Monitoring Sweatshops

"Jill Esbenshade's Monitoring Sweatshops presents the best empirical overview to date of what watchful monitoring can do and has accomplished. Esbenshade marshals many well-documented examples." International Labour Review "Monitoring Sweatshops critically assesses the global regulatory regime that emerged to fight the sweatshop...Esbenshade clearly summarizes the social compact that emerged from garment unionization and the growth of the welfare state during the first half of the twentieth century." National Women's Studies Association Journal "Esbenshade brilliantly explains the emerging system of labor relations in the highly-globalized apparel industry, analyzes the weakness of the industry's preferred approach, and offers an alternative way to combat sweatshop production...Monitoring Sweatshops is one of the few works to seriously and systematically address the issue of monitoring as a means of combating sweatshops. This is a must-read book...It should also be taken seriously by the growing number of firms that are placing increasing reliance on a system of monitoring that is fundamentally flawed." Contemporary Sociology "A important and timely study that demonstrates that voluntary, corporate-sponsored monitoring is no substitute for independent accountability through government regulation and a free labor movement. Especially in an era of globalization and outsourcing of jobs, it is more imperative than ever that monitoring be credible and that consumers be attuned to the conditions under which products are manufactured if the social contract and economic justice are to be preserved. Oversight, whether by concerned industries or benevolent government, will not achieve sustained improvements in working conditions in the absence of free unions organized by employees to safeguard their own rights." --U.S. Congressman George Miller, Senior Democrat, Committee on Education & the Workforce "When clothing companies tried to shed the 'sweatshop' moniker by writing a Code of Conduct and hiring their own monitors to check factory conditions, few were better placed than academic/activist Jill Esbenshade to provide a critique. Monitoring Sweatshops is a fascinating look at companies' attempts to silence their critics, workers' efforts to improve their conditions, activists' campaigns to pressure the companies, and the public's desire to be responsible consumers. Monitoring Sweatshops is the best analysis to date of monitoring that is designed to placate consumers and maintain the status quo. Anyone concerned about the conditions under which our clothes are made should read this book." --Medea Benjamin, Founding Director, Global Exchange "This book is a richly detailed, first-hand account of the rise of private monitoring in the global apparel industry. Esbenshade dissects the power relationships and conflicts of interest within the monitoring paradigm, and presents the challenging conclusion that without greater involvement by workers themselves, international monitoring cannot effectively address the sweatshop problem. Monitoring Sweatshops is a must read for anyone who hopes to understand and change the contemporary global production system." --Gary Gereffi, Duke University

• Preface Acknowledgments Introduction: Monitoring, Sweatshops, and Labor Relations 1. The Rise and Fall of the Social Contract in the Apparel Industry 2. The Social-Accountability Contract 3. Private Monitoring in Practice 4. Weaknesses and Conflicts in Private Monitoring 5. The Development of International Monitoring 6. Examining International Codes of Conduct and Monitoring Efforts 7. The Struggle for Independent Monitoring Conclusion: Workers, Consumers, and Independent Monitoring Appendix 1: Confessions of a Sweatshop Monitor by Joshua Samuel Brown Appendix 2: Research Methods Appendix 3: List of Interviews Appendix 4: Acronyms and Abbreviations Notes References Index