“Is GSU Apparel Made in Sweatshops?”: The - Campus Activism

244 Pages·2002·0.95 MB·English

“Is GSU Apparel Made in Sweatshops?”:
The Student Anti-Sweatshop Campaign at Georgia State University
A Thesis
Presented in Partial Fulfillment of Requirements for the Degree of Master of Arts in
the College of Arts and Sciences Georgia State University
2002
by
Takamitsu Ono
Committee:
________________________________
Dr. Behrooz Ghamari-Tabrizi, Chair
________________________________
Dr. Charles L. Jaret, Member
________________________________
Dr. Ian C. Fletcher, Member
_________________________________
Date
__________________________________
Dr. Ronald C. Reitzes
Department Chair
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Table of Contents
Introduction……………………………………………………………………………….4
A Methodological Consideration………………………………………………….8
Chapter 1 Globalization……………………………………………………………..11
Clarifying the Meanings of “Globalization”……………………………………..11
Cultural Globalization……………………………………………………14
Political Globalization…………………………………………………...18
Economic Globalization…………………………………………….……21
What Are “Sweatshops”?………………………………………………………..41
Accounting for the Emergence of Sweatshops…………………………..49
Resisting “Globalization from Above”………………………………………….58
The Global Anti-Corporate and Anti-Sweatshop Movements…………..60
Some Effects of the Anti-Sweatshop Movement………………………...67
Chapter 2 Students Organizing for Economic Justice in the 1990s and Beyond…...73
Growing U.S. Campus Activism for Economic Justice in the 1990s……………73
United Students Against Sweatshops (USAS)……………………………….…..75
Chapter 3 The Anti-Sweatshop Campaign at Georgia State University………..…..88
The Emergence of the Campaign………………………………………………...88
Into the Campaign………………………………………………………………..91
Georgia State University and Sweatshops……………………………….92
Campaign Goals………………………………………………………….96
Campaign Rationales…………………………………………………...101
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Campaign Strategy……………………………………………...………104
Mobilizing Structures and Tactics……………………………………...109
Framing and Ideology…………………………………………………..123
Representations of Workers…………………………………….124
Representations of Corporations and the Global Economy…….131
Representations of the Worker Rights Consortium (WRC)
and the Fair Labor Association (FLA)………………….134
Representations of Ourselves as a Campaign…………………..136
Representations of Related Issues……………………………...139
Collective and Individual Identities…………………………………….140
Political Opportunity Structures………………………………………..145
Some Campaign Outcomes……………………………………………………..157
Accounting for the Outcomes…………………………………………………..162
Conclusions……………………………………………………………………………..180
Summary………………………………………………………………………..180
Prospects and Concluding Remarks…………………………………………….184
References………………………………………………………………………………188
Appendix I E-mail Interview Questions……………………………………….……225
Appendix II Basic Timelines of the Anti-Sweatshop Movement,
United Students Against Sweatshops, and
the Anti-Sweatshop Campaign at Georgia State University………..233
Appendix III A Comparison of the Worker Rights Consortium (WRC) and
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the Fair Labor Association (FLA)………………….………..……..239
Appendix IV Basic Descriptions of Some Flyers and Campaign Materials………….241
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“‘Workers of the World Unite!’
will become more than just a hackneyed slogan;
it’ll become the only way to survive.”
– Former Representative Cynthia A. McKinney, August 20001
Introduction
Seattle, Washington D.C., Davos, Quebec City, Prague, and Genoa: Many people
have become familiar with these cities’ names because the cities, perhaps unhappily,
hosted some of the major “anti-globalization”2 or global justice demonstrations in the
recent history. How about these names: Durham, Madison, Eugene, Middlebury, Tucson,
and Atlanta? These are some of the American cities where one can find campus-based
student anti-sweatshop campaigns launched by chapters of United Students Against
Sweatshops (USAS). In fact, this student anti-sweatshop movement has been an integral
part of the larger global justice movement and has arguably been no less important than
those better known global justice demonstrations, though involving fewer participants.
This student movement to improve poor working conditions in factories around
the world where college-logoed apparel is produced spread like a wildfire to as many as
200 campuses across the United States and Canada over the last several years
(Featherstone and United Students Against Sweatshops 2002). Its intensity and size drew

