Students Against Sweatshops and Corporate Social Responsibility: The Anti-Nike Campaign

Contemporary economic globalization, which is driven and regulated primarily by multinational corporations (MNCs), has a direct impact on workers’ lives. International decentralized subcontracting arrangements allow MNCs to constantly relocate production in the pursuit of lower wages and lax labor laws, leading to what is referred to as the “race to the bottom” and sweatshop conditions. The low-wage and/or politically repressed working classes in developing countries allow capitalist enterprises to both reduce their labor costs and control the work force through the constant threat of relocation (Gereffi and Korzeniewicz 1990). Additionally, outsourcing alleviates MNCs’ responsibility for the working conditions.