Last weekend (August 8-10) about 125 students met in Boulder, Colorado, for a United Students Against Sweatshops (USAS) National Conference. This organization has a lot of potential to be a hotbed of revolutionary recruitment, or, to merely be used by the Democratic Party and liberals. After much observation, it appears that the USAS leadership is struggling to overcome the constraints set by liberalism in student activism.
USAS grew out of the awareness of sweatshops in the 1990s, forming in 1997 what would soon be one of the largest radical student organizations in the United States.1
But, wait…Did I say radical? Yes. From talking to former USAS leaders, who once sat on the Coordinating Committee, it is apparent that USAS leadership has been composed of radical activists, who see it as pointing out and challenging a fundamental flaw in capitalism and free markets. USAS extends its definition of sweatshops beyond that of the US Department of Labor (violation of two or more labor laws)2 and the Government Accountability Office (violation of one labor law)3, to include any workplace that does not pay a living wage4—meaning prisons and other low-wage labor.5
It would seem this would have been the job of other student organizations, like Students for A Democratic Society. SDS, however, did not re-form itself until more recently; until USAS formed, student activism was relatively inactive. USAS, unlike SDS though, tends to be more unified, better organized, and appears more formal in its demands to schools—probably due to the fact that it has pre-scripted examples for documents, phone recitations, mailing exchanges, or any other communications tools a school chapter may want to use when engaging their administration.
How is all of this done?
The ability to accomplish very much in a short amount of time, while keeping the organization together has a lot to do with the fact that USAS has paid organizers. Regional Organizers and other members of the Coordinating Committee are accountable to their membership and can be reported and replaced upon a demand for recall. Because these organizers get paid for their participation, though, there is actually an incentive accomplish goals for the local USAS chapters, as well as apply for these organizing positions that initially sound like a headache and a nervous breakdown.
SDS and most other radical student organizations, though, tend to have no employees, no central source for legal documents, and no paid, elected, reliable organizer(s) in cases where emergency relief and experienced activist advice is needed from new campus organizers.
Many students of the ultra-left ideologies oppose even democratically elected leadership; many of them especially oppose paying for full-time members. Instead, they opt for participation based on haphazard free time (which is problematic). This haphazard structure of commitment often proves inefficient at accomplishing reforms (or revolution) in the name of preserving the organization’s internal democracy. USAS has actually proven to be an incredible example of the potential of decentralized organizations to maintain optimal functioning in the face of its politically polarized/diverse membership.
Diversity
USAS is also more politically diverse than most broad organizations. At the Conference, there were floods of liberal hippies, amidst Jobs with Justice, very well schooled radicals, newbie lefties, and a surprising number of quiet anarchists; tables consisted of SEIU, AFSCME, Wake-up Wal-Mart, Student Farm Worker Action Alliance, Coalition of Immokalee Workers, Recreate ’68 (DNC Welcoming Committee), RNC Welcoming Committee, and more.6 It was a bizarre scene—seeing Recreate ‘68 sit feet away from SEIU, knowing that both groups vehemently disagree over the upcoming presidential election.
A huge gap was missing from the Conference, though. Political orientations seemed to run from Democratic Party vagueness and Popular Frontism, directly to a polar opposite group of anarchists and unidentified revolutionaries. Where were the Marxist-Leninists in this clash of ideologies?
For all I know, the Communist Party USA was there among the flurry of liberals. The SWP showed up to recruit youth into a party of theories with which most young people fail to identify. Where were the rest? Is recruitment the only incentive to participate in an organization like USAS? Is merely raising the consciousness level of people (internally and externally) not a good enough reason to participate?
Evidently, for the anarchists and the Democrats, USAS was still a worthwhile organization. Probably the most clashing moment of ideology was Saturday night, when Tim Waters (United Steelworkers) spoke on "free trade". His presentation climaxed in two moments: 1) urging USAS to vote Obama in 2008, and 2) manipulating the events of Seattle’s WTO Conference in 1999, to depict USAS as having a history of martyrdom, holding hands with himself and the Democrats.
Liberal or Radical?
