United Students Against Sweatshops (USAS)

Background

United Students Against Sweatshops grew out of the Sweat-Free Campus Campaign, an effort developed by interns at UNITE in the summer of 1997 to pressure universities to adopt codes of conduct governing the manufacture of licensed apparel. In July 1998, student activists from more than 30 schools gathered in New York for a weekend anti-sweatshop conference that consolidated the campaign into a national organization. Over the following years, USAS chapters organized sit-ins and demonstrations at campuses including the University of Wisconsin, the University of Arizona, Duke University, and the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, pressing administrations to adopt licensing codes of conduct. The organization has historically maintained close ties to the AFL-CIO and its affiliated unions and positions itself as the student arm of the broader American labor movement. ^{4 5 2}

In April 2000, USAS founded the Worker Rights Consortium (WRC), an independent labor-monitoring organization that investigates conditions in factories producing collegiate apparel and that was created as an alternative to the industry-backed Fair Labor Association. The WRC collects annual membership fees from affiliated universities to fund its monitoring work, and its 15-member governing board reserves five seats for representatives of USAS. As of 2026, more than 190 colleges and universities were affiliated with the WRC. ^{6 7}

Activities

United Students Against Sweatshops organizes two cornerstone campaign types: solidarity campaigns supporting garment workers who manufacture collegiate apparel overseas, and campaigns supporting campus-community workers such as dining, custodial, and maintenance staff seeking higher wages and union recognition. The organization frames its work as “student-labor solidarity” and trains student activists in direct-action organizing tactics, including sit-ins, rallies, and pressure campaigns against university administrations and corporate licensees. ^{8 4}

USAS also hosts campus labor lunches and picnics to educate campus workers on how to better advocate for themselves. ⁹

In 2014, USAS launched the “TFA Truth Tour,” a campaign aimed at removing Teach for America recruiters from college campuses. USAS organizers characterized Teach for America as part of a corporate-backed education-reform agenda funded by foundations including the Walton Family Foundation. The campaign drew sharp criticism from education-reform commentators, who described it as a fringe effort directed by professional labor organizers. ^{10 11}

In 2023, the University of Maryland chapter of USAS organized the “TimeFor22” rally, calling for a $22 minimum wage and union-recognition rights for university employees. In 2024, the University of Michigan chapter protested the university’s response to alleged wage theft at Hong Seng Knitting, a Nike-contracted collegiate-apparel facility in Thailand, demanding that the university condemn the alleged violations and terminate its apparel contract with Nike—reported to be worth $173.8 million—if the company failed to act. The campaign followed a 2021 Worker Rights Consortium report alleging the facility had withheld approximately $600,000 in wages from garment workers. ^{12 13}

USAS is a member organization of the Grassroots Global Justice Alliance, a left-of-center network of organizations supporting environmental, antiracist, feminist, and pro-Palestinian causes. ^{14 15}

Funding

United Students Against Sweatshops has received dedicated funding from numerous major labor unions, including the Service Employees International Union (SEIU), the Communications Workers of America (CWA), the American Postal Workers Union (APWU), the United Steelworkers (USWA), Unite Here, and the AFL-CIO. ¹⁶

Leadership

As of 2026, Makayla Heiser was the national organizing director of United Students Against Sweatshops, a role in which she reported training student activists and coordinating labor campaigns across more than 15 campuses. Heiser previously worked on the AFL-CIO‘s Labor 2024 campaign and subsequently became a campaign manager at the anti-war advocacy group CODEPINK. ¹⁷

As of 2023, Molly McGrath was the development and communications director for USAS. She previously worked as development director for journalism activist group The Progressive, formerly called the Progressive Media Project. ¹⁶