United
Students against Sweatshops (USAS) is a network of students in North
America who have been organizing for workers’ rights since 1998.
As
former, current, and future workers, we recognize that we must live the
principles that we are taught in the classroom now. As students, we
have the power to force our universities to respect the basic human
rights and dignity of workers who make our education possible.
We
believe our universities must respect all workers in their supply
chains– from those who serve us food in the dining halls, to
housekeepers and janitors who clean our dormitories, to farmworkers who
pick the food we eat in those dining halls, to the garment workers who
make apparel with our universities’ name. We support the right of all
workers to organize unions and other democratic worker organizations,
to earn living wages that meet the basic needs of their families, and
to be treated with respect. We believe workers are the best monitors of
their own condition in North America and around the globe and deserve a
voice on the job.
We define "sweatshop" broadly and use it as
a representation of the horrific abuses of the global economy. However,
human rights abuses and the repression of working people’s struggles is
not limited to garment factories in the Global South or in immigrant
communities in North America. Sweatshop conditions exist in the fields,
in the prisons, on our campuses, in the power relations of a flawed
global system. Thus, we consider all struggles for a better world and
an alternative to the current structure of the global economy to be
directly or by analogy a struggle against sweatshops.
To get involved in Campus and Community Solidarity Campaigns: e-mail
To get involved in Sweatfree Campus Campaigns (including the struggle for the Designated Suppliers Program): e-mail
If you are a high school student and would like to get involved: e-mail
| Our Campaigns |
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USAS coordinates two major areas of campaign work: the Sweatfree Campus
Campaign, which we run in solidarity with garment workers who make our
licensed collegiate apparel; and Campus Worker Solidarity campaigns
which we run in solidarity with campus and community workers.
Many of our affiliates also run campaigns in solidarity with
farmworkers within the national borders of the United States in
coalition with organizations such as the Student/Farmworker Alliance
and the Coalition of Immokalee Workers. USAS affiliates also run
corporate campaigns in solidarity with Coca-Cola workers, particularly
in Colombia.
VIDEO
JAPAN SWEATSHOPS: TOYOTA