The Future of the Student Anti-Sweatshop Movement: Providing Access to U.S. Courts for Garment Workers Worldwide

Abstract

This article takes an in-depth look at the student anti-sweatshop movement and proposes the next chapter of organizing, providing greater protections for garment workers by securing their access to the United States’ judicial system.

On December 16, 2011 the United States Department of Justice issued a business review letter giving the green light to the Designated Supplier Program put forth by the Worker Rights Consortium and United Students Against Sweatshops. This letter is the culmination of a six-year campaign by university students to have their colleges and universities source collegiate apparel solely from factories that provide safe and healthy working conditions, pay a living wage, and respect workers’ right to organize a union. For six years, brands such as Nike and Adidas have stalled implementation of the Designated Supplier Program by claiming that it violated antitrust laws. Over the past six years, as students have struggled tirelessly for DSP implementation, the student labor movement has had both disappointments and successes. Some factories that had organized and won good working conditions were shut down, while others were reopened and brands forced to fulfill their commitments. The ups and downs of the movement have further solidified the need for a new form of organizing, one with greater power for workers and new enforcement mechanisms.

In this article, I explore the idea that jobber agreements – agreements between brands and unions governing working conditions in supplier factories – may be the best way forward for the next phase of international solidarity campaigns by the student anti-sweatshop movement. Under this proposal, brands would sign jobber agreements with unions both in the United States and around the world, covering the working conditions in the collegiate apparel factories to which the brands outsource their production. By virtue of most collegiate apparel brands being U.S. companies, these jobber agreements would be subject to U.S. contract law. As such, if a brand violates an agreement and does not see to it that its supplier factories respect workers’ rights, pay a living wage, and permit the organizing of a union, the workers themselves can sue those companies in U.S. courts. This places much greater power in the hands of workers and worker organizations than the current model of anti-sweatshop organizing allows.