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Class, Geography, and the Consumerist Turn: UNITE and the Stop Sweatshops Campaign

Author

Listed:
  • Rebecca Johns

    (Department of Geography, University of South Florida, St Petersburg, FL 33701, USA)

  • Leyla Vural

    (Independent scholar, 245 W. 107th Street #8C, New York, NY 10025, USA)

Abstract

The late 20th century has seen unions in the industrial and postindustrial countries retrench and struggle to develop new strategies and tactics in the face of a changing political economy. A challenge to the traditional conceptions of the appropriate place and scope of union activity comes from the Union of Needletrades, Industrial and Textile Employees and its innovative leadership in the US-based Stop Sweatshops Campaign. Based on an analysis of the shifting locus of power in the garment industry, the union shifted its focus from the point of production to the place of consumption to pressure retailers who set prices within the industry. This strategy, which fulfills the prophecy of the consumptive turn earlier this century, applies a new geography and politics to labor struggles, and forces labor geographers to consider anew the relationship between consumption and production in our understanding of the changing economic landscape.

Suggested Citation

  • Rebecca Johns & Leyla Vural, 2000. "Class, Geography, and the Consumerist Turn: UNITE and the Stop Sweatshops Campaign," Environment and Planning A, , vol. 32(7), pages 1193-1213, July.
    • Handle: RePEc:sae:envira:v:32:y:2000:i:7:p:1193-1213
    DOI: 10.1068/a3255
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    Citations

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    Cited by:

    1. Rachel Slocum, 2004. "Consumer Citizens and the Cities for Climate Protection Campaign," Environment and Planning A, , vol. 36(5), pages 763-782, May.
    2. Noel Castree, 2001. "Commodity Fetishism, Geographical Imaginations and Imaginative Geographies," Environment and Planning A, , vol. 33(9), pages 1519-1525, September.
    3. Alex Hughes, 2005. "Corporate Strategy and the Management of Ethical Trade: The Case of the UK Food and Clothing Retailers," Environment and Planning A, , vol. 37(7), pages 1145-1163, July.
    4. Michele Micheletti & Dietlind Stolle, 2007. "Mobilizing Consumers to Take Responsibility for Global Social Justice," The ANNALS of the American Academy of Political and Social Science, , vol. 611(1), pages 157-175, May.
    5. Norma Rantisi, 2002. "The Local Innovation System as a Source of 'Variety': Openness and Adaptability in New York City's Garment District," Regional Studies, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 36(6), pages 587-602.
    6. Celal Cahit Ağar & Steffen Böhm, 2018. "Towards a pluralist labor geography: Constrained grassroots agency and the socio-spatial fix in Dȇrsim, Turkey," Environment and Planning A, , vol. 50(6), pages 1228-1249, September.

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