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a look at usas
The United Students Against Sweatshops (USAS) is at a turning point in its
short history. The organization is dwindling, faced with declining
membership across the country. After a series of high profile victories for
the movement, participation in USAS has dropped off significantly. This is
due to both the low level of class struggle and the high disconnection
between sweatshop workers and students.
The number of people currently involved in the movement is not enough to
sustain the campaigns that USAS has set out for itself, specifically the
abolishment of sweatshop labor in the production of colligate licensed
apparel. USAS needs to orient itself to campaigns that have the possibility
of concrete victories. This new orientation must involve local labor
struggles. If USAS can involve itself in campaigns that are more concrete
and tenable it will revitalize the energies of current members and inspire
new students to join.
Before going into what USAS should do though, it is important to understand what
USAS has done right. It is important to recognize that USAS is based on a
principled program, despite tactical weaknesses. Many leftists have
criticized the anti-sweatshop movement as protectionist. They claim that
the movement tails the labor bureaucracy in advocating jobs for Americans
while ignoring the interests of workers in underdeveloped countries.
Protectionism, which substitutes nationalist rhetoric in place of real class
struggle, is an anti-worker political line that only serves the interests of
the capitalist class and the privileged positions of the labor bureaucrats.
While it is true that many anti-sweatshop groups are protectionist, and is
especially true of the heads of the AFL-CIO, many leftists have failed to
recognize the anti-protectionism that is at the core of USAS. USAS does not
support the protectionist measures advocated by the heads of the AFL-CIO,
but instead attempts to ally themselves with the struggle of workers in
underdeveloped world.
USAS helped form the Workers Rights Consortium (WRC), a student-worker run
labor-monitoring organization. The WRC was created as an alternative to a
corporate run monitoring organization, the Fair Labor Association, which was
created as a public relations scheme to offset public pressure from
anti-sweatshop groups. The WRC is independent of both the capitalist class
and the capitalist state. The WRC was intended to provide information about,
and connect students to the struggles of sweatshop workers. USAS hoped that
through the WRC, students could support the struggles of workers by
pressuring universities and apparel companies.
The WRC demonstrates the anti-protectionist, pro-working class politics of
USAS. The WRC is in its infancy, unable to get of the ground due to a lack
of resources. If the WRC materializes as an active monitoring organization however,
it is intended to operate in the following manner.
The WRC will enlist indigenous labor unions and human right organizations to
monitor the factories that manufacture clothing purchased by WRC affiliated
universities. Based on the information gathered from local organizations,
the WRC will prepare a report that will be simultaneously disclosed to both
WRC affiliated universities and the public.
The WRC does not require that universities break contracts with companies
that violate certain labor standards. The appropriate measures taken by
universities will depend on the actions of students. Students, in accord
with the demands of workers and their organizations, will decide what are
the appropriate actions to take against the university and the company
(boycott, picket lines, etc.). In this way, the WRC avoids the potential
adverse effects of cutting off trade with certain companies, i.e. the
closing of factories.
The WRC does not advocate the closing of factories in underdeveloped
countries. In fact, the WRC has a “cut and run” provision that cites the
closing of condemned factories as a violation of fair labor standards. Nor
does it advocate a kind of top down institutional regulation of factories
from imperialist countries. Instead, the WRC intends to collect information
about working conditions in these countries and develop relationships with
the workers and the institutions that fight for the right of workers, namely
labor unions.
While the WRC is a principled and promising political campaign, it is
tactically flawed. USAS is attempting to form an independent student-worker
controlled factory monitoring organization without the necessary numbers of
students and workers to maintain it. Since it is an independent
student-worker run organization, it will require masses of dedicated
students and workers to effectively pressure the apparel industry into
conceding the demands of garment workers. Unfortunately, USAS does not have
the forces to effectively carry out this ambitious project.
USAS’ lack of resources does not mean that it should give up on the
struggles of workers altogether though. Instead, USAS should orient itself to
local labor struggles. Many USAS chapters have already started doing this.
In Chicago, USAS chapters from several major universities came together to
form the Student Labor Action Project (SLAP). SLAP has the endorsement of
several local unions and is oriented to local labor struggles. SLAP has
mobilized students for labor rallies and the picket lines of striking
workers. By engaging in local labor struggles, students can more concretely
assist the working class in its struggle against the onslaught of
capitalism.
Young people everywhere have begun to fight against the misery and
depredation brought on by global capitalism. As recent mass demonstrations
against the WTO, in support of political prisoner Mumia Abu-Jamal, among
others, attest that young people are beginning to resist the oppression of the
working class. USAS is one component of this new youth radicalization.
USAS is a promising youth organization that is principally based on the
struggles of the working class. The left should welcome this development. The fact that
students are engaged in the struggles of working people, and that they have
rejected the fundamentally anti-worker protectionism of the AFL-CIO
leadership shows both the magnitude of, and the prospects for this youth
radicalization. If this movement is nurtured well, it will provide the
basis for a massive youth-labor resistance to the misery brought upon by
capitalism.
David Bernt is a member of the DePaul University chapter of The United
Students Against Sweatshops in Chicago, and Youth for Socialist Action.
