2 Sweatshop Bills Clear First Hurdle

Despite warnings from conservatives that garment industry reform could turn workers into criminals or starving homeless, two bills aimed at cracking down on the latest proliferation of sewing sweatshops in Orange and Los Angeles counties easily cleared their first legislative hurdle on Wednesday.

The Assembly Labor Committee voted 7 to 2 to approve a measure, sponsored by Assemblyman Tom Hayden (D-Santa Monica), that would hold garment manufacturers jointly liable for any labor law violations found among the hundreds of subcontractors they hire to sew and assemble the clothing.

By the same vote, the committee passed a related bill by Assemblyman Richard Floyd (D-Carson) that would provide financial incentives to whistle blowers who notify the government about the sweatshops.

In a series of raids late last year and this year, investigators found that many of the independent contractors pay as little as $1.45 an hour to immigrants, including some children, who must toil overtime in their homes or endure unsafe sweatshop conditions. California’s minimum wage is $4.25 an hour.

When caught and fined by the state Department of Labor, these independent contractors are able to avoid payment by closing, often leaving the exploited workers even without their subminimum wages. The Hayden bill would make sure that the clothing manufacturers that hired the subcontractors would be liable for the fine, as well as for paying any of the workers left stranded.

Hayden’s measure was supported by representatives from the International Ladies’ Garments Workers’ Union and the California Labor Federation. The groups complained that despite sweatshop reform legislation 10 years ago, the use of children and Asian and Latino immigrants by independent contractors has perpetuated a new generation of worker abuse.

The Hayden bill received only token opposition, and no one from the garment industry spoke against it. But an analysis prepared by the Assembly Conservative Caucus used colorful language to urge a no vote on the joint liability idea.

“People do not work in sweatshops to enjoy a break from six-figure incomes and expense-account lunches,” said the analysis, written by Republican consultant Roger Magyar. “They work long hours for low wages in lousy conditions because they have no better alternative.

“If public policy denies them that alternative, they can increase the supply of workers already competing for low-wage jobs and further depress wages, they can turn to crime, or they can try welfare, homelessness and starvation.” The analysis also said competition in the garment business would force manufacturers to go outside the state to find cheap subcontractors.

“They will not raise wages, reduce hours and install air conditioning, because if they do, some other wicked s.o.b. who does not do those things will undercut their prices,” the analysis says.

Regarding the Floyd bill, the Republican analysis again asserted that “the now-exploited workers who are left behind . . . will become crooks, go on welfare, join the homeless or starve. . . . It may satisfy someone’s righteous and humanitarian impulses to put those people out of work, but the hapless souls who lose their jobs may not be equally enthusiastic . . . .

The only two Republicans on the committee, Assemblymen Trice Harvey (R-Bakersfield) and Phillip Wyman (R-Tehachapi), voted against the two bills.