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Low Pay, High Profile: The Global Push for Fair Labor
While critics have decried antiglobalization as an aimless―and endless―assortment of causes, the fight for fair labor is arguably the movement's greatest success. The industrial sweatshop has become a byword for corporate-led globalization; the world's lowest-paying jobs have been the subject of high-profile media coverage; and exposés of sweatshop conditions have become a staple of investigative reporting and public attention. As a result, fair labor standards are now on the negotiating table of world trade agreements. Although the fight is far from over, in Low Pay, High Profile , Andrew Ross presents case studies from around the world―from the health hazards faced by Asian microchip workers and recyclers of electronic waste to the controversy over Nike's contract with Manchester United, the world's leading soccer club―to show how and why the movement found the strength and energy to shake the confidence of corporate and financial elites. Here is an unabashedly partisan inquiry into the cruelty and indignity of the modern workplace that shows how critique combined with action can bring world-changing results.
256 pages, Hardcover
First published June 1, 2004
16 people want to read
About the author
Andrew Ross
175 books50 followersAndrew Ross is Professor of Social and Cultural Analysis at New York University, and a social activist. A contributor to The Nation, the Village Voice, New York Times, and Artforum, he is the author of many books, including, most recently, Bird on Fire: Lessons from the World’s Least Sustainable City and Nice Work if You Can Get It: Life and Labor in Precarious Times.
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December 24, 2012
For much of the last 15 years or so Andrew Ross has been making the running in the field of socially engaged scholarly work on labour conditions and globalisation with broad general appeal and accessibility. He has an excellent track record publishing with academic publishers and those who manage cross over texts. This is one of the latter; a fabulous critical exploration of changes in global labour markets, in global labour processes and the conditions of work.
One of his real skills is the ability to weave together common stories from seemingly disparate settings and to make the compelling and convincing. In this case, he explores changes in craft production in Italy as cheap labour mass producers move into the market importing east Asian labour forced to live and work in near chattel slavery conditions – ‘Made in Italy’ cannot be relied on as a marker of quality. Alongside this he begins to unpack the conditions of work in major Chinese factories (this book was published 7 years before Foxtell came to public consciousness) which he explores alongside the conditions of work in Silicon Valley and high end New York City department stores. It is a compelling set of juxtapositions.
His other skill is building links between these developments and more unexpected areas of consumption and production. In one case in this book he starts with the experience of shopping at Manchester United’s megastore at old Trafford (the football/soccer ground) to demonstrate the historical and contemporary characteristics of the textile industries and suggest disturbing parallels between Engels’ Condition of the Working Class in England (based on his understanding of working class life in the early 19th century Manchester textile industries) and contemporary global textile work. In lesser hands this would risk being a ‘look how far we’ve come’ story – in Ross’s it is a damning indictment of imperialism and the way global zones are under-developed by the demands of global market oriented producers. He then shifts sideways to complete the book by exploring cultural production starting the in music industry as a form of mental labour, shifting through the conditions of work of junior university staff and link back to his opening discussion of the newly emerging campus-based anti-sweatshop movement.
This description, I accept, could leave this book sounding as if it is a hodge-podge of ideas, but it is held together by a sophisticated grasp of the labour process in capitalism and the emergence of precarious labour forces in both manual and mental labour at the very time that the old manual/mental distinction is losing its residual usefulness. This book takes right inside the reasons for the anti-globalisation movement, for widespread concern about working conditions not only in the far reaches the global capitalist periphery but in our backyards and the office next door to ours (and for many of us, our own office). Eight years after it was published it retains its power, relevance and importance.
Superb! Would that we had more scholars who work in this way.
One of his real skills is the ability to weave together common stories from seemingly disparate settings and to make the compelling and convincing. In this case, he explores changes in craft production in Italy as cheap labour mass producers move into the market importing east Asian labour forced to live and work in near chattel slavery conditions – ‘Made in Italy’ cannot be relied on as a marker of quality. Alongside this he begins to unpack the conditions of work in major Chinese factories (this book was published 7 years before Foxtell came to public consciousness) which he explores alongside the conditions of work in Silicon Valley and high end New York City department stores. It is a compelling set of juxtapositions.
His other skill is building links between these developments and more unexpected areas of consumption and production. In one case in this book he starts with the experience of shopping at Manchester United’s megastore at old Trafford (the football/soccer ground) to demonstrate the historical and contemporary characteristics of the textile industries and suggest disturbing parallels between Engels’ Condition of the Working Class in England (based on his understanding of working class life in the early 19th century Manchester textile industries) and contemporary global textile work. In lesser hands this would risk being a ‘look how far we’ve come’ story – in Ross’s it is a damning indictment of imperialism and the way global zones are under-developed by the demands of global market oriented producers. He then shifts sideways to complete the book by exploring cultural production starting the in music industry as a form of mental labour, shifting through the conditions of work of junior university staff and link back to his opening discussion of the newly emerging campus-based anti-sweatshop movement.
This description, I accept, could leave this book sounding as if it is a hodge-podge of ideas, but it is held together by a sophisticated grasp of the labour process in capitalism and the emergence of precarious labour forces in both manual and mental labour at the very time that the old manual/mental distinction is losing its residual usefulness. This book takes right inside the reasons for the anti-globalisation movement, for widespread concern about working conditions not only in the far reaches the global capitalist periphery but in our backyards and the office next door to ours (and for many of us, our own office). Eight years after it was published it retains its power, relevance and importance.
Superb! Would that we had more scholars who work in this way.
Displaying 1 of 1 review