Workers Sue Guess, 16 Contractors

Guess Inc. and 16 of its contractors were accused of cheating employees out of wages, condoning illegal child labor and other abuses in a suit filed Wednesday by immigrant garment workers in Los Angeles.

The lawsuit, backed by the garment industry union Unite, is a new salvo in the labor organization’s battle against Guess, the biggest manufacturer in Southern California’s apparel industry.

Named as plaintiffs were five Latino garment workers who have been employed by Guess contractors. Their lawyers, however, claim to represent the interests of about 2,000 workers and are seeking to have the litigation certified as a class-action suit.

“These are workers who put in long hours every day, six or seven days a week, earning barely enough to survive,” said one of the lawyers, Della Bahan.

Last week state labor investigators, acting on information provided by Unite, raided a string of suspected illegal home-sewing operations and said eight appeared to be producing merchandise for Guess.

The company responded by canceling its business with a contractor found to have employed home workers and by launching an internal investigation.

At the same time, the company’s lawyers suggested that Unite had “set up” violations to smear Guess’ reputation and to spur the union’s efforts to recruit Guess workers. On Wednesday, they said the lawsuit--which, among other things, seeks back pay and unspecified punitive damages--is another attempt to discredit the company.

Separately, a Guess spokeswoman said the company’s twice-postponed and scaled-back initial public offering of 7 million shares was priced at $18 a share, or $126 million. The stock will begin trading today.

The spokeswoman said the offering, initially intended to raise as much as $211.6 million, was scaled back due to recent stock market conditions, not because of the recent publicity linked to its battle with Unite.