Sweatshop Workers

I cannot do anything to lower the prices of new clothes and I cannot raise the wages and working conditions of the non-union garment workers. But one thing I can do and that is boycott buying new clothing except union-made.

Additional news of companies buying the clothing articles made under slave labor conditions comes from “Zoned for Slavery” by Ellen Browning of New Channels Communications. She reports major stores are having their clothing made in the free zones of Central American countries under brutal conditions.

Women’s right to vote was not won because men thought it a good idea. It was a struggle of dedication and oppression for many years. We have not used the ballot box and we have not guarded our gains for workers.

Times articles have brought this injustice and inequality to our attention. Conditions will further deteriorate unless individuals take responsibility.

MARY A. FLANAGAN

Pasadena

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* Gov. Pete Wilson has attacked the Clinton Administration because the INS did not act in 1992 to close the El Monte shop where workers were enslaved (Aug. 25). What chutzpah! What hypocrisy!

Forget the fact that it happened during the Bush Administration. Forget the fact that Wilson stood on the floor of the Senate and argued that businesses in California needed low-cost alien workers. Wilson cut the labor inspection budgets to get “big government off our backs.” He twice vetoed bills that could have prevented the horror, arguing that it would move that industry overseas. Does he mean that slavery practiced in the U.S. is somehow preferable to that practiced elsewhere?

EMIL LAWTON

Sherman Oaks

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* The Compliance Alliance of apparel manufacturers applauds the recommendations of your Aug. 20 editorial concerning a balanced approach to solving problems in the apparel industry.

The Compliance Alliance was formed on June 21, when U.S. Secretary of Labor Robert Reich signed an agreement with the group to commence regimented self-policing of sewing and cutting contractors. The alliance represents manufacturers in Southern California who produce almost 3 million garments a month and manufacture more than $450 million worth of apparel each year. It is dedicated to eradicating horrible abuses such as those in El Monte.

You suggest that retailers pay the back wages “out of shame or for PR reasons.” However, the retailers in all likelihood had no idea in which sewing shops their goods were made, much less the horrible conditions of the workers in those shops. What the retailers knew (or must have known) was that the prices they demanded were competitive with imports (where minimum wage laws do not exist). Compliance Alliance members all audit their sewing contractors through an independent auditing firm. Every garment manufactured by a member bears a label or hangtag attesting to compliance as certified by independent auditors. This label assures retailers that workers who sewed the garments were paid minimum wage and overtime as required by law, that the sewing contractor is licensed, carries workers compensation insurance and otherwise abides by the law.

RICHARD G. REINIS

Acting Executive Director

Compliance Alliance, Los Angeles