Sweatshops In Los Angeles
NBC 4
LOS ANGELES — One of the biggest sectors of the Los Angeles economy is the garment industry, but that industry continues to be plagued by sweatshop conditions, according to a new book written by a group of University of California Los Angeles students. NBC4’s Kelly Mack took an inside look at the sweatshop conditions in Los Angeles.
KELLY MACK: Inside Win’s Thai Kitchen in North Hollywood, the owners are busy with an early lunch crowd. Win Chuangan and his wife Suknya own and operate the restaurant and another one in Van Nuys. They are doing so well that they recently opened a spa on nearby Lankershim Boulevard. The couple, originally from rural Thailand, is living what many immigrants would consider the American dream.
WIN CHUANGAN, BUSINESSMAN: We are very proud of ourselves.
MACK: They began their lives in America under very different circumstances. They were slaves being held against their will at a sweatshop in El Monte.
CHUANGAN: There is nothing that can get any worse than that.
MACK: It was August 2, 1995, when state and federal officials raided the compound in the San Gabriel Valley. They found 72 Thai immigrants, including women, who had been held captive and forced to work 18 hours a day, every day, for seven years. It was a stunning example of modern day slavery right in the shadow of Tinseltown.
PAULINE PHAN, UCLA GRADUATE: When I was little I had no idea that any of this was against the law.
MACK: Pauline Phan is the daughter of Vietnamese refugees and one of eight UCLA students who wrote the book “Sweatshop Slaves” from research done over the past four years. What she saw in downtown Los Angeles outraged her.
PHAN: Drive downtown to the garment district and climb upstairs above almost every single retail shop in Los Angeles and you will find a sweatshop.
MACK: Kent Wong was the students’ faculty advisor.
KENT WONG: You have the largest concentration of garment workers in the country now in Los Angeles. Los Angeles is now the sweatshop capital of the country.
MACK: There are an estimated 90,000 garment workers working for 1,000 different manufacturers in Los Angeles. Many of them are immigrants, speak no English and know little or nothing about federal labor law. In essence they are ripe for exploitation.
WONG: Many of these small garment shops have two sets of books. They have one for the inspectors and one set of books for what they really pay the workers.
MACK: Thousands of garment workers in Southern California continue to work 60 to 70 hours a week for less than minimum wage. And what is especially galling is that for every dollar the worker makes on a garment. Manufacturers charge up to 600 percent more. The book’s authors told NBC4 that since the El Monte raid 11 years ago, enforcement of labor regulations has improved.
The book “Sweatshop Slaves” is available online here.
Copyright 2014 by NBC4.tv. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed.
