In most parts of the United States, clothing is not optional.
In fact, our need for clothing supports a $30-billion-a-year industry in California alone that constitutes the second-largest manufacturing industry in the state -- so it’s rather alarming that garment workers’ rights to humane and decent labor conditions seemingly are considered optional.
“The Department of Labor doesn’t have enough people to monitor the garment industry,” explains Kimi Lee, director of downtown L.A.’s nonprofit Garment Worker Center, a community organization in the heart of the local production district that assists workers in protecting their rights. “There are over 5,000 shops and it’s just impossible for them to catch all the violations.”
Unfortunately, a “Made in the USA” label is no guarantee of equitable treatment for a largely immigrant workforce; many of the workers have come to this country to escape political and economic instability at home, only to be faced with the abusive sweatshop conditions rampant in our own domestic production lines. The superficially glamorous world of fashion has a dirty lining, and some of the worst labor code violations exist right here in downtown Los Angeles, our nation’s production capital for the rag trade.
Fortunately, so does the Garment Worker Center.
“Most of the contractors know they’re violating the law -- it’s just a matter of being caught,” says Lee, attributing some of this dishearteningly cavalier approach to business ethics to the effects of globalization: factory owners attempt to compete with pennies-a-day workers in other countries by engaging in substandard business practices that carry little risk of detection or penalties.
Because of the “pyramid” structure of the garment industry -- a few big retailers at the top who contract competing independent manufacturers, who then subcontract to various bidding factories, who then “sweat” their profits from cheap labor -- the numerous garment workers partaking of the pan scrapings of an increasingly dispersed economic pie are almost inherently vulnerable to exploitative practices that spell “sweatshop.”
According to a year 2000 study by the U.S. Department of Labor, 67% of Los Angeles garment manufacturers don’t pay minimum wage or overtime for their typically 60- to 80-hour workweeks; 75% of clothing manufacturers don’t comply with health and safety regulations. It is estimated that the workers who actually make an article of clothing are paid approximately 1% of its retail value -- if they are even paid at all, a common grievance among garment workers that the GWC frequently attempts to address.
“Before you even get to filing a wage claim and doing that whole kind of formal process [with the Department of Labor], we actually just help the workers write letters to the owner and then maybe do a factory visit, and most of the time we can settle things through that,” Lee tells of the organization’s grassroots efforts to promote fair labor practices.
In addition to “unofficially” helping settle the wage and hour disputes that typically erupt in what Kimi calls “an underground, informal economy,” the Garment Worker Center offers other services that help to empower their clientele. Workshops are held on topics ranging from health and safety to women’s issues, and walk-in consultations are available on Saturdays for those with specific questions (Wednesdays at a location in the San Gabriel Valley). In return, workers use their newfound knowledge to help others in their community.
“The workers are very supportive and they try to help,” Kimi says appreciatively. “We have a lot of workers who will volunteer here on the weekends and do whatever they can. . . . They’re working 60-70 hours a week at these terrible jobs, but they’ll come here because they want to learn more or they know that there’s the potential for something better.” In turn, some of the workers have even graduated to public speaking roles or serve as peer advocates.
Realistically, Lee acknowledges that “it’s almost impossible to avoid sweatshop labor altogether in everything we use -- our shoes and our gas and our food -- there are political issues everywhere. But the idea is that if [a group of] workers [is] trying to organize against a certain factory, then you should respect that, and there usually aren’t that many. . . . If you do a little homework on the Internet, you’ll find if there are any campaigns against certain people, so we just say look out for those.”
And while it’s an uphill battle of undeniably global proportions, for Kimi it’s sort of personal.
“My mother was a garment worker,” she offers. “When I was young, she’d take me to the factory and talk about how she was being paid a few dollars for these dresses that were selling for two, three hundred dollars in the stores. What’s outrageous is that she was making one or two dollars on those dresses -- and that’s the same rate that workers make now.”
The Garment Worker Center is always happy to accept support in the form of donations or volunteer assistance, and can even arrange for a garment worker to come speak at your community function. They are located at 1250 S. Los Angeles Street, Suite 213, L.A., CA 90015; tel. (888) 449-6115. For more information, check their Web site at www.garmentworkercenter.org to see some of their current campaigns and calendar of events.
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