Sweatshop In Queens Produced Clothes For Macy's, the Gap, Banana Republic, Urban Apparel, and Victoria's Secret
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.
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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Comments:
I live in Astoria, Queens...i wonder where exactly in Queens this was located.
Who cares about the cheated illegal immigrants, they probably through it was a good deal compared to their opportunities in their home country.
What we should be concerned about is all those unpaid taxes.
Cool! I didn't know my clothes were made in the good ol' USA!
Isn't that "Urban Apparel" line a Wal-Mart one?
Urban Sweat Shop apparel, we pay the workers less and pass those savings along to you!!!
Another way to avoid the sweatshop issue is to shop second-hand. That way, you pay the charitable organization and not the corporation. You save a few bucks too.
If only American Apparel made clothes that people this decade wear...and isn't it required that you sleep with the Gallagher looking CEO in order to work there?
Think again next time it says "Made in USA"!
MADE IN THE USA*
*Clothing may have been made by underaged, illegal Chinese immigrants. What does that mean for you? SAVE SAVE SAVE!!!**
**Oh wait, no it doesn't... Most of these brands are super expensive.
Is it wrong that I imagined/heard the various accents upon reading the company's proscribed responses to inspectors' potential questions? In terms of avoiding sweatshops, generally, buying any garment under 30 dollars (other than a basic T or tank) means someone is not getting paid - and you can be sure that the retailer, marketers and distributers are getting theirs.
American Apparel: not made with sweatshop labor, but huge problems with sexual harassment and hostile environment for female employees.
I bet John Liu owns the factory.
I can't really fault the stores that carry the items made in this factory. They saw "Made in America" and a low price and knew it would be win-win for them. There's no incentive for a store chain to deeply investigate the operations of the producers of their items beyond making sure that the items are fit to sell and that the factory can fill their orders in a timely, efficient manner. So suppose someone from Macy's or Victoria's Secret were to discover and report the activities of the factory; what's the outcome? They pay more and their customers pay more. Other vendors might charge more to do business with them if they know they too might get caught with their pants down. Even if they were to discover the factory's transgressions, their best course of action is to keep quiet, enjoy the low prices while they can, and if the ax gets dropped on the factory, issue a statement saying they're appalled and come out smelling like a rose. That is exactly why inspections of this sort fall on the government.
but of course without strict oversight from the big apparel companies,
Why should the apparel companies have to personally inspect the American plants they buy clothes from? Shouldn't the companies expect any American plants to be following American labor laws?
I don't understand this. How can "we'll make x shirts of this style every week for y dollars" not raise red flags with these companies? How can these companies not know when their supplier is offering a deal that is too good to be true?
I'm not insisting that these retailers knew because I recognize that I'm not familiar enough with the industry to really make an informed decision, but I do assume that THEY are familiar enough with it to recognize when something shady may be going on with their suppliers.
Hey man, if those workers were silly/desperate enough to accept the job, more... err, less power to them.
I don't know about you guys, but I'm all for supporting sweatshops. People in China need jobs, too, and I love paying the same price for goods that were cheaply made.
@Quatre707
Nowhere in the article did it mention that the Chinese Immigrants were illegal. You sir/madam should RTA, and not jump to conclusions.
These people (or at least some of them) are here legally,and as such deserve much better treatment than this!
Also ... to take advantage of Illegals in this way would be despicable. People are people. I didn't mean to raise "Legal" people to a higher standard ... but it came out that way.
@Tmoney02: They should know, however, that what one expects is not necessarily what actually happens. I think if they are buying from somebody, they should do at least a little research regarding labor laws.
[knowmore.org] is a terrific resource if you are interested in learning more about the worker's rights activities of specific companies. They tackle other issues too, such as business ethics, environmental concerns, and political influences.
The American Apparel section on their website offers some particularly interesting reading.
@blue_duck: My point is why do we expect apparel companies to police American plants? Do we expect GM to send people to personally inspect every American part supplier?
The fact that these workers found this to be acceptable - illustrates how tough the job market REALLY is for the unskilled who are not fluent in English.
Even with these harsh conditions and small pay - they may perceive this as being the only way to support themselves and their families in the competitive New York job market.
