Global Apparel Industry Research Articles

Monitoring sweatshops: workers, consumers, and the global apparel industry

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

Threads: Gender, Labor and Power in the Global Apparel Industry (review)

Threads: Gender, Labor and Power in the Global Apparel Industry (review)

Book Reviews : Threads: Gender, Labor and Power in the Global Apparel Industry. By Jane L. Collins. Chicago, IL: The University of Chicago Press, 2003. 207 pp. $45 hardback, $18 paper

Book Reviews : Threads: Gender, Labor and Power in the Global Apparel Industry. By Jane L. Collins. Chicago, IL: The University of Chicago Press, 2003. 207 pp. $45 hardback, $18 paper

Barriers to Bolivian participation in the global apparel industry

This paper examines the perceptions of Bolivians engaged in the country's apparel industry regarding barriers and challenges to participation in the global textile and apparel complex. Small Bolivian apparel producers perceive the apparel industry as a source of employment and an opportunity to improve the well being of their families. Government/small business relationships, economic and political uncertainty of trade partners, inadequate infrastructure, a depressed domestic market, and global trade policies were identified by participants as barriers to further development of the apparel industry. Apparel producers require support from both public and private sectors to foster entrepreneurship, promote Bolivian apparel products and join regional production networks to revitalize the apparel industry in Bolivia.

Making Sweatshops: The Globalization of the U.S. Apparel Industry

List of Figures and Tables Preface 1. Introduction 2. Free Trade, Neoclassical Economics, and Women Workers in the Global Apparel Industry 3. Roots of the Postwar Textile and Apparel Trade: The Reconstruction of the Asian Pacific Rim Textile Industry 4. The Emergence of Trade Protection for the Textile and Apparel Industries 5. The U.S. Textile Industry: Responses to Free Trade 6. The U.S. Apparel Industry: Responses to Capital Flight 7. The 1980s: The Demise of Protection 8. The Reagan Revolution: The Caribbean Basin Initiative 9. Trade Liberalization for Textiles and Apparel: The Impact of NAFTA 10. Apparel Retailing in the United States: From Mom-and-Pop Shop to Transnational Corporation 11. Finally Free Trade: The Future of the Global Apparel Industry 12. The New Global Apparel Trade: Who Wins, Who Loses? Notes Index

Upgrading, uneven development, and jobs in the North American apparel industry

AbstractIn this article we examine the developmental consequences of globalization at multiple scales, using a commodity chains framework to investigate the case of the North American apparel industry. In the first section we outline the apparel commodity chain and offer a brief typology of its lead firms. In the second section we discuss the concept of industrial upgrading and describe several main export roles in the global apparel industry. In the third section we focus on the regional dynamics resulting from the North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA). We contrast the Mexican experience with that of countries in the Caribbean Basin to show the impact of distinct trade policies on export‐oriented development. We argue that NAFTA is creating upgrading opportunities for some Mexican firms to move from the low value‐added export‐oriented assembly (or maquila) model to full‐package production. In the fourth section we explore the unevenness of upgrading dynamics through a comparison of two blue jeans manufacturing clusters in the United States and Mexico: El Paso and Torreon. Our conclusions about upgrading and uneven development in the North American apparel industry emphasize the importance of local, national and regional institutional contexts in shaping inter‐firm networks and their development impact.

The Future Role of China in the Global Apparel Industry and Market

The Future Role of China in the Global Apparel Industry and Market

Pronto moda Tokyo‐style – emergence of collection‐free street fashion in Tokyo and the Seoul‐Tokyo fashion connection

The emergence of purely “street‐born” fashion styles in the 1990s in the young women’s casual wear market in Tokyo has revealed the limitations of the conventional framework of quick response (QR) approaches that have long been implemented by Japanese fashion houses. They were found to be incapable of responding to the need for fresh fashion designs in the extremely volatile and fast‐moving streets of Tokyo’s casual fashion scene. This, on the other hand, has initiated a Korean‐Japanese fashion connection, in which a large number of small fashion firms in the Dongdaemun fashion industry district in Seoul play an important role in the taking‐shape of the pronto moda (fast fashion) in Tokyo style, with their organic networking of small suppliers within the agglomeration. The linkage of fashion industries between Seoul and Tokyo has also been fostering an interactive partnership in that both parties learn the uniqueness of each other’s practices. On the basis of a review of industrial agglomeration theories, highlights the relationships between the casual fashion trends in Tokyo in the 1990s and the pronto moda formula in the fashion agglomeration in the Dongdaemun district. In addition to this, an analysis of the future implication of the Korean‐Japanese fashion connection in the context of the global fashion industry is projected.

The Anti-Sweatshop Movement: Constructing Corporate Moral Agency in the Global Apparel Industry

This essay examines the impact of activist mobilization within the anti-sweatshop movement on shared understandings of corporate moral agency. The anti-sweatshop movement represents a transnational advocacy network, which arose in response to the global restructuring of the apparel industry and is organizing to demand that apparel manufacturers be accountable to communities, workers, and consumers. The movement has been central in contesting received notions of corporate rights and responsibilities and in reconstituting the boundaries of the corporate moral agent. Underpinning this investigation is a discussion of the ascription of moral agency to collective actors. With the aid of a relational approach, it is argued that corporate moral agency is a construct emerging out of social historical interactions that reflect processes through which the boundaries of actors are drawn and justified. Through the use of rhetoric linking private economic transactions and international labor and human rights standards, the movement has successfully challenged corporate practices that were previously considered unremarkable.

The Social Accountability Contract: Private Monitoring From Los Angeles To the Global Apparel Industry

The Social Accountability Contract: Private Monitoring From Los Angeles To the Global Apparel Industry

US consumers' knowledge of and concern with apparel sweatshops

US consumers admit they are not knowledgeable about the global apparel industry; however, they hold positive beliefs about US apparel industry labour practices. Consumers have much less regard for the foreign industry. There is a slightly higher level of concern for US workers versus foreign workers. Governmental regulations, labelling and store boycotts are agreed upon solutions for abolishing sweatshops. Implications of consumers' beliefs and attitudes to the global apparel industry and governmental policy are discussed.