New York state labor officials are bringing one of their largest cases ever against Jin Shun, a clothing factory in Queens, New York that employed Chinese immigrants. Inspectors say the company
- cheated its workers out of more than $5 million in pay;
- instructed workers to lie to state inspectors;
- required 6 and 7-day workweeks, sometimes for up to 120 days at a time;
- didn’t pay overtime or minimum wage;
- kept two sets of timecards to fake-out inspectors.
Macy’s says they’re “very concerned” about the case and are investigating it, the Gap says they’re cooperating with authorities, and Victoria’s Secret says they have a “zero tolerance policy” for factories that are unwilling to work with them to achieve compliance—all of which makes us wonder whether any of these companies ever investigated the factory personally. (It’s not like it was in some remote part of China.)
Urban Apparel, which apparently faced a large inventory issue, took more practical steps:
The Labor Department announced that on Wednesday morning it placed special tags on more than 10,000 items of Jin Shun’s apparel, stating that the garments were produced under unlawful conditions.
Within hours of that tagging, the clothing company Urban Apparel paid state officials $60,000 to have the tags removed. The money covered the amount of wage violations that the department found had occurred when employees were making the tagged garments.
The factory, which was previously named Venture 47 and has recently been renamed Garlee NY, was quite blatant about lying to inspectors:
State officials said that the instructions given to employees, written in English and Mandarin, told them that if government inspectors ever asked them how many hours they worked each week, they were to respond, “Not sure, depends on the workload.”
The instructions told the workers that if inspectors asked how much they earned, they should respond, “I don’t remember, because sometimes I work more hours and sometimes less.”
The instruction sheet told the workers that if they were asked, “What is your hourly wage?” they were to answer, “Not sure, but always over $7.75 depending on the job complexity.” Even though the workers were paid at a fixed rate per piece of work performed and partly in cash, they were told to answer that they were always paid by the hour and through direct deposit.
You may be wondering how you can enforce your own anti-sweatshop policy when shopping, but of course without strict oversight from the big apparel companies, you’re not left with many choices. One thing you can do is try to shop from companies that have taken a strong anti-sweatshop stance, such as American Apparel, or from companies like Busted Tees that use American Apparel shirts. Other than that, you have to rely on “made in ___” labels—Dana Thomas from Newsweek tells NPR that in general, U.S. labeling laws are far stricter than European and can be trusted more, but the Queens factory proves that’s not always the case. You can also demand stronger oversight from officials and apparel companies—although how you “demand” such a thing is a rather good question.
“Apparel Factory Workers Were Cheated, State Says “ [New York Times]
(Photo: Getty)
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to add to my last comment:
You might be surprised to find out how prevalent these slave-driver, unlivable wage factories are in the U.S. Especially in large cities, such as my own NYC. Hop on over to Manhattan’s Chinatown and you’ll find a bunch of people (mostly women) who work in these places. My husband’s mother worked in one when she first came over from China. They treat their employees like crap, pay them little to nothing, harass and abuse them… The working conditions are horrible: no air conditioning in the summer – employees often bring little portable fans, no heat in the winter, chemicals and dust flying around everywhere (employees typically bring in or make their own dust masks – not provided), windows painted or rusted shut, fire escapes blocked, no light in stair wells. The owners and workshop managers even train the employees to lie to inspectors whenever they come around!
The government knows about this stuff too and it pisses me right off because it has been going on for decades – barely anything is being done! If this article is about a factory in Flushing, it makes sense that they did a crack down there. So much development is going on right now: a new Shea, tons of condos going up, etc – it’s not something that they want to see over there – it would tarnish the neighborhood (now pretty middle class).
@Chris Walters: Thank you! So, it’s L.I.C. I went off on my angry tangent before reading your comment. Still, I’m not surprised and duly infuriated.
@Chris Walters: That would conveniently answer why I would see rather tired looking, mostly middle aged Chinese women getting off at 33rd Street on the 7 train every morning.
Figured there was a factory/sweatshop nearby. Strongly doubted those people were leaving to go to LaGuardia Community College.
@Public Relations: That’s correct. There’s also a cultural aspect to this issue. Needless to say, standing up and revolting against horrible working conditions are frowned upon.
The apparel companies might have known something was up if the price was too low. But the manufacturer might have been charging a typical going rate for US manufacturing and pocketing the difference.
The only way clothing companies will become more proactive about labor conditions is if we find a way to make it bad for business for them not to or if they all start running their own sewing factories. This used to be how it was done, an apparel company ran their own factories thus had full oversight of conditions. Contract sewing allows all these bad things to happen.
