Legislation Targeting Sweatshops Vetoed : Garment industry: Governor says the Hayden bill puts too much responsibility on manufacturers. Backers say they will try again--when Deukmejian leaves office.

Dealing a blow to pro-labor forces in the garment industry, Gov. George Deukmejian vetoed legislation Friday aimed at cracking down on sweatshops by holding manufacturers liable for labor abuses committed by their contractors.

In a statement, Deukmejian said the measure would have placed an “inappropriate emphasis on garment manufacturers to monitor and control independent contractors.” Regulation of the industry, he said, properly rests with the government and not the industry itself. He also said there is nothing to prevent victimized workers from suing manufacturers in court.

Backers of the measure, sponsored by Assemblyman Tom Hayden (D-Santa Monica), said they were disappointed but determined to continue efforts to enact similar legislation after Deukmejian leaves office.

“We were hoping that the governor, as the immigrant he once was, would understand the needs of all the immigrant workers” in the garment industry, said Antonio Orea, manager of the 5,000-member region of the International Ladies Garment Workers Union (ILGWU) offices in Los Angeles. “It just shows how insensitive he is to the needs of the people at the bottom.”

But Marjorie Carne, executive director pro tempore for the Coalition of Apparel Industries in California, said the measure was “impossible and unworkable” because it would have forced manufacturers to hire people to monitor all of their subcontractors for labor law compliance.

Hayden introduced the garment worker bill holding manufacturers “jointly liable” after a series in The Times outlined how a new wave of so-called sweatshops were moving from Los Angeles to Orange County. Reasons for the movement were cheaper rents and a burgeoning population of immigrants, especially Southeast Asians willing to toil long hours for less than the state’s $4.25-an-hour minimum wage.

State and federal labor officials have conducted numerous raids on the new shops and found last year, for example, a 7-year-old Santa Ana boy and his Mexican immigrant mother working in their home for an average of $1.45 an hour.

Hayden and labor activists have blamed the very structure of the garment industry--where brand-name manufacturers bid out their work to hundreds of independent jobbers throughout Southern California--for the labor abuses.

Independent contractors caught abusing workers are on the hook for back-pay and child labor fines. But they often avoid the penalties by simply closing shop, say labor officials. Meanwhile, the manufacturer is free to shop around for another contractor.

“They use the mechanism of contracting out to see no evil and hear no evil when, in effect, there is great evil going on in the industry,” said Steve Nutter, regional director of the ILGWU.

Carne disputed the notion that labor violations are widespread in the competitive garment industry, which employs an estimated 108,000 people and generates $6.2 billion in annual sales. “I’m sure they’re out there,” Carne said of the sweatshops. “But I don’t think it is characteristic of the industry.”