1 This is from her op-ed article circulated by one of her staffers on the Internet in August 2000. Both
Philadelphia Inquirer and Los Angeles Times apparently rejected to run it during the Republican and
Democratic National Conventions, according to this staff person. The text is available from the researcher.
2 I will put “anti-globalization” in a quotation mark because of my belief that most people in the movement
do not oppose globalization per se. Rather, they are opposing a particular model of globalization, namely
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wide media attention. The New York Times referred to it as “the biggest surge in campus
activism in nearly two decades” (Greenhouse 1999b). Other observers said it is “the
largest wave of student activism to hit campuses since students rallied to free Nelson
Mandela by calling for a halt to university investments in South Africa more than a
decade ago” (Appelbaum and Dreier 1999:71).
I have been associated with United Students Against Sweatshops (USAS) since
1999, engaging in the campaign at Georgia State University (GSU) in Atlanta. A small
group of students and supporters have been out on campus to raise awareness of the
problem of sweatshops and their relationship to the GSU-licensed apparel sold in the two
bookstores and worn by some staff members and athletes of Georgia State University.
We have tried to pressure the GSU administration to take steps to minimize the
possibility in the future that the GSU apparel is manufactured under inhumane working
conditions in this country or abroad.
As the current form of globalization encourages the GSU licensees to outsource
the clothing manufacturing process to hundreds of factories around the world, consumers
and students at GSU are linked with the people around the world who sew the GSU
clothing. Equipped with some benefits of globalization, such as Internet and e-mail, the
activists at GSU have tried to institute a system at GSU so that violations of basic human
and workers’ rights can be minimized at GSU licensees’ contracting factories across the
globe. The activists also developed an awareness of this issue as a part of the
globalization process and cultivated a sense of solidarity with workers in apparel

“neoliberal globalization” or “corporate globalization,” though many would say they are opposing
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producing regions. This thesis is a sociological attempt to define this still on-going
collective activity as a part of a larger global social movement.
First, I will clarify the phenomenon called “globalization” in its cultural, political,
and economic manifestations. But, as the current form of globalization creates injustices,
inequalities, and undemocratic governance around the world, countless people have stood
up to resist them – some more visible and successful than others. I will in particular
demonstrate how contemporary globalization since the 1970s has generated and
maintained sweatshops and how people around the world, though focusing on the ones in
the United States, have resisted in the movement against sweatshops. We will also look at
some effects of this anti-sweatshop movement.
Second, in the context of the larger global movement of “globalization from
below”3 and the anti-sweatshop movement, I will describe United Students Against
Sweatshops (USAS) in some detail. After situating the national and historical context of
USAS, I will delve into descriptions and sociological analyses of some aspects of the
campus anti-sweatshop campaign at Georgia State University (GSU) from early 2000 to
May 2002 to show in detail how “globalization from above” has locally been resisted. I

capitalism in any form. My personal preference is to call the global justice movement.
3 Brecher, Costello, and Smith (2000) define this term as the worldwide resistance since the 1970s against
“globalization from above” or free market capitalism, with varied goals and in varied forms, but unifying
“to bring about sufficient democratic control over states, markets, and corporations to permit people and the
planet to survive and begin to shape available future” (p. 15). It could be, however, that terms can cover
conservative “globalization from below,” such as global Islamic fundamentalism, to create a self-
determined community separate from “western globalization.”
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hope to capture what social theorist James Jasper (1997:64-67) calls the “artfulness”4 or
human creativities of the GSU campaign.
I will describe and analyze how and why the GSU anti-sweatshop campaign
began, how it has sustained itself for two years, and how it has created some effects and
why. In doing so, I will look into some analytical concepts of social movements. These
include: (a) mobilizing structures (a network of supporters, resources we have generated,
and tactics and strategies we have tried to carry out); (b) framing and ideology; (c)
identities and emotions; and (d) political opportunity structures (opportunities to advance
or hinder our goals in the GSU power structure). I will then identify and try to explain
some effects of this campaign on the GSU community and the campaign activists. I will
close the thesis with speculation about the future of this GSU campaign.
My argument is that the GSU campaign has not met with success in attaining its
goals primarily because, despite its diligent efforts, it has to this date failed to build
strong mobilizing forces on campus to compel the GSU administration to accept or make
concessions to our demands. A solid mobilizing structure could have created favorable
political opportunities for the campaign to help attain our goals.
I demonstrate that a number of factors have prevented the formation of strong
mobilizing structures. They include class and racial backgrounds of the GSU students,