Perhaps the owners are struggling to compete with the overseas markets and high taxes associated with the dwindling manufacturing options in the city.
In the current economy, consumers may also have less income for fashion and will probably be more price conscious - thus adding more concerns for wholesalers and retailers to be price-competitive - thus forcing more efficiency from the manufacturers.
We see many of those workers waiting for unmarked vans to take them to work in the mornings.
You can see why they are instilling education and academic success into their children to avoid what they are going through...
[www.latimes.com]
Talk about double standards. If the sweatshop is overseas, somehow that makes it okay.
@Quatre707: Nothing says they where illegal immigrants. Even if they are, that does excuse the company for treating them in this manner. If any of those workers knew his/her rights there would have been a huge lawsuit long ago. I wonder how many immigrants do know their rights when they enter your country.
@Chris Walters: Thanks! That's crazy close to where i live! Maybe I'll stop by with bolt cutters and free the workers from their shackles!
@Tmoney02: I'm not saying full out policing, just maybe even a spot check here and there. It's obvious no one else is really on top of it.
@Tmoney02: Do we expect GM to send people to personally inspect every American part supplier?
You don't think they do? Not for compliance to labor laws, but for quality control, they almost certainly do inspect every vendor. If the garment companies don't do that, they're doubly foolish.
@perruptor: Which proves my point, We don't expect GM to police labor laws so why do we expect something different from apparel companies?
I'm sure they also inspect the clothes for quality control but you don't need to go to a plant to do that, same with GM. GM says supply us with X amounts of parts with a tolerance of Y being defective for Z price. Failure to do results in them do business with someone else or more usually just threatening to do so will make a company clean up their act. Inspection for labor laws never come into effect, because it is expected that the government is policing this.
Why did the people in that sweatshop continue to work there? Walmart hires at well above minimum wage. Usually, sweatshops in 3rd world countries pay better than everything else around them, so people want to work there. Here, it's not the case....
@Quatre707: The article never mentions anything about illegal immigrants. They were mostly Chinese immigrants, but it says nothing, PERIOD, about illegal laborers.
@Veeber: The inference is that only illegal immigrants would work for "cash only" and endure these conditions and low pay.
That said, if amnesty is granted for illegal immigrants, then the floodgates of wage lawsuits will open up. This is one thing the business owners do not realize...
@unpolloloco: Sometimes people honestly don't know any better. You're looking at a population which probably has poor english language skills and also come from a culture where you place significant trust in your relationship to others.
My mother-in-law just found out that her tax accountant hadn't been including her name on the tax returns (their self-employeed) so she hasn't been getting consistent credit for her social security wages. The only reason we found out was because I was helping my father-in-law file for his SSI benefits and noticed her name was missing on the older tax returns.
@econobiker: Actually a lot of Chinese immigrants would work for cash. Things like credit cards and banks are not common in China and culturally they aren't trusted. When my grandmother passed away we found over $50,000 hidden throughout her apartment. They wouldn't necessarily associate being paid in cash with an illegal transaction.
Labor Commissioner Smith used this press conference to get publicity, publicity she needs to protect her job and the high paid patronage jobs she has given out to her former co-workers at Attorney General's Spitzer's office, where she was in charge of the Labor Bureau. (These patronage jobs mean a lot to Smith's lawyer friends, they can't get jobs now that Governor Spitzer is gone).
When she was chief of the Labor Bureau from 1999-2006, she knew that the New York State Department of Labor had given up on enforcing the minimum wage outside the garment industry, but Smith did nothing. For publicity, she went after the Korean greengrocers who were underpaying off the book Mexican nationals, but that was about it. Underpaid workers in restaurant kitchens and sweatshop supermarkets did not get any help from her.
Labor Standards, which enforced minimum wage and overtime laws, had between two and three field investigators handling minimum wage complaints for all of New York City outside the garment industry. That policy started in 1995, after someone (probably State Senator Velella) fixed the Xtra Supermarket case, where a $1.6 million dollar underpayment was somehow reduced to $400,000, a totally illegal reduction.
