The bill SB 62 of Senator María Elena Durazo (D-Los Angeles) may be the answer so that sewing workers stop charging per piece made, stop wage theft and large fashion companies are responsible for offering them a minimum wage in California.
“I have worked for 30 years in the sewing industry; worked from 60 to 62 hours for a company that distributed to Ross stores and barely earned from $ 300 to $ 320 weekly ”, said Pedro Montiel, a Guerrero from 52 years, during a videoconference organized by the Garment Worker Center of Downtown Los Angeles, (GWC) a Labor defense group.
“In the company they only gave us half an hour for lunch, there were no breaks, they mistreated us, yelled at us and threw the work they wanted us to get out quickly,” said Montiel.
“They were very strict and we couldn’t even stop to go to the bathroom,” he added, and indicated that after a visit by inspectors from the Labor Department, they asked 80 or 90 workers on their wages and whether they were paid ho flush extras, to which they answered no.
“We told them that we earned per piece in many hours of work; then the owner brought us all together and told us that he was going to close the factory… we never heard from them again, and that is why we denounced the theft of wages ”, he added.
Montiel’s situation is the same that for years have experienced some 46, 000 sewing employees, only in Los Angeles.
The Pay Up Ross campaign
In 2016, the Department of Labor (DOL) investigated 13 factories that produced clothing for the Ross store. The investigation revealed that wage theft was a widespread phenomenon in Ross supplier factories, where garment workers regularly received between $ 5 and $ 6 an hour, well below the current minimum wage, with no overtime or breaks.
Based on the investigation, the DOL determined that Ross should have paid double what he did to his manufacturer, YN Apparel, to ensure that the factories that produced his clothing could comply with minimum wage and overtime laws.
Four sewing workers: Pedro Montiel, Eufemia “N”, Juliana “N” and Margarita “N” filed claims for wage theft and received a compensation of $ 849, 104. 13, after his weekly payments fluctuated barely between $ 104 and $ 350, no overtime pay for producing clothes owned and sold by Ross Stores, along with other brands.
“There were many complaints against the Sam’s Fashion company where Pedro [Montiel worked,” said Alejandro Sánchez, organizer of the Garment Worker Center of the Center of Los Angeles. “An investigation was carried out and the owner told the workers that he would close.”
Time followed. For four years, workers organized to demand that Ross, a multi-million dollar company, take steps to close this gap and ensure wage compliance at its supplier factories.
The four workers who led the Pay Campaign Up Ross eventually received their stolen wages, coming from the California Garment Restitution Fund at 2020, a payer of last resort when Garment manufacturers do not pay workers who succeed in their wage claims.
Until , the Fund had been chronically insolvent and had to be replenished with $ 9 million from the California General Fund.
The above indicates that the state of California and taxpayers are currently paying the bill and wages stolen from the workers.
“In my opinion, it is not fair for the state to pay the debts of a multimillion dollar company like Ross, which did not want to be held responsible, when in fact they are the ones who should pay ”, considered Pedro Montiel.
Eliminate the piece-rate payment
“If there was no theft of wages there would be 26 millions of dollars per week for children and their families, ”said Senator María Elena Durazo, author of the SB 62.
“Part of the problem has been because the industry demands price per piece, despite the superhuman levels of productivity ”, he explained.
The proposal Garment Worker has as co-authors the Assembly members Lorena. González, Ash Kalra and has the support of the California Labor Federation, Bet Tzedek Legal Services, the Western Center on Law and Poverty and GWC.
One of the central objectives of the measure is to eliminate piece-rate pay on clothing to ensure that workers receive legal wages for the entire time they work and to expand liability for wage violations.
The SB 60, which has already obtained the unanimous support of both the city and Los Angeles County last year would expand and strengthen wage theft liability enforcement for each garment in the manufacturing industry, ensuring that retailers cannot use different hiring levels to avoid liability under the law.
If enacted into law by Governor Gavin Newsom, piece rates in the garment industry would disappear, while allowing pa gos of bonuses and incentives, which would guarantee that workers are paid for all the time invested in their employment.
“We have the support of more than 50 organizations and 80 fashion businesses in this law that we are supporting ”, declared Senator Durazo. “These garment workers have produced non-stop, masks and gowns without being paid the minimum wage for so much work they do.”
The efforts of Senator Durazo and her colleagues in the Legislature of California join the approved AB Law 633 of 1999. This law by former Assemblyman and current Sacramento Mayor Darrell Steinberg was enacted with the purpose of preventing wage theft in the textile industry by creating access to justice for victims.
It is expected that the SB in the State Senate Labor Committee next March.
“We are very confident that the governor and the entire state of California will recognize the great sacrifice of garment workers and the benefit that they have made us, ”said Daisy González, main organizer of the Center for Sewing Workers. “During the pandemic they have been sewing masks and hospital gowns that are needed in the medical industry, and we believe that for them it is time for justice.”
After multiple attempts to obtain a statement from Ross Dress for Less, Connie Kao, from the company’s communications department did not respond to Real America News.
A multi-billion dollar industry
According to investment firm SelectUSA , the United States textile and apparel industry is a nearly $ 70 billion when measured by the value of shipments from the industry to other nations.
In fact, it is one of the most important sectors of the manufacturing industry and is among the main markets in the world by export value: $ 23, 000 million dollars in 2018.
In this industry of 341, 300 jobs, – a seventh of them in Los Angeles – US yarn exports totaled almost $ 4, 500 millions of dollars, of which 60% went to North and Central American countries.