Labor Department Beefing Up to Crack Down on Sweatshops

Sweatshops beware: While most people are vacationing, four new Santa Ana-based wage and hour investigators are being trained this summer by the federal government, part of 200 being added nationally.

Two of the new investigators speak Vietnamese and two speak Spanish, said Brian Taverner, who supervises the U.S. Labor Department’s Orange County office. The additions bring the number of investigators working for Taverner to 10. “For us, that’s a very significant increase,” he said.

The large number of garment industry violations turned up by a joint state-federal task force in California is one reason the federal budget for wage and hour enforcement was increased this year. Illegal in-home garment work remains an especially big problem in Orange County, especially among Vietnamese immigrants, Taverner said.

Labor Department spokesman Tino Serrano said San Diego received three more investigators, eight have been assigned to the department’s new West Covina office, and 10 have been added to Glendale, the main office overseeing Los Angeles. Another one or two will soon be added to the West Covina office, possibly in its Ontario field office, Serrano said.

The investigators’ basic training in Washington this summer includes the minimum wage, overtime and child labor laws that are the main focus of enforcement. In two years, they will return to Washington for more special training in farm labor, family leave, government contracting and other laws.

E. Scott Reckard covers workplace issues for The Times. He can be reached at (714) 966-7407 and at scott.reckard@latimes.com