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Between Monitoring and Organizing: International NGO and Union Strategies to End Sweatshop Practices
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In 1863, English workers wrote French colleagues to explain why international
economic integration limited their capacity to defend their interests. They also provided an indication as to what they thought should be done about it:
Whenever we attempt to better our social conditions by reducing the hours of toil, or by raising the price of labor, our employers threaten us with bringing over Frenchmen, Germans, Belgians and others to do our work at a reduced rate of wages, and we are sorry to say that this has been done, though not from any desire on the part of our Continental brethren to injure us, but through a want of regular and systematic communication between the industrial classes of all continents. Our aim is to bring up the wages of the ill-paid to as near a level as possible with that of those who are better remunerated, and not to allow our employers to play us all one against the other, and to drag us down to the lowest possible condition, suitable to their avaricious bargaining. (Cited in Lorwin 1929:34)
The English workers found a university professor to translate their letter to French, and they sent it to a French workers’ association. It took eight months to receive a response, which came via three Frenchmen who went to London for that purpose. The French workers declared that the only response to these circumstances was “salvation through solidarity” (Lorwin 1929:35). This resulted in the formation of a committee to establish an international workers’ association, which led to the formation of the First International and a long series of efforts by working people to respond to the challenges presented by economic globalization through cross-border alliances.
In the last ten years, as Cold War differences declined and the post-WWII social
pact in Northern countries weakened, there was a renewed interest in transnational labor solidarity. Notably, activists expressed the problems facing workers today in terms very similar to those used by the English workers over 130 years ago. In the words of Brecher and Costello (1998:4):
An unregulated global economy forces workers, communities, and countries to compete to attract corporate investment. So each tries to reduce labor, social, and environmental costs below the others. The result is ‘downward leveling’ –a disastrous ‘race to the bottom’ in which conditions for all tend to fall toward those of the poorest and most desperate.
And once again, unionists declared that the only response was salvation through solidarity. In the words of AFL-CIO president, John Sweeny, "The global economy that corporations have forged can only be tamed by the international solidarity of working families everywhere.”
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Yet then as now, capitalist transformation varies its in effects across industries
and sectors, and transnational labor solidarity is a highly political and dynamic process that often includes more ebbs than flows. The questions that scholars have struggled with, and the ones that I will explore in this paper include: When and how do workers and their allies join forces across countries in pursuit of common goals? And who establishes these goals and how are they pursued? To do this, I will look at the anti- sweatshop movement
1
Speech to the 17
th
World Congress of the International Confederation of Trade Unions (ICFTU), Durban,
South Africa, April 3-7, 2000. <http://www.aflcio.org/articles/misc/icftu.htm>
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1
In 1863, English workers wrote French colleagues to explain why international
economic integration limited their capacity to defend their interests. They also provided
an indication as to what they thought should be done about it:
Whenever we attempt to better our social conditions by reducing the hours
of toil, or by raising the price of labor, our employers threaten us with
bringing over Frenchmen, Germans, Belgians and others to do our work at
a reduced rate of wages, and we are sorry to say that this has been done,
though not from any desire on the part of our Continental brethren to
injure us, but through a want of regular and systematic communication
between the industrial classes of all continents. Our aim is to bring up the
wages of the ill-paid to as near a level as possible with that of those who
are better remunerated, and not to allow our employers to play us all one
against the other, and to drag us down to the lowest possible condition,
suitable to their avaricious bargaining. (Cited in Lorwin 1929:34)
The English workers found a university professor to translate their letter to French, and
they sent it to a French workers’ association. It took eight months to receive a response,
which came via three Frenchmen who went to London for that purpose. The French
workers declared that the only response to these circumstances was “salvation through
solidarity” (Lorwin 1929:35). This resulted in the formation of a committee to establish
an international workers’ association, which led to the formation of the First International
and a long series of efforts by working people to respond to the challenges presented by
economic globalization through cross-border alliances.
In the last ten years, as Cold War differences declined and the post-WWII social
pact in Northern countries weakened, there was a renewed interest in transnational labor
solidarity. Notably, activists expressed the problems facing workers today in terms very
similar to those used by the English workers over 130 years ago. In the words of Brecher
and Costello (1998:4):
An unregulated global economy forces workers, communities, and
countries to compete to attract corporate investment. So each tries to
reduce labor, social, and environmental costs below the others. The result
is ‘downward leveling’ –a disastrous ‘race to the bottom’ in which
conditions for all tend to fall toward those of the poorest and most
desperate.
And once again, unionists declared that the only response was salvation through
solidarity. In the words of AFL-CIO president, John Sweeny, "The global economy that
corporations have forged can only be tamed by the international solidarity of working
families everywhere.”
1
Yet then as now, capitalist transformation varies its in effects across industries
and sectors, and transnational labor solidarity is a highly political and dynamic process
that often includes more ebbs than flows. The questions that scholars have struggled with,
and the ones that I will explore in this paper include: When and how do workers and their
allies join forces across countries in pursuit of common goals? And who establishes these
goals and how are they pursued? To do this, I will look at the anti- sweatshop movement
1
Speech to the 17
th
World Congress of the International Confederation of Trade Unions (ICFTU), Durban,
South Africa, April 3-7, 2000. <http://www.aflcio.org/articles/misc/icftu.htm>
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