Sweatshops, Firsthand

Thousands of students around the country have been protesting US sweatshop practices in recent years. Such efforts, duly noted by mainstream media, serve to call public attention to long-neglected labor issues. But we hear far less about the tireless, courageous organizing and action by the sweatshop workers themselves, the vast majority of them women.

Sweatshop Warriors corrects our ignorance with a beautifully written account of their lives, struggles, lessons learned and lessons for all of us. The message is profound: A mass antisweatshop movement needs to be built from the bottom up, led by the workers themselves. That effort has a key role to play in the overall anti-corporate globalization movement today.

Miriam Louie's book is an in-depth study, packed with information, rich in social, political and economic analysis. She sees the sweatshop warriors in the context of recent US history, including the steady decline of unionization, longstanding racism within unions, the effects of deindustrialization and capitalist restructuring. At the same time, Sweatshop Warriors is totally alive, thanks to her drawing on hundreds of personal interviews for this book. The call to "Let the women themselves speak!" rings out in every chapter.

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