A Tale of Two Factories: Successful Resistance to Sweatshops and the Limits of Firefighting

Abstract

College-based U.S. anti-sweatshop activists led two solidarity campaigns challenging the proposition that global capitalism and capital mobility necessarily subvert local victories of workers and their unions. Critical to working-class advances are worker self defense, alliance with reformers, and positive governmental policy, but, in two cases, Kukdong/Mexmode in Mexico and BJ&B in the Dominican Republic, the third pillar of decency – public policy - has been weak or missing. These cases show that consumer support for ethical market niches can be an important weapon in the struggle for rights. Nationally based policies are no longer adequate: activists must continue to insist on labor standards in trade agreements.

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