The Chief who signed off on that reduction, Manuel Fruchter, led a charmed life afterward. His major goals was finding ways, usually bogus, to not accept walk-in complaints and breaking his high freecell score. Mail-in complaints were not a concern; they were usually buried in file drawers, never to see the light of day.
Some 200 employees of seven store Xtra chain were found to be working 12 hour days, six days a week for from $175 to 300 a week. Xtra fired every supermarket manager who cooperated with Labor Standards. The case was never sent to prosecution, because Labor Standards stopped criminal action after John Sweeney became Commissioner of Labor for Pataki in 1995.
When Smith was in charge of the Labor Bureau, she never questioned why there were zero criminal prosecutions statewide when she came in. Nor did she wonder why Labor Standards ordered its investigation staff not to interview employees on field visits, to just drop a note requesting payroll records for the complainant only.
The State Minimum Wage is a statute that covers almost all manual workers, yet Labor Standards investigated for the complainant only, ignoring all other underpaid workers. That policy continued to be in force until 2005, when a new Labor Standards director changed the policy (someone whom Smith fired in 2007 and replaced with the assistant director, a guy who had enforced the previous illegal policy of limiting minimum wage investigations to the complainant only).
If possible, the situation with claims for unpaid wages and benefits like vacation pay was even worse. The supervisor in charge of the wage claim unit, Tom Malloy, barred any field investigation of wage claims. The procedure was to send out a collection letter asking for the claimed amount, one phone call and, one year later, prepare the case for civil judgment. Who needs investigations?
Naturally, Malloy got promoted to Chief Investigator, money, his salary, for doing nothing. His replacement in the wage claim unit considered her major job to be to find some excuse to be out of her office by the entrance door at 9:00 AM, to monitor employees coming in to work, a human time clock. Then she returned to her office and did nothing productive the rest of the day, her work was done.
Where the NYSDOL shines is firing people who do the job right, or forcing them out by creating a hostile work environment. Denis Peterson, who was the executive deputy for worker protection in 1995, asked about the Xtra supermarket case at an executive meeting. Quicker than you can say "The Fix is IN!" Labor Commissioner Sweeney fired him.
At the NYSDOL, the fix is still in.
The only thing that surprises me about this story is that this operation manages to survive inside New York City limits. If the factory is renting its space, it's probably going to move soon. LIC is turning residential.
And American Apparel is WAY over-priced. And their ads make me queasy.
You are right, John Liu sticks to getting payoffs from real estate developers, especially those who have their eyes on stealing Willets Point from the peoperty owners there.
@econobiker: Well, I don't feel bad for any businesses who would be subject to wage lawsuits if amnesty were granted. They should have considered that when they decided to hire and underpay illegals.
******
So Urban Apparel just paid $60K in fines? That does absolutely nothing to help the actual victims. I seriously doubt any of that money is meant to go to the workers who are owed it.
This is great news - finally business here is catching up with third world countries that have been kicking our asses.
Soon we'll have our children out of school and stripping electronic equipment for the lead and living in dumps. We CAN BE a global competitor - thanks, GAP, for leading the way on our quest to become a world leader once again.
"Baby GAP" will soon have a different connotation.
Looks like they are taking it seriously!
It's about time for someone to work on this, aren't these the workshops you can see when you ride the subway? My sister used to point them out to me---you could look in the windows and everything. If my sister knew that they were there, law enforcement must have known YEARS ago.
@k6richar: I think you mean: Even if they are, that does NOT excuse the company for treating them in this manner.
It likely they were illegals or working for cash or purposedly wanting that low wage in order to keep their government benefits. This article coming from the NYT rag, they'll never tell you the truth. We'll never know the truth.
It's pretty funny that you recommended American Apparel... Jezebel has been covering all of the sexual harrassment suits filed against the founder, Dov Charney. He seems like a despicable man.
@wattznext: Probably in or around Flushing, Queens. I used to live there. That area has a huge Mandarin-speaking population and it certainly wouldn't be the first sketchy thing happening in the neighborhood. There was a similar problem with a knock-off designer shoe warehouse there (and other accessories... mostly shoes). Top it off with illegal underground gambling dens and you have a pretty likely match.
You can take the slavetraders out of the old world...