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Article

8 Aug 2017

Author:
Charles Davis, attn.com

USA: Wage theft & poor working conditions common in LA garment industry

"'Made in America': How Sweatshops Exploit Immigrants to Make Your Cheap Clothes." 26 July 2017

Of the 45,000 people who work in Los Angeles' garment industry, the country's largest, over 70 percent are immigrants... In 2016, the U.S. Department of Labor investigated 77 garment companies in the city and found that 85 percent of the time, they cheated their workers... “Los Angeles is the wage theft capital of the country,” Anmie Shaw, outreach coordinator for the Garment Worker Center, told ATTN:. “We know that there are 13 factories that serve as sources of clothing for Ross. And the conditions in most of these places are really terrible..."... When [the Garment Worker Center] interviewed more than 300 garment industry workers as part of a study with the University of California, Los Angeles (UCLA) Labor Center, six out 10 workers complained of “excessive heat” and “poor ventilation” that “rendered it difficult to work, and even to breath.”... These garment factories are not owned by Ross or any other brand, but by subcontractors — that is, contractors for the contractors that these brands hire... And at the prices companies like Ross are willing to pay, [Garment Worker Center organizer] Mariela Martinez argued it's near impossible for these subcontractors to fulfill an order while providing a living wage... In a statement, Ross told ATTN: that... it “takes labor compliance and violations very seriously. We require that all vendors, who are also responsible for their contractors or subcontractors, agree to uphold our ethical standards and abide by all applicable federal, state, local, and international laws.”

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