Prof. Robert Ross

Robert J. S. Ross, research professor of sociology and the Mosakowski Institute for Public Enterprise, recently became president of the Sweatfree Purchasing Consortium.

The Consortium is a “membership organization for public entities that seek to purchase apparel and related products made in decent working conditions.” Its mission is “to end public purchasing from sweatshops and help its members make sweatfree purchases more effectively and less expensively than any single one could accomplish on its own.”

Ross is a former Chair of Sociology and was director of the International Studies Stream at Clark from 2000-2013. He was the elected Faculty Chair of the University from 2000-2006. He has held visiting appointments at MIT, Michigan and Harvard Universities and Wheaton College. He also has served as Chair of the Section on the Political Economy of the World System of the American Sociological Association, and as an Associate Editor of the Journal of World Systems Research.

Ross is the author of “Slaves to Fashion: poverty and abuse in the new sweatshops” and “Global Capitalism: the New Leviathan.”