Veteran State Labor Regulator Resigning

Jose Millan, a veteran workplace regulator who has supervised California’s intensified war against apparel industry sweatshops over the last four years, is resigning as assistant state labor commissioner.

The resignation, confirmed by officials Monday, comes as a major state-federal program that Millan helped create in 1992 largely to crack down on sweatshops appears to be in jeopardy. Some observers speculated that Millan’s departure will speed the breakup of the joint effort, known as the Targeted Industries Partnership Program.

At the same time, the news comes as the state labor commissioner’s office is expanding its efforts to combat abuses in the apparel and agriculture industries by hiring two dozen inspectors for Los Angeles and Orange counties.

Sources said Millan, 42, was the loser in an internal battle of wills with his boss, Roberta E. Mendonca, who was named labor commissioner by Gov. Pete Wilson in February.

Millan, who served as acting labor commissioner briefly until Mendonca took over, also had been in the running for the commissioner’s job but was passed over by Wilson.

For the near future, the TIPP effort to crack down on abuses in the apparel and agriculture industries appears destined to continue. The three agencies involved--the state labor commissioner’s office, the Cal/OSHA workplace safety unit and the U.S. Labor Department--are continuing to plan sweatshop raids together.

Over the longer term, however, the program’s future is in doubt largely because of friction between state and federal labor officials. Moreover, the state-federal program has received criticism for failing to significantly improve working conditions.

Millan, while declining to comment on the reasons for his resignation, defended TIPP.

“Things still are awful, but they’re not as awful as they were four years ago,” he said. “We’re creeping upward.”

He cited figures showing that in 1995--the year California labor officials raided the notorious El Monte compound where Thai workers were discovered laboring in allegedly slave-like conditions--the state collected more money in fines than it spent on TIPP.

Millan also credited the program for improving business conditions for law-abiding apparel contractors that in the past had to compete against firms that illegally underpaid their employees.

No replacement was named for Millan, who is one of the state’s three assistant labor commissioners. His resignation takes effect Aug. 30. Millan said he is looking for work in either the public or private sector.