For the past few decades, the U.S. anti-sweatshop movement was bolstered by actions from American college students. United Students Against Sweatshops (USAS) effectively advanced the cause of workers’ rights in sweatshops around the world. Strategizing against Sweatshops chronicles the evolution of student activism and presents an innovative model of how college campuses are a critical site for the advancement of global social justice. Matthew Williams shows how USAS targeted apparel companies outsourcing production to sweatshop factories with weak or non-existent unions. USAS did so by developing a campaign that would support workers organizing by leveraging their college’s partnerships with global apparel firms like Nike and Adidas to abide by pro-labor codes of conduct. Strategizing against Sweatshops exemplifies how organizations and actors cooperate across a movement to formulate a coherent strategy responsive to the conditions in their social environment. Williams also provides a model of political opportunity structure to show how social context shapes the chances of a movement’s success—and how movements can change that political opportunity structure in turn. Ultimately, he shows why progressive student activism remains important.
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"Williams’s study of the anti- sweatshop movement from the mid-1990s to the late 2000s traces how haphazard student efforts to empower sweated laborers evolved into a coordinated project with international reach. His interviews with anti-sweatshop activists and his history of the movement also raise the sobering question of how to build solidarity in a world of 'neoliberal globalization.'... Williams does a solid job of incorporating his interviews into a broader historical and analytical narrative of the U.S. anti-sweatshop movement."—Contemporary Sociology
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Produktdetaljer

ISBN
9781439918227
Publisert
2020-01-24
Utgiver
Vendor
Temple University Press,U.S.
Vekt
399 gr
Høyde
229 mm
Bredde
152 mm
Dybde
23 mm
Aldersnivå
P, 06
Språk
Product language
Engelsk
Format
Product format
Heftet
Antall sider
290

Biographical note

Matthew S. Williams is a lecturer in the Department of Sociology and the Global and International Studies Program at Loyola University Chicago.