[lbo-talk] Solidarity for Sale: UNITE'S Garment Gulag

Nathan Newman nathanne at nathannewman.org
Fri Mar 10 10:26:36 PST 2006



>Yoshie, now: > What conditions beyond the union's control exist in New
>York and California that should make sweatshops in the garment sector
>more numerous in New York -- the Department of Labor's Wage and Hour
>division showed that "UNITE shops in the city [of New York] were
>predominantly sweatshops -- three quarters of union shops were in
>violation of overtime, minimum wage, or safety regulations" (p. 192)
> than in California? What does it mean that many of the union shops
>do not even pay the minimum wage? What's the point of having a union
>in that case? <

Here is my whole problem with Fitch's narrative of corruption. He pulls lots of facts out of prosecutors indictments -- most of which don't lead to convictions of union officials -- and then ignores the fact that workers in areas with no allegations of corruption face many of the same problems.

Take Los Angeles. Sweatshops are chronic there as this narrative of literal slavery among Thai garment workers illustrates: http://www.sweatshopwatch.org/index.php?s=68

Yes, any individual cases of union corruption are bad, but Fitch tells stories and then, without talking about the real national and economic context of the industry, uses his narrative data point as the causal explanation of the union movement as a whole.

If folks are actually interested in a useful sociological analysis of the role of corruption, why it happens, and how it effects the labor movement, you should read REDS OR RACKETS by Howard Kimeldorf analyzing why the west coast longshoremens union became communist while the east cost union got mobbed up. It's actually a book with rigorous analysis of both politics and economics with a useful comparative focus.

Nathan Newman



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