Neoliberal fashion:Neoliberal fashion:The return of the The return of the

sweatshopsweatshopDr. Jerónimo Montero BressánDr. Jerónimo Montero Bressán

University of ManchesterUniversity of Manchester27/3/201227/3/2012

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What is a sweatshop?

National sweatshops /international sweatshops

Why is the sweatshop back?1. Changes in the organisation of the fashion

industry2. Rise of neoliberalism

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1. Contracting out. Why?• Strong labour organisations• Crisis and increasing economic instability:

financialisation of the economy• Retailers and branded manufacturers

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The chart shows not only a falling industrial output in OECD countries, but also the high instability to which industrial production is subjected. Source: UNCTAD, 2010

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2. What is neoliberalism?“a class project that coalesced in the crisis of the

1970s (…) Masked by a lot of rhetoric about individual freedom, liberty, personal responsibility and the virtues of privatisation, the free market and free trade, it legitimised draconian policies designed to restore and consolidate capitalist class power” (Harvey, 2010: 10).Debates: post-structuralists and Marxists

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Changes: from Fordism to Neoliberalism

• State and labour, blamed for the crisis of Fordism

• Changes in the balance between capital and labour

• Changes in the role of the state: end of Welfare state

• Deregulation, financialisation and the permanent economic instability

• Labour casualisation: flexibility in the North, informality in the South, Inequality everywhere

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How did the role of the state change?

• Rescaling of statehood• Economic domination (Jessop, 2002)

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Sweatshops in Buenos Aires: The tango of the garment

workers

Islas MalvinasIslas Malvinas

Argentina in South America Buenos Aires in Argentina

Source: CIA World Factbook, 20011

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Imposition of neoliberalism by means of a dictatorship•Repression of workers’ organisation and political opposition•Deindustrialisation

Origins of the sweatshop systemThe present situationThe role of the stateThe anti-sweatshop struggle

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Sweatshops in Tuscany

Tuscany in Italy Prato in Tuscany

Source: European Union, 2011OP VK Inovace výuky geografických studijních oborů (Geoinovace)

Italy’s broker heart: industrial districts and the European Union

End of welfare state & labour flexibilisation

Origins of the sweatshop system

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High-end fashion houses

Fast fashion

The role of the state

Workers’ unions

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Learning from the evidence: main results of the fieldwork

• Deindustrialisation

• Myth 1: Exploitation in national sweatshops is an intrinsic cultural feature of the immigrant communities within which the sweatshop economy develops• Myth 2: Controlling working conditions in sweatshops is impossible

• Justification

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Codes of conduct

Role of the state•The state as the nanny of capital•Law enforcement

Workers organisation and trade unions

•Myth 2: If entrepreneurs are said to pay legal wages, they will have to close down the factories and subcontract

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