Monitoring Sweatshops: Workers, Consumers, and the Global Apparel Industry PDF
Preview Monitoring Sweatshops: Workers, Consumers, and the Global Apparel Industry
Monitoring Sweatshops Workers, Consumers, and the Global Apparel Industry CopyrightedMaterial CopyrightedMaterial Monitoring Svveatshops Workers, Consumers, and the Global Apparel Industry JILL ESBENSHADE TEMPLE UNIVERSITY PRESS Philadelphia CopyrightedMaterial JILL ESBENSHADE is an assistant professor ofsociology at San Diego State University. Temple Universiry Press 1601 Norrh Broad Sneer Philadelphia PA 19122 www.temple.edultempress Copyrighr© 2004 byTemple Universiry All righrs reserved Published 2004 Prinred in rhe Unired SraresofAmerica I§i The paper used in rhis publication meets the requirements ofthe American National Standard for Information Sciences-PermanenceofPaper for Prinred Library Materials, ANSI Z39.48-1992 LibraryofCongress Cataloging-in-Publication Data Esbenshade,Jill Louise. Moniroringswearshops :workers, consumers,and theglobal apparel industryIJill Esbenshade. p. em. Includes bibliographical references and index. ISBN 1-59213-255-3 (c1orh :alk. paper) - ISBN 1-59213-256-1 (pbk. : alk. paper) 1. Sweatshops. 2. Clorhingrrade. 3. Clothingworkers. 4. Wages Clothingworkers. 5. Globalization. 6. Consumers-Attitudes. I. Title. HD2337.E83 2004 331.25-dc22 2003067209 2 4 6 8 975 3 CopyrightedMaterial For my mother and father and the family they have nurtured And in memory of Patricia Sanabria-Candido (1979-2003) Quien en vida tuvo al cielo par sombrero CopyrightedMaterial CopyrightedMaterial Contents Preface IX Acknowledgments Xlii Introduction: Monitoring, Sweatshops, and Labor Relations 1 1 The Rise and Fall ofthe Social Contract in the Apparel Industry 13 2 The Social-Accountability Contract 33 3 Private Monitoring in Practice 60 4 Weaknesses and Conflicts in Private Monitoring 89 5 The Development ofInternational Monitoring 119 6 Examining International Codes of Conduct and Monitoring Efforts 145 7 The Struggle for Independent Monitoring 165 Conclusion: Workers, Consumers, and Independent Monitoring 198 Appendix 1: Confessions ofa Sweatshop Monitor byJoshua Samuel Brown 209 Appendix 2: Research Methods 214 Appendix 3: List ofInterviews 219 Appendix 4: Acronyms and Abbreviations 226 Notes 229 References 249 Index 261 Copyrighted Material CopyrightedMaterial Preface How DID Icome to study monitoring in the apparel industry? As the great-granddaughter, granddaughter, and niece ofJewish garment retailers, onecould saythat Iwas bornto thesubject. As thesister-in-law oftwo Salvadoran garment workers, onecouldsaythat Imarried into it. As a former staffmember at the International Ladies' GarmentWorkers' Union (ILGWU),Iseemedto cometo itthrough myownprofessionaland political development. And as someone who has been schooled in ethnic studiesandfocused hergraduatecareerontheplightofimmigrants,espe cially in regard to labor, Iwas educated into it. Butperhaps, as they say, all roads lead to Rome. In any case, I came upon the subject of monitoring in the garment industry in 1996, as the Gap campaign took off and the press began to link maquilas in El Salvador to garment makers in the United States. I was searching for a dissertation topic at the time. As Iembarked on my research, I discovered that there was a ripe case study much closer to home. In my native Los Angeles, garment manufacturers were engaging in a new and innovative experiment of monitoring contractors, and it appeared to behavingsomepositiveeffects.Themonitoringprogramwas winningawards, receivingpraise,and apparentlymakinga difference. Yet ithaddetractors. Myimaginationwascaptured.Were these improvements real? And mostinterestingfor me, how did workers themselvesfeel about this apparent solution? Iwas intrigued bytheproblemand, to boot,itappeared thattherewas a ready-made collection of data waiting to be explored. The ILGWU (nowpartofa merged union, UNITE) and numerous workers had filed lawsuits against jeans-maker GUESS?, Inc., and obtained boxes of docu mentation on the company's monitoring practices, including workers' testimony, monitoring reports, and depositions ofcompany officials and monitors. What graduate student could walk away from an interesting question accompanied by thousands of pages of primary data? Unfortu nately, ajudge'sconfidentialityorderindefinitelydelayed myaccess to the legal files. But by the time I discovered this, I was already hooked. SoIturned tothe livesourcesthemselves ratherthan theirpapercoun terparts, which turned outto beawhollypositiveturn ofevents. Nothing couldhavesubstituted for actuallyobservingduringmonitoringvisits.The peopleItalked with were more forthcoming than Ihad imagined, thanks in no little measure to my sympathetic female ear, I am sure. Moreover, CopyrightedMaterial
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