California Apparel News

Two years after the state enacted an anti-sweatshop bill, little has been done to enforce it. Not one single contractor, be it a garment contractor or a food contractor, has been cited with violating the law since it was enacted in 2004. No complaints have been filed.

The bill, sponsored by state Sen. Richard Alarcon (D-San Fernando Valley), says state-funded contracts for anything from uniforms to food or equipment should be awarded only to employers who maintain sweatshop-free conditions.

But the 2-year-old law provided little money to enforce the regulation, which was one of the inefficiencies uncovered in a three-hour hearing called March 3 to measure the effectiveness of Senate Bill 578.

Alarcon and state Assemblyman Paul Koretz (D-West Hollywood) presided over the hearing at the Ronald Reagan State Building in downtown Los Angeles.

It is a law that has been criticized by the garment industry for being a waste of time. Ilse Metchek, executive director of the California Fashion Association, said scores of California garment factories are legally registered with the state. They pay their workers minimum wage and are free of sweatshop conditions.

“But no [city or state] uniforms have been made in California for 10 years,” she observed. “So this is an exercise in futility.”

A series of testimonies from state officials and anti-sweatshop activists pointed out the law had merit but no teeth for enforcement.

“Those who are in charge of enforcing Alarcon’s law have failed to not only enforce it but have failed to suggest any amendments to satisfy their concerns,” said political activist Tom Hayden, who spoke at the hearing on the law’s status.

When he was a state legislator both in the Senate and the Assembly, Hayden was a leading advocate of sweatshop-free contracts. He is now national co-director of No More Sweatshops!, a coalition of labor, clergy, campus and community advocates for sweat-free guidelines. “I am here to advocate for some cleanup of the law,” he said.

Harold Jackson, who coordinates enforcement of the legislation as a lawyer with the state Department of Industrial Relations, said he spends about 20 to 25 percent of his time on this issue. But he noted: “The task of sweatshop enforcement is not simple. The garment industry is a fractured one and most of the work is done overseas.”

He said he has not found one public entity, outside the 150 universities and colleges nationwide that employ the Workers Rights Consortiumas an independent monitor, that has sent a team overseas to monitor factories.

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After California adopted an anti-sweatshop law in 2004, Los Angeles and San Francisco adopted similar laws. The L.A. law, sponsored by City Councilman Eric Garcetti and passed in late 2004, requires garment makers and other city contractors to pay a living wage and sign a code of conduct that affirms they will abide by all workplace laws.

San Francisco passed its version of the anti-sweatshop law in September 2005 and actually allotted $100,000 a year for monitoring.

“During the first year of implementation, the ordinance applies to contracts for apparel and garments for which the city currently spends approximately $2.1 million a year,” explained Donna Levitt, director of the Office of Labor Standards Enforcement for the city and county of San Francisco, who spoke at the hearing. “A Sweat-Free Procurement Advisory Group has been appointed, which will evaluate and recommend whether to extend the applicability of the ordinance to other goods purchased by the city and also evaluate and make recommendations.”

From the various speakers, several recommendations came about to improve the state law. Those included:

bull; Creating a citizens advisory committee to oversee and encourage implementation of the law.

bull; Installing a full-time head of enforcement under the Department of Industrial Relations and contracting with an independent monitor for international inspections of factories with state contracts.

bull; Amending the law to make sure workers have the right to freedom of association and collective bargaining.

bull; Clarifying that the law applies to all state agencies, including state universities and community colleges, and the state departments of transportation and corrections.

bull; Letting workers know they are protected by California’s sweatshop-free law.

bull; Demanding that companies with state contracts make available the names of all the factories they subcontract with to give more transparency to the process.

bull; Joining a national consortium made up of other state and local governments to better monitor companies doing business with the government.

Indeed, on Feb. 28, John Baldacci, the governor of Maine, sent a letter to other state governors encouraging them to form a coalition for sweat-free procurement so they can learn more from each other and share information. Maine has had a sweat-free procurement policy since 2001.

Anti-sweatshop advocates who testified, like Valerie Orth, the sweat-free campaigns organizer for Global Exchange in San Francisco, believe this is a good idea because more needs to be done to put some teeth into the California law. “I want to make this state law more than a feel-good law,” she said.

Alarcon agreed: “I will be as aggressive as I can,” he said, “to encourage the administration to implement the law and improve the existing situation.”