Abstract
Sweatshops are re-emerging across the globe. In the current neoliberal environment-which has unions, government protec tion of worker rights, and fair trade policies on the defensive-we propose a market-based strategy that relies on "conscientious con sumers" to slow the global race to the bottom. To assess whether the consumer market in the United States could provide the added revenues needed to lift workers in the southern hemisphere up and out of poverty, we conducted an experiment in a department store in a working-class community in southeast Michigan to determine whether consumers would pay more for products certified as not made in sweatshops. Consumers were presented with two separate displays of ordinary athletic socks that were identical except for a label indicating that the socks in one display were produced under "good working conditions." After incrementing the price of the labeled socks over the course of several months, we found that most consumers preferred to pay less for the unlabeled socks, but nearly one in four was willing to pay up to 40 percent more for the labeled socks. Having documented the contours of this niche market for conscience consumption, we conclude by discussing the promises and challenges that face such a market-based strategy.
| Original language | English (US) |
|---|---|
| Pages (from-to) | 57-79 |
| Number of pages | 23 |
| Journal | Labor Studies Journal |
| Volume | 29 |
| Issue number | 3 |
| DOIs | |
| State | Published - 2004 |
Funding
1 Funding for this study was generously provided by the University of Michigan's Labor and Global Change Program at the Institute of Labor and Industrial Relations and the Department of Sociology. Earlier versions of this presentation benefited from the many constructive comments we re ceived from participants in two campus speaker series organized by the Institute of Labor and Industrial Relations, and the Decision Consortium affiliated with the Department of Psychology and the Business School. We are grateful to Larry Root, Joseph Priester, Jeremy Straughn, Mark Mizruchi, Aradhna Krishna, Stephen Salant, and Yeosun Yoon for comments at vari ous stages of the project and to the editors and three anonymous reviewers for advice and reactions to an earlier draft. Finally, we would like to thank Paul Sludds for designing our logo, and the managers and employees of the store. This study would not have been possible without their patience and cooperation.
ASJC Scopus subject areas
- Industrial relations
- Arts and Humanities (miscellaneous)
- Sociology and Political Science
