Students Against Sweatshops: The Making of a Movement

by United Students Against Sweatshops

United Students Against Sweatshops heads a wave of anti-sweatshop organizing that has reached over two hundred American college campuses in the past four years. From the northeast to the southwest, at public and private, large and small universities, their campaigns have wreaked havoc on the corporate campus and ruffled multinational companies whose profits depend on young consumers; they have also led to a more broadly based engagement with issues of social justice and provide a potential model for transnational student/worker solidarity.

Genres: Politics

128 pages, Paperback

First published June 1, 2002

Reviews

[Malcolm · Rating 4 out of 5]

This is an excellent report from the inside of the USAS that in being published in 2002 meant that it came after a generation/cohort of student activists had moved through the groups ranks (USAS was formed in 1998 and centred on 4 year institutions). Although dated – don’t rely on it for current information about clothing production, the state of the international movement or the industry – it remains a extremely good insight into the strengths and weaknesses of the group and its organisational and political forms.

The balance between the movement narrative, by Featherstone (a journalist), and testimony and participant/critic commentaries is well managed and well presented, and it is to the author’s credit that commentaries of activists critical of USAS have been included. The sharpest critics are fellow activists in anti-racism campaigns, who note that in its early days at least USAS was centred on universities with a disproportion of high income students – Duke, Michigan, Yale and so forth – while also quite rightly noting that internationally focussed campaigns were less problematic for this well-to-do group because it meant not having to confront the issue of race that weaves its way through almost all of US history and contemporary politics.

While this criticism is fair, it is also worth noting that USAS very quickly developed into a group supporting Third World workers struggles, rather than trying to lead them, and also developed a more nuanced set of campaigns around economic justice as well as good links with trade union and other organisations of working people, and after 15 years is still going strong as a well organised and powerful player in the struggles for a more just global apparel industry (see http://usas.org/).

USAS is not a model campaign, but along with the European Clean Clothes Campaign it is one of the big civil society forces in campaigns to support working peoples’ struggles. This small book is a frank assessment of its early days – would that more activist groups were as up front about the strengths and shortcomings!

[Lena Denman · Rating 5 out of 5]

This book challenged my consumer habits! Great reading!