Publication Type: Conference Paper/Unpublished Manuscript
Review Method: Peer Reviewed
Abstract: The purpose of this paper is to understand how the agitation of the anti-sweatshop movement has opened up a discursive space in which the societal role of apparel corporations is hotly contested. Since the emergence of the anti-sweatshop movement in the early 1990s, corporations have responded in numerous ways to the movement's demands to improve work conditions in production facilities around the globe. Through what means have activists sought to exert pressure on corporations and how has the activists' agenda been received by corporations? This paper seeks to understand how contentious politics impact the social construction of the identity of movement targets by examining the mechanisms through which the anti-sweatshop movement created the sweatshop as a legitimate social problem for which corporations are to be held responsible. Nike will be used as a case study to explore corporate-movement interactions and the impacts that has had on Nike's corporate language, practices, and structures. How has the movement challenged understandings of acceptable corporate behavior? What claims have been lodged around the appropriate set of rights and responsibilities for corporations and their legitimate realm of action? How have these challenges been received by relevant stakeholders and what has this meant for the identity of the corporation?

Publication Type: Conference Paper/Unpublished Manuscript
Abstract: OSHA penalties are a vital enforcement strategy designed to dissuade employers from violating safety and health standards in the workplace. As an industry where over half of its shops are estimated to be operating illegally, and where the workforce largely consists of young, immigrant, female workers, the apparel industry employs a labor population particularly vulnerable to these types of violations. To better understand OSHA’s enforcement record in the apparel industry, this study seeks to uncover the factors that most greatly influenced OSHA’s decision making processes in determining whether to impose a penalty for a standard violation, and what type or types of penalties, if any, would be imposed. Key study variables include: union status; inspection type; gravity type; number of instances; number of persons effected/exposed; standard violated; stage of violation; stage of penalty; type of penalty; contest (vs. acceptance) of penalty; and final order of penalty.

Publication Type: Conference Paper/Unpublished Manuscript
Review Method: Peer Reviewed
Abstract: See uploaded paper.

Publication Type: Conference Paper/Unpublished Manuscript
Review Method: Peer Reviewed
Abstract: No abstract available at this time.

Publication Type: Conference Paper/Unpublished Manuscript
Abstract: In this paper, I explore the harmful physical, psychological and societal conditions of control rendered on female textile factory workers in the transition from the assembly line to the piece work system of production. I propose that the term “new slavery” be applied when looking at textile factory workers whose bodies and labor power are being commodified in practical ways in new factory settings intensified by existing mechanisms of control and coercion. This new regime of production is characterized by a drastic reduction in a company’s total workforce and a decline in the total number of a company’s operating factories. Such cost cutting measures however have not reduced labor productivity but has, in effect, allowed management to command higher productivity via unlawful means of control and coercion. The implementation of the “piece-rate” system has not only worsened structural conditions within the factory but has fostered tension and animosity among workers as individual women compete with each other for piece work. Due to the nature of piece work production, textile workers are forced to work as much as they are physically capable (“voluntarily” forgoing bathroom breaks, eating and sleeping) in return for subsistence while they continue to shoulder the burden of supporting their families. My findings are based on research that was conducted in Thailand during 1998 to 2000.