Threads: Gender, Labor and Power in the Global Apparel Industry (review)

This book studies the global apparel industry and the effects that the industry's production process has on workers. It does this by first providing an historical and economic overview of the industry, and then by using three case studies—a textile plant closing in North Carolina, corporate decision-making at Liz Claiborne, and outsourcing to Mexico—to weave a picture of economic, geographic, and gender relationships.

Overall, Threads is a good introduction for newcomers to the subject. It provides a solid and succinct description of the global apparel industry which is based upon an exhaustive literature review. The case studies, based upon original research, are particularly compelling. It is written in a clear, non-technical style, making the book useful for several disciplines, including labor studies classes.

Importantly, the book emphasizes gender issues: first, that firms seek out women workers to exploit stereotypes about "naturalization" of women's skills in sewing, and second, that they play upon assumptions that women need not earn enough to support families and will be docile about receiving low wages and harsh treatment. Collins points out that women have begun to challenge these conditions by organizing for rights at work and in their communities, through various non-governmental organizations that center on women workers' issues.

The book also mentions race issues, but surprisingly only in the context of the textile company Tultex's history and unionization in North Carolina. It misses a discussion about race in the management of Mexican factories, where the top managers are North Americans (or in some cases Asians) and the lower management and workers are all Mexican. Throughout Mexico and Latin America, these race relationships are an important dimension of power and should be analyzed.

Industry experts will recognize that in several places the author makes inaccurate assertions about apparel manufacturing, which unfortunately weaken her arguments. For example, she erroneously equates the skills necessary to sew sweatshirts with those needed to sew Liz Claiborne fashions, and she mistakenly suggests that a solution to short-cycle repetitive Tayloristic manufacturing methods would be to rely on workers' creativity.

The book's most important contribution to the literature on the global apparel industry is the concept of "space," and the analysis of "deterritorialization" (the geographic distribution of production and the subcontracting system) as disempowering for workers. However Collins does not address how workers can become empowered in the face of deterritorialization—how workers who are losing their jobs in North Carolina can link with workers in Mexico where production has relocated and build community across distance and language barriers. Instead, at the very end she hints that multinational investment has linked workers interests across borders, but otherwise never provides a framework for resolution, in the context of deterritorialization or otherwise. In view of the widespread plant closures and job loss that the phase-out of the Multi-Fiber Agreement will have in 2005, an analysis of how workers can organize across borders is more needed than ever.