecting "US" jobs - a helpful corrective to
those in the anti-globalisation movement which sometimes assume that globalisation
is an unwelcome intrusion into "Third World" countries.
USAS has proven its worth in its solidarity with Mexican workers. In January
2001, over 850 workers at Kukdong International Mexico, a Korean-owned garment
factory near Puebla, went on strike when five workers were sacked for trying
to organise an independent union. Both Nike and Reebok have contracts with
Kukdong to produce sweatshirts for American universities. Workers rejected
the state-run FCROC "union", establishing their own independent organisation,
and
occupied the factory - for which they were violently assaulted by riot police.
USAS established strong connections with Kukdong workers, discussing strategy
and spreading their message. This solidarity prompted the Nike et al to force
Kukdong management to rehire a majority of the sacked workers. Workers have
since won improvements. Their independent union, SITEKIM has been officially
recognised. Since the victory, USAS and WRC have maintained a constant presence
at Kukdong (now called Mexmode). Kukdong is not just a triumph for workers
in one factory; it is a landmark victory in Mexico after the end of one party
rule in 2000. As one worker put it, "I realize that the future of democracy
in Mexico is in the unionisation of workers in maquiladoras". Sweatshops
are not simply an abhorrent species of labour, in a moral class of their
own, but a general description of all exploitative labour conditions.
Every low waged job around the globe fails to provide an adequate standard
of living for workers; and wage labour is essential to capitalism. The great
thing about anti-sweatshop activism is that the horror stories attract peoples'
attention and they soon see how the whole system works. The evolution of
USAS reflects this: it is now a broad-based student-labor solidarity group,
no longer exclusively focused on garment exploitation on the Third World.
It is a model to inspire our own No Sweat campaign.
A copy of this book will soon be available from the No Sweat website at the
special price of ?11.
More info
(http://www.usasnet.org)
(http://www.workersrights.org)
(http://www.behindthelabel.org)
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(from http://www.workersliberty.org.uk/modules.php?op=modload&name=News&file=article&sid=176&mode=thread&order=0)
USAS webpage: http://www.usasnet.org
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