Class, geography, and the consumerist turn: UNITE and the Stop Sweatshops Campaign

The late 20th century has seen unions in the industrial and postindustrial countries retrench and struggle to develop new strategies and tactics in th e face of a changing political economy. A challenge to the traditional conc eptions 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 i ts focus from the point of production to the place of consumption to pressu re retailers who set prices within the industry. This strategy, which fulfi lls the prophecy of the consumptive turn earlier this century, applies a ne w geography and politics to labor struggles, and forces labor geographers t o consider anew the relationship between consumption and production in our understanding of the changing economic landscape.