Just a note on the picture. That picture does NOT denote a sweatshop. My dad was a manager at a shirt factory in TN for his entire career, and portions of the plant look like that. It is the most efficient use of space for arranging the sewing machines, etc. It is a factory after all. By the way, that plant, like most others in this country involved in textiles, is now closed.
@bria: I thought about pointing out all of Jezebel’s stories about American Apparel’s awful owner, the stores’ awful employees, and the frequently awful advertising–but one thing the company gets right is fair wages for its factory workers, and since that’s all this post is about, I decided to leave out the other stuff.
But yeah, American Apparel is kind of gross in many other ways.
@postnocomments:
not exactly, if the sweatshop is overseas in one of our approved “tax free zones”….then it is OK
They’re … taking our jobs?
@heycorey: “Quick, there’s an American-let’s take his job!”
[www.thebestpageintheuniverse.net]
@SpdRacer: Alright, I won a $20 bet! I showed this to a friend of mine and bet him $20 that someone would mention Walmart (because after all, ALL of their stuff is made in China, ya know) despite this thread having nothing to do with them.
No, that is not a walmart brand, to answer your question.
And this is tangentially related-WTF do you call a brand Banana Republic? Wasn’t there someone in marketing/legal to catch that? I’m all for truth in advertising-Jackass named after it’s target audience as Maddox so eloquently put it, but I have trouble figuring out what the idea is here. Is it a nod to where the clothing is sometimes made? Did it originate in Florida and get named after the target demographic? Wtf
@Chris Walters: Chris, actually when buying from a company you do have to look at all aspects of it. Just because they give fair wages doesn’t mean their employees are not abused in other ways. I think having a boss who exposes themself to you (and that is the least of what he has done) is pretty abusive too. Now many will say that those women took that job KNOWING what they were in for. It can also be said that those workers took that job KNOWING what they would be in for. IT is not right in either case. And just because it is part of the corporate culture or whatnot doesn’t make it legal. So that “Well they knew.” or “They should have known” is a really bad arguement to make.
What I love about this is there are people who are going to be up in arms about the treatment of the workers but will go buy American Apparel stuff never mind the treatment of his workers.
(Chris, only part of that dealt with what you said. I got on a roll about something I care about. Sorry.)
@RabbitDinner: It is to give an overall feel to the clothing, tropical, carefree, fun-loving.
@thelushie: Funny, the Nicaraguans I know disagree with that characterization.
Ah, the little-discussed but time-honored tradition in textiles of in-sourcing cheap foreign labor. Not at all surprised this happened in New York. In Texas they might not have gotten caught.
My ass they are investigating it, how do you think they profit off of the 10000% markup on their clothes
@RabbitDinner: Hey, I didn’t say I agree with it but I think that is what the marketers had in mind. I think when most people think of tropical, they think of toes in the sand in the Bahamas.
I didn’t mean to sound critical of you, but I am surprised at the use of a pejorative term as a brand name. If you were to rename some local stores “Shini Paradise” it would certainly be an apt name but a little offensive
Oh, I didn’t think you sounded critical at all. Actually I think you made a good point. It is all very subjective and someone who was (or is) been subjected to oppression would see a name like that as offensive. They are trying to cater to the typical narrow-minded American buyer.
Amazing how these gross abuses get “overlooked” for so long again and again – even by high-end retailers who could well afford the occasional surprise visit to the factories with which they contract.
I used to naively think that immigrants charged with supervising other immigrants would have some empathy for their employees (strangers in a strange land and all that), but a Mexican friend recently told me that people of her ethnicity get by far the harshest abuse from foremen and managers who are also Mexican immigrants. Something to the effect of “give them the smallest amount of power” over their own countrymen and they will treat employees 1,000x worse than a person who is not deeply invested in distinguishing themselves as “better than” the unwashed rabble they boss around.
I’m sure there’s a term for this aspect of human nature, but it escapes me at the moment…
Yes, its sad that there are sweatshops, but believe me, without them, you would have to pay almost 30-40% more for your clothing at the GAP, BR and all the other clothing shops. Also, without the sweatshops, these immigrants don’t have jobs. Instead, these jobs will go to sweatshops in China and other 3rd world countries which have even worse conditions. Believe me, I have been there and witnessed it. Your clothing purchases are feeding hungry mouths and keeping families alive in 3rd world countries. I do wish that things were better, but this is REALITY.
