Slaves to Fashion: Poverty and Abuse in the New Sweatshops

Conclusion to Part 2: Producing Sweatshops in the United States

243 Conclusion to Part 2 Producing Sweatshops in the United States High, legal immigration is neither necessary nor suf‹cient for sweatshop appearance. This is shown by the period of the 1950s and 1960s in New York City. First, Puerto Ricans rapidly replaced Jews, Italians, and Blacks in the apparel industry, but though they ‹lled the lower-wage sections of the business, standards did not drop below legal levels. Average wages in the industry were still comparable to manufacturing averages. Second, although import competition—globalization without enforceable labor standards—was not a necessary component of sweatshop appearance in the early part of the century nor during the brief resurgence of very bad conditions in the Depression, it is central to the modern period. Consider the comparison between the 1950s and the turn of the nineteenth century. In both eras, immigrants in›uenced the New York garment industry but imports were low. The 1950s were the midpoint of the period of decency for the industry’s workers. The earlier period is symbolic of all that has been wrong with labor conditions in the cities. Upon inspection, one very important difference is that the apparel unions—the ILGWU and the ACTWU—were at the height of their power during the years of relative decency. A second factor deserves formal consideration. The period of high immigration and low sweatshop prevalence was one in which the immigrants were actually citizens—Puerto Rican migrants. The legal status of immigrants is another critical factor in the making of the new sweatshops. Table 18 gives the summary: Now we have made the long journey through the “causes” of the new sweatshops. Chief among these is the rise of global capitalism and the competitive race to the bottom that unrestricted capital mobility and trade without labor standards encourage. On a world scale the unrestrained power of the retail oligarchs of the rich countries allows them to command the lion’s share of pro‹ts and value—and the power to dictate prices—in the worldwide clothing commodity chain. In the United States, the de facto deregulation of labor standards erodes the political and regulatory protections attained in the ‹rst half of the century. The con›uence of global changes and U.S. immigration policy has created a large pool of disempowered workers who have few legal rights and an industry in which union protection is disappearing. Approximately 250,000 workers toil under working conditions our grandparents and parents thought they had banished. That apparel sweatshops are widely perceived as external to our country, or a matter “only” of immigration, or an occasion to snicker at the moral failures of celebrities —these are in part a consequence of the kind of media attention attracted by the sweatshop issue. Part 3 explores the policies and movements addressing the problem directly. Slaves to Fashion 244 TABLE 18. Summary of Factors Supporting and Deterring Labor Abuse in the Apparel Industry Deterring factors • Union strength • Law enforcement of labor standards legislation • Legalization of immigrants Supporting factors • Low wage import competition: globalization without labor standards • Union weakness • National/local labor market niche surplus • Undocumented status of immigrants ...