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the anti-sweatshop mov't.
Over the past few years campuses across the United States have rallied around calls for political, economic, and social justice. The most prominent of these movements has been the anti-sweatshop movement.
Students, outraged at the proliferation of sweatshops both here and abroad, have taken on their university administrations in demanding that they be accountable to the conditions of workers who produce goods for the university.
At the forefront of this movement has been the United Students Against Sweatshops (USAS), a student-run organization that advocates workers’ rights. Since its founding in late 1998, USAS has grown to over 100 chapters at colleges and universities around the country.
USAS advocates that universities adopt a “code of conduct” in regard to garments produced for university use. The code includes a living wage, the right to organize, and strong health standards.
Generally, a corporation such as Nike or Champion contracts sweatshops in the Third World to produce a garment and then buys the right to use the university’s logo on the product. USAS is demanding that universities adopt a code of conduct that applies to clothing with the university logo, i.e., clothing the university is making money from.
In collaboration with religious, labor and human rights groups, USAS created a monitoring organization, the Workers Rights Consortium (WRC). The WRC was charged with insuring that companies live up to the tough standards in the code of conduct.
However, the apparel industry – along with President Clinton and a few labor unions – created a competing monitoring organization, the Fair Labor Association (FLA). The industry was concerned about student consciousness of their use of sweatshop labor and decided to create a supposed workers’ rights organization that it could control. The FLA’s code of conduct and its monitoring were inferior, and the apparel industry controlled its board of directors.
USAS denounced this group, saying it was a corporate-controlled public-relations scheme. Soon after, many human rights groups and labor unions, including the Union of Needltraders, Industrial and Textile Employees (UNITE!), walked out of the FLA and endorsed the WRC.
But many universities adopted the FLA, hoping it would diffuse student activism and at the same time not disrupt their friendly “partnership” with the apparel industry. Student activists backing the WRC then took action, including sit-ins at major universities across the country, such as the University of Michigan and the University of Wisconsin.
Many universities were forced into meeting the demands of the students, at the cost of their partnership with the corporations. This was evidenced when the University of Oregon was forced to adopt the WRC against the wishes of alumnus Phil Knight, the CEO of the Nike Corporation. Immediately after Oregon adopted the WRC, Phil Knight withdrew a promised multimillion-dollar donation to the university.
Students, by standing up against one of the most wealthy men in the world, showed the strength of their convictions and actions. The anti-sweatshop movement has shown the power that students can have when they organize around clear demands.
As the student movement progresses, it will need organization, leadership, and sound demands. Issues such as increasing tuition, attacks on the right of university employees, the privatization of university services, the “coporatization” of university administrations, and other issues will require organization and correct tactics.
The anti-sweatshop movement has proved that students are ready to rise up against injustice. The task for student activists is to make sure that it stays that way.
The article above first appeared in the November 2000 issue of Socialist Action newspaper. The author, David Bernt, is a student activist at DePaul University in Chicago, and a member of YSA.
