About the Author

Robert J.S. Ross, Professor, Clark University, Worcester, MA.

Robert Ross is Professor, and former Chair, of Sociology and presently Director of the International Studies Stream at Clark University -- where he is also the elected Faculty Chair of the University. He has taught at Clark since 1972 and held visiting appointments at MIT, Michigan and Harvard Universities and Wheaton College. His BA is from the University of Michigan, and MA and PhD from the University of Chicago. Ross’ major work has been on the globalization of capital and labor. In 1990 he co-authored (SUNY Press) Global Capitalism: the New Leviathan. Slaves to Fashion: poverty and abuse in the new sweatshops was released in October 2004 (University of Michigan Press). His 1983 article on sweatshops in New York was one of the very first scholarly articles to identify the resurgence of labor exploitation and abuse in the American apparel industry. Since 1994-95 he has been concentrating his research and public speaking about the resurgence of sweatshop conditions in the American apparel industry and its relations to sweatshop conditions around the world. He gives approximately 25 public lectures each year on the topic, most recently at the Boston Social Forum, Wayne State University, Mt. Allison College (New Brunswick), University of Tennessee, Chattanooga; Eastern Connecticut State; University of California -Santa Barbara; University of Utah. His most recent work is on labor rights and international trade, published in Foreign Affairs and in Third World Quarterly . He is chair-elect of the Section on the Political Economy of the World System of the American Sociological Association, and an Associate Editor of the Journal of World Systems Research. Ross’s work has appeared in the Nation, In These Times, and Tikkun, as well as scholarly journals. He has been a consultant to the economic development agency of the city of Boston, the Massachusetts Department of Welfare, and a speechwriter and policy adviser in the Massachusetts State Senate. He was the Policy Director for campaigns for state senate, county sheriff, Lieutenant Governor and Congress.

During the Sixties (of the last century) Bob Ross was a founder of Students for a Democratic (SDS). He writes about that period; for example see recently, an article comparing the anti-sweatshop movement and the movements of the Sixties. Ross is also occasionally interviewed about that period.

Contact Prof. Ross at Clark University: 508 793 7376; rjsross@clarku.edu.