MEMORANDUM
TO : Progressive Sociology Network. World System Network.
Global Political Economy. Study Group on Capitalism and
Socialism. Community and Urban Sociology
FROM : Robert J.S. Ross
Sociology, Clark University
Worcester, MA 01610
SUBJECT : Sweatshop Research
DATE : November 16, 1995
With three faculty and student associates I am engaged in some theory testing about the
resurgence of sweatshops as of the late Seventies. Our test will be performed on the
garment industry at its New York center from 1950 to date. Most of the sources I used in
my 1983 article about this indicated that this form of illegal exploitation had pretty much
disappeared by the Fifties and Sixties. I have however recently found sources which indicate
there were garment sweatshops employing Puerto Rican workers in that time period. These
sources do not use a technical defintnion and it is hard to to tell whether the problem was
large or small. I am testing an hypothesis which contrasts changes in global political
economy vs. growth of immigration as explanations for the resurgence. In order to do this
I must establish whether there really were sweatshops in the garment industry in New York
in 1950s and 1960s, exploiting Puerto Rican women, and if so their magnitude. For
example, by some estimates the 1980s saw as many as 50,000 New Yorkers engaged in shops
paying subminimum wages or illegally witholding overtime pay, etc. By sweatshop I am
using the General Accounting Office (GAO) definition: significant violations of the wages
and hours legislation (The Fair Labor Standards Act of 1938), and/or significant OSHA
violations of health and safety regulations.
I will appreciate receiving citations about Puerto Rican women in the garment industry,
about sweatshops old and new, and opinions or even knowledge about all of this.
Contributions gratefully received at above email address, through snail mail and even (gulp!)
telephone.
Thanks,
Bob Ross