Wow. Not much sympathy for the workers here, huh? Because they might be here illegally it’s okay to exploit them? And if we police this sort of behavior clothes will cost more, so we should just ignore it?
Again, wow. Whether people are legal or illegal immigrants, making them virtual slaves is not okay. And as for all this money it’s supposed to save us — do you folks not realize the markup that’s being passed along to us? Victoria’s Secret probably buys those gauzy pieces of polyester for 75 cents and then sells them to you for 75 dollars. Just because a company squeezes both its workers and its customers doesn’t mean it’s struggling. It just means its owners are trying to get rich as quickly as they possibly can, before you figure out that it would be a better idea to spend that $75 on groceries or gasoline.
Having worked in said industry, I’m getting a kick out of these comments (not really). And having worked in said in industry, I consider it full of villany and scumbag (not unlike those who frequent evil imageboards).
alejo699 is very correct in that they will pay as little as possible to the vendors while turning around and making consumer pay through the nose for what is essentially shoddy piece of clothing. As a result the vendor works on a thin profit margin, and likewise, the vendor’s contractor works literally for pennies profit (if that). It starts from top-down, and is one of the reasons why I never shop clothing at full retail price.
Oh, and for the most part, the clothing that gets shipped to discount stores (such as ROSS) are more or less same as the ones that gets shipped to the Department stores. Same slave… sweatshop labor, same garment, same labels (or some random off labels but assuredly, from the same designer and same garment/fabric/materials).
There are compliancy programs and companies that checks for compliance, but hey, if they can get by government inspectors…
@oldheathen: Crab mentality, maybe? Push others down to bring themselves up.
@EllaMcWho:
EXACTLY! Having been in apparel product development for 14 years, I know that a lot of these prices are impossible. Sure, with ridiculously high volume you can make something, but it’s not easy.
It’s sad to see this still happening here, but people are right, these workers came in search of the American dream and found it. Unlike the ones who were held prisoner as indentured servants at factories busted in the 90′s.
@Chris Walters:
Oh my gosh- You actually responded to a comment by a commenter! Jezebel never does that, so I automatically love you 100000000000 times more. Maybe next time you could add a subcomment about how American Apparel lacks in other areas. Alternative Apparel is a good alternative:
[www.alternativeapparel.com]
And here’s a good list of organic, nonsweatshop clothes:
[www.newdream.org]
Sounds like they’re “taking it seriously,” without the “taking it seriously” part . . . .
The article didn’t say that the workers were illegal workers, only that they were Chinese. If one is any kind of student of history one would see that this kind of activity was rampent in the early 1900′s and was the cause of the laws against sweetshops that we have on the books. All of this is another example of the free market at work. This is an example of what the free marketers have planed for all of us.
Correction; I mean sweatshops not sweetshops.
@Dabigkid: I had a Professor who came here from China, and was kind of shocked when she repeated stated that the “sweatshops” were vital to these people, and the money they made went a lot further there than when compared to US cost of living.
The Wal-Mart “High Cost of Low Prices” film had interviews with a lot of people over there, that seemed to indicate otherwise (of course we are only hearing the translation audio in a film with an genda). Not sue what I believe anymore…everyone seems to have an agenda
What’s the problem? They are reducing the carbon output involved in shipping or flying those good from the other side of the world. Good for them!
(/sarcasm)
@MorrisseyTheCat: Well do you think the Chinese people LIKE working in those sweatshops? I’ll answer for you: no. The working conditions in those sweatshops suck. And I’m sure most Chinese hate working at them.
But they have to work there. If they weren’t working in sweatshops with bad conditions, they’d either be jobless or working on farms with equally horrible conditions and less pay and long term prosperity. Chinese sweatshops suck… but nearly everyone would be worse off without them. And I think that’s what your professor was talking about. He wasn’t falling to the petty emotions and dislike of the factories people shared there: he was probably looking at how China would be without all of those factories: a miserable dump.
As for money going further there than in China… well those people are barely living on anything over there, so that definitely makes sense. The average American makes more a week than the average Chinese makes a year.
I haven’t watched that “High Cost of Low Prices” propaganda film, but I doubt that it went over the opportunity costs of having no sweatshops.
@Dabigkid:
In fact, these sweatshops actually empower women. Instead of being chained to home, only to be wed to some man that will only use her for getting food cooked and for popping out babies, these girls are actually earning money which they can use on whatever they choose.
I am in now way saying sweatshops are a gift from God, but they are definitely better than what these people would otherwise be doing.