4 “Artfulness” is a state in which “[p]eople are aware of what they are doing, they make plans and develop
projects, and they innovate in trying to achieve their goals” (Jasper 1997:65). So, protestors “rethink
existing traditions in order to criticize portions and experiment with alternatives for the future, in both large
and small ways. They also offer ways of getting from here to there” (Jasper 1997:65). They “experiment
with novel ways to think, feel, judge, and act” (Jasper 1997:66). As Jasper notes, this “artfulness” is not
freewheeling activities. They are both enabled and constrained by historical and situational contexts –
structures and cultures (see also Hays [1994] for a discussion of the relationship between structure, culture,
and agency).
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their weak identification with GSU, the commuter school setting of the campus, the lack
of progressive political culture at the university, the lack of direct evidence connecting
sweatshops with GSU, the lack of economic resources to invite outside speakers, and the
limitation of the main organizer of the campaign. In the study of social movements, it is
important to account for the “failure” as much as the “success” of a given movement. I
hope that this thesis will contribute to the understanding of social movements by
examining why the GSU campaign has not been successful yet.
A Methodological Consideration
With regard to my research method, I directly participated as the main organizer
in the activities of the anti-sweatshop campaign at Georgia State University. I actively
participated in all of our meetings and other activities, including informational tabling
and teach-ins. This is a form of participant observation, or observing the phenomenon
under study while participating in such a phenomenon. Specifically, I was basically a
“participant-as-observer” (Babbie 1995:284), once I decided to study this campaign. In
other words, I directly observed the phenomenon under study while actively and
genuinely participating in such activities as a full participant while notifying other
participants that I was also engaged in research and observation. Soon after I decided to
research the campaign for my thesis perhaps in the early spring of 2001, I notified to all
regular participants and many temporary participants, but not GSU administrators we
came to contact with, that I was researching on it. I did so by notifying them verbally in
an informal way or/and later by e-mailing them to ask to answer questionnaires.
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Some may raise the question of objectivity. That is, by actively participating in a
phenomenon the researcher is observing, the researcher may “go native” or identify with
the viewpoints and interests of participants and lose the attitude of detachment to conduct
a research objectively (Babbie 1995:284). I defend my position at two levels. One is the
myth of total objectivity of the researcher. As many scholars of science studies and
epistemology have demonstrated, any research is always influenced by power-laden
specific historical, cultural, political, institutional, biographical, and situational contexts
and practices as to what and how the researcher can(not) or should(not) “see” and report
(Brown 1993; Daly 1997; Fuller 1997; Harding 1998; Seidman 1996; Sprague and
Kobrynowicz 1999; Van Maanen 1988). However, it does not mean that any research
attitude will do just because all research is power-laden and not completely objective.
While acknowledging the limitations, any scientific research should be conducted with an
attitude of being critical, reflexive, and ethical about assumptions, behaviors, and
consequences of the researcher and the research (Hertz 1997). It also suggests that
multiple and critically reflexive perspectives and methods can be used to generate
accounts to best understand the “reality” under study since there is no method to grasp
the unchanging, unshakable Truth.
Second, I think this argument of employing multiple perspectives and methods
supports the use of the direct participant observation method because it has an advantage
to understand a “reality.” Because of my full involvement in the campaign, it can be
argued that I can construct a closer appropriation of the reality, in contrast to a researcher
who does so from outside a direct context. Although, as I mentioned, I revealed to other