Los Angeles Apparel founder and CEO, Dov Charney, plans to re-open after reporting 150 cases of employees who tested positive for the coronavirus at its facility. The outbreak required the Public Health Department to shut down the facility as a safety measure.
This is worrying for the 45,000 garments workers based in the Los Angeles area. The LA Apparel facility bare 3 different addresses reported by the LA county. It says that address 812 E. 59th St. found 23 cases, at 911 E. 59th St., 61 cases were found, and at the 1020 E. 59th St. address, 67 cases were found.
With SB 1399 under review, reform of safety measures, and practices of these garment manufacturing facilities can come into order. Most garments workers are undocumented and have needed support from the legal community in this effort for making their workplace as safe as possible and while working for fair wages.
LOS ANGELES, CA-July 10, 2014: American Apparel garment workers are busy at work inside the Los ... [+]
New Rules: SB 1399
Senate Bill 1399 has been approved on the Senate floor in the state of California specifically for the protection garment workers. On Friday, June 26, the bill was approved but still needs to go through the Assembly process. Ultimately, to the Governor for a signature to help the workers navigate their entitlements as employees of the garment manufacturing industry.
Presented in February earlier this year, it is introduced to standardize wages and safety for employees of the garment manufacturing industry in California. California is the largest concentration of garment workers in the manufacturing market in the United States.
Upholding a California Assembly bill from 1999, Senator Maria Elena Durazo, and co-author Assembly Member Lorena Gonzalez introduced SB 1399 as an update and provision to the current bill.
LOS ANGELES, CA-July 10, 2014: American Apparel garment workers are busy at work inside the Los ... [+]
Outdated Practices: AB 633
To prevent wage theft by manufacturing employers, AB 633 was enacted and helping victims access to justice in the process. In response, garment industry employers found ways of avoiding any violations through a layering of contracts between them and employees.
Manufacturing workers are paid $5.15 on average, well below the minimum wage. And with the current pandemic and the spread of COVID, employers have been holding workers in unsanitized factories. Some factories had their doors locked and windows shuttered while employees were paid per finished garment.
Garments workers are essentially unpaid for any breaks - cleaning of their stations and washing of their hands in between - and do not receive overtime pay. Unjustly, they are required to work in these unsanitized facilities and reprimanded by managers for taking any breaks.
LOS ANGELES, CA-July 10, 2014: American Apparel garment workers are busy at work inside the Los ... [+]
Safety Measures and PPE
At a time when nonmedical personal protective equipment [PPE] is being made, this has created an unsafe race for employees to a finish line that doesn't exist. Employees are subjected to losing income, for otherwise taking breaks or even washing their hands, for the pay per piece wages.
Some of the PPE has been manufactured for healthcare, essential, and frontline workers, and some of the PPE were being manufactured for retailers. Many brands have implemented social sales, seeking profits from selling protective equipment to individuals, including facemask.
The Safer at Home Orders brought most of the work to a halt, and in some cases, employees were not paid by manufacturers for any work that they did just before being restricted to their homes. They were left without paid leave or any severance to survive the state mandate to stay home as COVID cases grew. There were 3,130 who died from complications related to the coronavirus in the L.A. area and of those who ethnicities were identified, 43% were Latino.
LOS ANGELES - DECEMBER 14: Rows of boxes contain garments ready for shipping at the American ... [+]
Sewing Up Loopholes
Many of the employees who are also undocumented wouldn’t receive any unemployment benefits during the time off. Additionally, they could not receive a federal stimulus check during its distribution.
Written in 1999, AB 633 became outdated and manufacturers have taken advantage of this loophole. The bill was also designed to help workers recoup any unpaid wages while ensuring manufacturers create funds that will compensate wage violations in any way. See parts from Section 1 and Section 2:
“Sec. 1. These so-called retailers have frustrated the law, avoiding liability for this systemic abuse, by creating layers of subcontracting, which has enabled them to claim that they do not fall under the definition of “garment manufacturer,” as defined in AB 633, and are therefore not liable for these egregious wage violations.”
“Sec. 2. Several manufacturers, however, have attempted to avoid liability as a guarantor by adding layers of contracting between themselves and the employees manufacturing the garments. This undermines the purpose of AB 633 because manufacturers have no incentive to ensure safe conditions or the proper minimum wage and overtime payments for the workers producing their garments if they do not face guarantor liability.”
SANTA ANA, CA - MAY 07: UCI doctors, dermatology resident Arditi Sharma, bottom, anesthesiologist ... [+]
Garment Manufacturing Here and Abroad
Ensuring employees, SB 1399 allows garment workers to be paid any unpaid wages and overtime wages hindered by employers. This while guaranteeing valid workers’ compensation coverage.
Garment manufacturers have been able to avoid any legal infractions with employees with the layering of contracts. This method has protected them as the manufacturer as well as the retailers requesting manufacturing. Creating hazardous and sweatshop labored environments, the employees in which they hire are subject to be unlivable wages and unworkable conditions.
Avoidance of the AB 633 for the last 20 years has led to the SB 1399 introduction. These unjust practices that have plagued the manufacturing industry in California and worldwide. Now the Labor Commissioner authority of California can help enforce these new laws and provide support to those who are employed by the manufacturing industry.
We can only hope are this can become a template and stepping stone for solving some of the worldwide manufacturing issues that the fashion industry has seemed to ignore until recently.
SB 1399 was not passed into law, it was approved on the Senate floor, however it still needs to go through the Assembly process and ultimately to the Governor for signature.
