Andrew Ross Papers

Andrew Ross (1956- ) is a scholar and social activist who teaches in the department of Social and Cultural Analysis at New York University (NYU). He was born and educated in Scotland. As a scholar of social and cultural studies, his writings primarily focus on labor practices, organized labor, and urban sociology.

In the mid-to-late 1990s Ross was involved in the anti-sweatshop movement, which sought to prevent the use of clothing produced through the exploitation of underpaid workers in less economically privileged countries by wealthier countries. As the Director of the Graduate Program in American Studies at NYU Ross's research included working conditions in sweatshops in China, U.S. legislation on the prohibition of goods produced by sweatshops, and New York University's student-led No Sweat Coalition to prevent the selling of NYU apparel produced in sweatshops. In 1998 Ross published and edited No Sweat: Fashion, Free Trade, and the Rights of Garment Workers. He was also affiliated with the Union of Needletrades, Industrial and Textile Employees (UNITE!), Scholars, Artists, and Writers for Social Justice (SAWSJ), United Students Against Sweatshops (USAS) and the National Labor Committee, under which he was elected as one of its Directors in 1999. Additionally, Ross helped coordinate and organize events such as the United Students Against Sweatshops Conference in July 1999 and the Vigil to End Child Labor and Sweatshop Abuses held in New York City on December 9, 1999.

After the late 1990s, Ross became more involved in the academic labor movement, both as a member of the national, non-profit organization American Association of University Professors (AAUP), and as a strong supporter of NYU's graduate student union.