Policing Crimes By Garment Manufacturers

They are the real fashion police.

They target unscrupulous members of California’s burgeoning garment manufacturing industry. Just last month they uncovered a string of illegal home sewing operations during a series of raids, including one in Glendale where investigators confiscated 12 bags of clothing.

They are investigators assigned to the state Department of Labor Standards Enforcement, assigned to enforce laws that make it illegal to commercially produce apparel at home. Among their targets are shady contractors who, in an effort to avoid paying fair wages, farm out sewing assignments for workers to complete at home.

The so-called home work situation allows the contractors to maintain low overhead and undercut legitimate counterparts who carry workers’ compensation insurance, keep payroll records, pay at least minimum wage and refuse to hire child labor.

The home sewing operations are just one type of labor abuse that has catapulted the garment industry into the public spotlight in recent years.

The 1995 raid that led to the discovery of more than 70 Thai workers held in near-slavery in El Monte made national headlines. And last summer it was disclosed that clothing bearing Kathie Lee Gifford’s name was manufactured in sweatshops in New York and Honduras.

More than half the nation’s 22,000 garment makers pay less than the minimum wage, Labor Secretary Robert Reich said during a 1996 press conference.

Southern California is now home to the nation’s largest garment manufacturing industry, and clothing manufacturing has replaced aerospace as the region’s biggest employer. Meantime, labor abuses within the Southland garment industry have become increasingly problematic.

To crack down on violators, a state and federal program to intensify the fight against labor law abuses in the garment manufacturing and agriculture businesses was launched in 1992. And California’s newly appointed labor commissioner, Jose Millan, has said he plans to expand the effort, which is known as the Targeted Industries Partnership Program, or TIPP.

Gov. Pete Wilson also stepped in last year and provided the California Division of Labor Standards Enforcement with 24 new investigators, bringing the total number in the Los Angeles area to 36.

Cracking down on the garment industry has proved to be a tougher task than policing the agricultural industry, which Millan described as “fairly unified.” By comparison, the garment industry tends to be in more of a “state of disorganization,” making it more difficult for his investigators to get a foothold, Millan said.

Cases involving home work are particularly troubling for officials because the operations are easily hidden, unlike factory operations where officials can drop in and make unannounced inspections.

Moving in on a renegade contractor who farms assignments out to home workers requires plenty of advance investigation, Millan said, including surveillance of the home workers taking bags of clothes to and from the contractor, locating the addresses of the home workers and getting photographs. A judge must issue search warrants for the investigators to enter homes.

During the raids last month, officials searched seven homes where they discovered 27 bags of clothing being made for Bugle Boy and Stepping Out.

“There really are victims in industrial home work,” Millan said. “The victims are the companies that do work legitimately and therefore have higher costs than illegal shops.”