Manufacturing Dissent: Labor Revitalization, Union Summer and Student Protest

Abstract

During the late 1990s, college students across the United States mobilized around labor issues. Our research explores whether this explosion of student protest activity was generated, in part, by concerted efforts of the AFL-CIO through its Union Summer college student internship program. A statistical analysis of factors influencing the location of Students Against Sweatshops chapters and student labor protest confirms that the Union Summer program has successfully mobilized a generation of college students for labor activism. This research extends the labor literature by providing evidence of the revitalized labor federation's success in forming bridges to non-traditional constituencies. Our findings inform social movement scholarship and studies of inter-organizational influence by demonstrating that a professional social movement organization can strategically generate mobilization among a new constituency.