Tim Waters’s proclamations that Obama would solve economic imperialism received cheers, dirty glares, silence, and some laughter. Most experienced activists in USAS were not so naïve to be swallowed up into Obamania, however, many new activists were. Waters also, slyly manipulated the WTO riots. Showing 100% factual film clips, he was able exhibit his encounters with the first USAS members. The clips were not of rioting, though, they were only of riot police violently misbehaving.
Again, 100% true; however, he merely linked himself with USAS’s origins, recent anarchist history, and left out the riotous parts of "The Battle in Seattle". This form of deceptive recruitment—talking tough or radical, but meaning the most Right-wing interpretation imaginable—was employed by many Democrats at the Conference, and it is used elsewhere in activism; I fear that it threatens the radical hotbed, on which USAS sits.
Most of the workshops were taught by labor organizers—from SEIU, AFSCME and other major unions—almost all of whom used to be in USAS. Most of them supported Obama; the old USAS membership had another side, though. Most of the radical organizations tabling at the Conference, also, had ex-USAS members teaching workshops, many of whom would crack jokes about Obamania and the Obama cult.
USAS is unique, because it manages to mix trade union support with radical analysis. They receive massive funds from unions who feel that fighting free trade is essential to their sustenance. Its decentralized structure allows some chapters to be fringe Democrats and others to be radical left-wing blocs. Its membership is diverse, though, its politics reflect its historically radical leadership, tending to be more radical in its anti-oppression and anti-imperialism, than most of its newest members; surprisingly, it seems that USAS’s leadership has not actually changed in ideological composition much, leaving it Left of its newest recruits. However, as its anti-sweatshop agenda reaches new students, it taps into less radical consciousnesses—increasing its membership, but watering down its radicalism. In other words, radicals are leading an organization and successfully reaching very liberal students in large numbers.
This resulted in the USAS Conferences being a hub of politicization, between liberal Democrats and experienced radicals. This polarization makes USAS very unique from other Left groups, especially student organizations.
Student Activism and Classism
Students go off to college, think a lot, and decide the world has problems. A key reason students fail to change much has been because they do not directly and immediately control that which they plan to change—in this case, students do not directly control production. USAS encourages students to organize campus workers and participate in their struggle against their oppressors. Not only does this make USAS volatile, compared to other student organizations, but it antagonizes class struggle in a way that requires students to directly learn working people’s struggle. This is important, because classism is problematic on the Left, especially among student activism.
Students activism is currently famous for environmentalist and organic consumerism, along with other interests that appeal predominately to liberal students who have a fat wallet. It is not known for breeding labor organizing and working class support. Though, this is an improvement USAS has made upon other student organizations, it still faces many elements of classism that student activism simply cannot overcome, until capitalism is smashed.
Problems Student Activism Cannot Overcome in Capitalism
1) Students are still being produced in relation to their univerisity’s relation to the hierarchical division of labor. Samuel Bowles and Herbert Gintis have argued this point thoroughly in Schooling in Capitalist America. Mario Savio explained this relationship in his famous 1964 speech at UC Berkeley:
"We have an autocracy which runs this university. It’s managed. We were told the following: If President Kerr actually tried to get something more liberal out of the Regents in his telephone conversation, why didn’t he make some public statement to that effect? And the answer we received, from a well-meaning liberal, was following: He said, ‘Would you ever imagine the manager of a firm making a statement publicly in opposition to his board of directors?’ That’s the answer! Well I ask you to consider: if this is a firm, and if the board of regents are the board of directors, and if President Kerr in fact is the manager, then I tell you something — the faculty are a bunch of employees! And we’re the raw material! But we’re a bunch of raw materials that don’t mean to have any process upon us, don’t mean to be made into any product, don’t mean to end up being bought by some clients of the university, be they the government, be they industry, be they organized labor, be they anyone! We’re human beings!"
Simply put, students are recruited as raw materials by different universities to be future products on the labor market. Different universities produce different workers for the labor market; this is essentially preparation for the social relations of future production. Thus, it should come as no surprise that student activism has, and always will be biggest on rich universities, because poor universities are teaching and rewarding more subordinated social relations in their classrooms.
