Anti-Sweatshop Center Marks Fifth Annivesary

One of the first sweatshop cases the Garment Worker Center ever tackled as a new organization was pretty much a slam dunk.

It involved a sewing factory that made bike-patrol uniforms for various police departments and law enforcement entities around the country, including the Los Angeles and New York police departments.

Two garment workers claimed that Winter Gear in downtown L.A. had not paid them minimum wage or overtime.

“It was a very public case,” recalled Kimi Lee, director of the Garment Worker Center in downtown Los Angeles. “We were able to get some media attention and call City Council members. We were able to settle quickly in a month.”

In the end, the two workers received a settlement of $3,400.

That was five years ago, and the Garment Worker Center has been fighting workers’ battles for fair wages ever since. To commemorate its fifth-year anniversary, the center is holding an award ceremony and dinner on Dec. 2 at Artshare L.A. to commemorate the past and look toward the future.

“Over the last five years we have helped to get $3 million in back wages for workers,” Lee noted.

One of the group’s more famous struggles involved Forever 21 Inc., the Los Angeles retail chain known for its fast-moving merchandise and rock-bottom prices. Workers at six sewing factories where Forever 21 garments were made claimed they weren’t getting paid a fair wage or overtime. The center unsuccessfully tried to pressure Forever 21 to step in, but the retailer argued that they did not employ the workers because they bought their clothing through vendors. So the Garment Worker Center launched a campaign in 2001 against Forever 21 that eventually ended up in court. After a little more than three years of battling back and forth, the two sides settled out of court. Neither side is allowed to talk about the settlement. “The settlement is confidential, but we can say the workers are satisfied. And the company verbally promised to work with us so that future factories would pay fair wages and treat their workers well.”

Forever 21 declined to comment about the worker center for this story.

Julie Su was one of the lawyers who worked on the case as head of litigation for the Asian Pacific American Legal Center. She believes the center is essential. “They play a very important role in Los Angeles because efforts to organize garment workers remain critical to eliminating sweatshop conditions and building worker power more broadly,” she said.

Douglas Mirell was another attorney who worked on the Forever 21 legal battle. “They are an extraordinarily effective voice for the voiceless,” Mirell said.

When Lee signed on as director in 2001, the group had a $100,000 annual budget and 2 1/2 workers. Today, the center has a $400,000 annual budget with Lee working full time with six other organizers and employees.

All of the funding comes from foundations such as the Liberty Hill Foundation, The Jewish Fund for Justice and the Foundation of the State Bar of California.

The center was created in the wake of the 1995 El Monte, Calif., sweatshop scandal, where 73 Thai workers were found imprisoned behind barbed wire, working as many as 22 hours a day, seven days a week, for less than a dollar an hour.

A coalition of immigrant rights and worker groups, such as Sweatshop Watch and Koreatown Immigrant Workers Alliance, met to see what could be done to make sure this didn’t happen again. The idea to create the Garment Worker Center was created, but it was not until 2000 that Sweatshop Watch could raise the money for the center, established in 2001.

At the time, Lee was working as a field organizer with the American Civil Liberties Union, which was involved in resolving the El Monte case. She seemed particularly adept for the job of heading up the Garment Worker Center. Her mother had been a sewing factory worker in Burma, now called Myanmar, before the family fled the country in 1971. Lee was born a year later in San Francisco.

After five years on the job, Lee said her focus these days is not only to make sure workers are paid fairly but also to do more outreach programs in health, nutrition and financial education. “Now we are working with the workers to be more of their own watchdogs in the factory,” she said. “We are trying to address the problems before they get too huge where some workers haven’t been paid for six months.”

“If the workers know they should be getting $6.75 an hour and a break, they can be monitoring their own situation,” she continued. “Also, all the workers have to say they want $6.75 an hour and a break. That way, if all the workers stand up for themselves, the owners don’t have a choice. The problem is where you have workers willing to work for $2 an hour. They have to be united and work together.”

While the Garment Worker Center has rubbed a few garment industry people the wrong way, Joe Rodriguez, executive director of the Garment Contractors Association of Southern California, said he would be willing to work with the center to educate sewing contractors and factory owners about their legal obligations to employees. “I would like to do more cooperative work with them in the future,” he said. “I think for too long people have been needlessly antagonistic in our industry. It is about time we realized we are all in the same industry. If we do the right thing, maybe everybody can benefit.”

Who: Garment Worker CenterWhat: Fifth Anniversary CelebrationWhere: Artshare L.A., 801 E. 4th Pl., Los AngelesWhen: 6 p.m., Dec. 2Information: (213) 748-5866