2) Students who work have less free time for activism. If we look at the most active student organizations and their chapters around the country, it becomes obvious that the most active are those at prestigious schools. This is not only a problem in USAS, but all student activist organizations. At the Conference, students from prestigious universities mentioned student apathy toward sweatshop injustices and others’ lack of motivation. In working class colleges, students seem excited to sign a petition against sweatshops, and they know their local jobs are disappearing to the newest sweatshops around the world; but they cannot participate in meetings and other activities, because they have no free time; they are already working 40 hours/week and going to school full-time to get out of school as fast as possible.
3) Working class students have a lot more to lose. If we look at the largest student activist organizations around the country, we can notice that in every organization, the surviving and thriving chapters are in privileged universities. On top of that, their most famous heroes and martyrs have privileged backgroundsWe hear countless stories of students facing off with angry University Administrators who threaten them with expulsion, thus, the students challenge and defy authority by refusing to comply. But, what about all those students who decided to comply, or were too afraid to risk their tuition to begin with? Does their economic background differ from those students who risked expulsion?
Though, there is no formal statistical information on this question (to my knowledge), I think working class students measure the costs of expulsion and see them as much higher than privileged Ivy League students—who can (and sometimes do) simply proceed to enroll in a new school, if expelled. For working class students, a threat about losing financial aid and/or their one ticket out of poverty means a lot—enough to sometimes force them to buckle under administrative pressure. This would explain why the most famous student activists tend to come from privileged backgrounds, and why student activism has, often, put forth an anti-working class agenda.Conclusions
I repeatedly expressed these concerns at the USAS 2008 National Conference, though, I have no solution without getting rid of capitalism. The USAS leadership was very empathetic and could only suggest re-strategizing for chapters with a more working class student base.
So, for working class students, it’s back to the drawing board. But, at least for those of us in USAS, we have paid and elected organizers to help us perform tasks we do not have as much free time for. We have dedicated members who are there for us—and, in many cases, are Left of the organization’s newest members; and we have the autonomy to show that we know what is the best decision for us—we do not have to follow decrees (democratic or not) formulated by a prevailing order of college student activism, preset by students with privileged economic backgrounds. USAS is essentially encouraging those students with more free time to work for those of us with less time to advance those working class students’ cause, under those chapters’ autonomous sanction.
USAS is attacking internal classist tendencies as much as a student organization has ever done within capitalism. Any further questions or suggestions for USAS, please email our USAS chapter, at [email protected]; we would enjoy any suggestions in preventing USAS from internally replicating a corporate division of labor and capitalist class relations.
End Notes
1. See the controversy that surrounded Kathie Lee Gifford, when it was discovered that her line of clothing at Wal-Mart that donated money to charities (as a marketing ploy) was made by 13 year old girls in South America who had been repeatedly been denied wages. Also, USAS formed in 1997, as a response to the growing awareness of labor organizations that came out against NAFTA, forced deregulation, and other neoliberal reforms of the Clinton era. Thus, in 1999, to save the face of himself and the Democratic Party, President Clinton signed the Fair Labor Association into being. The FLA’s sole job is to be a non-profit organization that claims to monitor labor practices around the world. Their existence is a sham and required USAS to create an independent labor monitoring organization, the Worker Rights Consortium. There is an over abundance of both, the FLA and the WRC on the USAS website: http://www.studentsagainstsweatshops.org/
2. Department of Labor’s definition of sweatshops, from Feminist.Org’s FAQ’s: http://feminist.org/other/sweatshops/sweatfaq.html
3. Government Accountability Office’s Definition of "sweatshops": http://gao.gov/archive/1995/he95029.pdf
4. What is a living wage?: http://livingwagecampaign.org/
5. USAS’s position on a living wage: http://www.studentsagainstsweatshops.org/index/php?option=com_content&task=view&id=16&Itemid=27
To learn more about USAS’s defintion of sweatshops, see my article,
6. Also, the Socialist Workers Party appeared Saturday night with a table, and Wobblies seemed to be informally running about everywhere.
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